A post

Part of the reason I haven't blogged in well over a year is that I grew tired of myself. I am currently going through a phase of wishing that others would grow more tired of themselves. So many smart-ish yet somehow totally lightweight people running around pretending that their creative work is about 'stuff' when really, it's just about them. Never before, it seems, has narcissism been so rampant and so apparently legitimate.

Related: I am also on a war against phonies at the moment. I'm not quite sure how this will play out in real terms. Forced testing to demonstrate how they are unable to walk the walk as well as talk the talk, as they say?

Misanthropy aside, I've actually had a pretty reasonable year. I continue to do interesting work, and my relationships are all in fine working order. It's all that matters, really.

A happy new year to you, remaining readers.

Dilettante … it's such a pretty word, like 'ballerina' or something

Here's an article I wrote that isn't going to be published now due to a disagreement over the definition of the term 'dilettante'. Ah, the complex intellectual tugs of war that characterize the writer's life. What can you do, eh? (Kick a chair, laugh, move on would be my advice.)

All the gold/glitter stuff is in there because the theme of the issue was "All that Glitters is/not Gold". (Actually, the original saying, taken from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, is "all that glisters is not gold", if anyone's interested.)

I was considering submitting it elsewhere but it was written with that particular theme in mind, so I don't feel it would work in another publication. So, lucky people, you get it.

***

"There is no wealth like knowledge", declared Ali ibn Abi Talib, the successor to the prophet Muhammed. The message here is unmistakable: knowledge is the ultimate of riches, something so valuable that one could, perhaps, liken it to gold. A person who is learned is often referred to as "the fount of all knowledge", and similarly, it's easy to imagine that fount as being golden, precious.

We all want to convey the impression that we are knowledgeable. Convey the impression is the key phrase here, for how many subjects could we say we are truly, genuinely expert in? In many cases, our so-called knowledge is just so much surface glitter attempting to convince others that it is in fact gold; that it is actual knowledge.

There is a name for having a superficial interest in a subject or affecting knowledge of it: dilettantism. For the purposes of this article, I wanted to refresh the concept and etymology of dilettantism in my own mind, so I turned to the number one tool of the dilettante – Wikipedia, of course.

Please don't judge me too harshly. In a culture in which we are expected to be "across" so many different things, right now, the internet is our handiest source of information – and it has the power to make unwitting dilettantes of us all.

In fact, the internet is possibly the greatest manifestation and perpetuator of dilettantism there is. We go to it to discover new information, we take a second to ingest this information, then we quickly re-use it for our own ends. The same process occurs again and again with a range of different topics. The information we are gleaning is for the most part in highly digestible (read: superficial) form, and wherever it goes, it tends to stay in this form. This phenomenon almost has the properties of a meme, albeit one of which the hallmark is exact replication rather than mutation.

For the regular internet user, the desire for new information can quickly turn into obsession. Then, at various junctures, our rampant dilettantism escapes from the suffocating screen-brain vortex into the 'real' world of social interaction, where being seen as 'onto it' confers status and respect.

In the social sphere, dilettantism comes to serve a purpose as a kind of cultural pheromone. Namecheck particular aspects of culture when you are out, and you will attract the "right" kind of person. It doesn't really matter if neither party can elaborate on the topic at hand: you have established that you are both dealing in the same cultural currency; the appropriate reference points are there. If this sounds vaguely competitive, well, it is. Nobody wants to be left behind, left out of the great namechecking game.

So what becomes of real knowledge? Does it still have a place in a world where many of us are apparently content to just skim the surface? Books are the traditional repository of true knowledge, but even they seem to have been affected by the culture of dilettantism. Publisher Orion has recently released a series of "cut down classics" – truncated versions of classic novels like Moby Dick and Anna Karenina. As one disgusted viewer of the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club said on the ABC website, it seems that "the idea is to help poseurs to fake erudition".

