The Universe Loathes Me, and It Is Destroying Me Always

No, seriously, I am not even kidding. This is just not fair. This is really the product of active malevolence. There isn't any other explanation. There is something out there that just wants me to die. It's not okay. There is a vast and intricate design out there, and its objective is an end to Grace.

Except of course I should note that my choice of pseudonym is also not particularly helping right now, hello!?!?!!?

Really Depressed Schizophrenia

Also, this is the best thing ever. I saw that it was Jarvis Cocker interviewing David Bowie and was like, this is going to be the best thing ever! And then it turned out to be all about cigarettes and I was like, meh. But then I read it and it turned out to be the best thing ever after all! Probably because when you get Jarvis and Bowie together in a room, they are going to be talking about the Jarvis and Bowie things. Even cigarettes cannot stop them!

I should have faith in my boys.

Also

Whenever I think that something is a Shelley reference, I am right. It is a Shelley reference. I can prove it.

That's just a fundamental truth of the universe.

Do I Have Time for This? No, I Do Not Have Time for This!

One beneficial side effect of my current utter, complete, mind-blowing, devastating obsession with "Station to Station" (Devastating? Part of the problem with being obsessed with a song about the experience of cocaine addiction is that the obsession kind of recapitulates the experience of cocaine addiction) is that I have discovered that this is finally available online. I have been looking for that forever because it is, very predictably, probably up there on my list with Byron as one of the best things that has ever happened in the real reality. It's kind of hilarious to watch, really, because. . . well, first of all, Jagger sounds like me while I'm teaching ("Are you going to be quiet and listen to me now? This is really important, so you really should be quiet!" That is totally what I'd say if I were to suddenly start reading from Adonais in class.), but, secondly, he says something like, "I'm sure this reflects the way we're all feeling about Brian," and I'm like, "No, most people do not react to celebrity death with Neoplatonism, do they? I mean, the mere existence of Adonais certainly suggests that some people do, but. . . that's not the normal response, is it?"

If you are wondering about the connection with "Station to Station," can I just point you to this poem? It's by Aleister Crowley! And it's called "In the Woods with Shelley!" Lines totally include the phrases: "Spurning the stain of all grief here" and "Loose but your soul - shall its wings find the white way so appalling!"

EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS ABOUT SHELLEY!

Explain the Resonance to Me!

DWJ's story "The Girl Who Loved the Sun" and Connie Willis's story "Daisy in the Sun" are two good, similar works. It is unsurprising that I like both of them, given that they both deal with themes of questioning conventional narratives of female sexuality and girls who rebel against these narratives. It helps that both of them, in different ways, have bittersweet endings that simultaneously affirm the girls' desires and express the problems with rebellion; I find that it makes them more interesting than pure wish-fulfillment fantasies.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds this an interesting theme, so it's not surprising to me to see two authors, in particular two female authors, working on the same topic. What confuses me is, why did both authors happen to pick, as their vehicle for discussing the topic, girls who rebel against ordinary heterosexual relationships by falling in love with the sun instead? Why is this the choice - boys or the sun? Where does the sun come from? It seems terribly coincidental that two stories both dealing with the same themes would pick the same exact symbol for alternative narratives, but I can't for the life of me think of what resonance made both authors choose the sun! Can anyone explain this to me?

The Real Place

You know, 2011 is a quarter over, and I have posted a grand total of one post on this blog this year that is not about Hitherby. Yeah.

New _Hitherby_ Canon: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Benefits: A world with new Hitherby canon is a very different place from a world without it. I keep on thinking of "Your Song," of all things - how wonderful life is now it's in the world. Everything seems exciting and shiny and new; there's a fundamental source of rightness in the universe that lies deep below everything. When things go wrong, you don't have to worry quite so much because you know that beauty and truth and love are still in the process of trickling into reality - you know that something is going to be amazing.

Costs: How do you think about anything else? Hitherby has this awkward Homeward Bounders effect for me - it tends to look like the Real Place, even though I know perfectly well that it isn't. Luckily it's been only one time in my life that I had the really serious problem with Hitherby and spent a night feeling like I was going to fade out of the world, but it's still very hard to pay attention to the world when there is Hitherby calling to me - even when Hitherby is the child of the world and the arm of the world and the eye of the world, a part of the world itself, not something different and separate and alien. Even despite that, it tends to sever me.