While such phenomena are only occurring in pockets of the publishing world, they still suggest a general shift in the priorities of the populace, and the top priority seems to be to get in and get out again just as quickly when it comes to knowledge. The desire to explore, to truly revel in knowledge, is disappearing.

So what is the answer? Do we take a stand, take some time to go away and explore one or two subjects in depth? The thing is, if no-one else is willing to take the time, you probably can't afford to either. Because when you come back with your new found, real knowledge, your precious nugget of gold, you'll most likely find that you've been left behind in the glittering wake of the dilettantism juggernaut.

so, tell us how you really feel ...

I love the sound of breaking glass
Especially when I'm lonely
l need the noises of destruction
When there's nothing new

***
And the sight of it all
Makes me sad and ill
That's when I want
Some weird sin

***
Don't be cruel
To a heart that's true

***
Los Angeles, I'm yours

from a press release I received today

****** is the story of a successful woman on the eve of her 39th birthday. Ambushed by her own sense of disquiet; searching for fulfilment; craving meaning and reinvigoration, she invites her closest family and friends for a celebratory dinner. As the night progresses, she realises her hunger for life, for lust, for sensation, has started to fade – eroded over time by cynicism, apathy and the insatiable desire for something more. Can she reverse the side effects of contemporary life? Undo the damage done and find a new appetite for life?

Ahahahahahawaaaaaah

In the bleak midwinter

I thought I might give my remaining two readers a mid-year update; I feel it's the least I can do since I'm continuing to be a generally neglectful bitch when it comes to this blogging malarkey.

During the first half of this year I:

- had a volatile romantic liaison
- experienced a hairdressing disaster - I ended up with a tres sexy stripe right down the middle of my head
- had a D&M with James Mathieson off Australian Idol at a party
- rode on a motorcycle. Real fast.
- had my first dinner party at my current abode (extremely stressful)
- discovered Agwa
- had many a precognitive dream. They're usually about banal things, thank God.
- interviewed legendary Aussie actor Bryan Brown
- holidayed in Noosa Heads, a place I never imagined I'd ever visit
- did karaoke for the first time
- regularly cursed the world/people for being dull/dullards (they're building a huge, hideous new Bunnings on Burwood Road, you know. Suburban hell is closing in. It might be time for me to think about flying away again).

Enjoy your end of financial year parties, comrades. I will continue about the business of gathering experiences. What else is there to do, eh?

A question of immense import

Am I too old to wear leather-look leggings?

The faaashion press tells me they're very hot right now. I have to say I'm tempted. It'd just be so easy ... pull them on, then chuck on a mini dress and you're done. And you'll look a million times edgier (and oh, how I love to be edgy) than you would in the old Tarjay footless tights.

What I am afraid of? My family's mockery? That I'm turning into Lindsay Lohan? That people will think I'm one of those fetish ninnys?

Fuck it. I think I'm going to do it.

Alright, back to the Nietzsche.

Dipping my toe in

Oh, hi there. Is this thing still on?

Lately I've been experiencing a rather annoying desire to start expressing myself all over the place again (be careful you don't tread in it teeheehoho). Annoying because I'm still not over my recently reactivated phobia about revealing my thoughts and feelings to strangers/people I have complicated relationships with/people who might read this who hate my guts or whom I hate. I wonder if I can start to use this blog to say what I want to say without really saying it. CYFLYMI – an experiment in fudging.

Writing is also the best way I know (as opposed to the best way full stop) to try to wrestle back a sense of self that seems intent on slipping away. Yes, this sense of self has to be tended to vigilantly and kindly, otherwise it's likely to disappear in the cacophony of other, extroverted personalities that (statistics show!) are the norm in our society.

This realisation has led to other thoughts about the nature of identity. I've been thinking about the identity we construct for ourselves based on what we do, the milieu we exist in, our tastes and interests, versus what I can only describe as a core identity. I suspect I've spent far too long confusing the former with the latter, when the latter is actually all that's important and/or real. But more on that in a future post, maybe.

Obviously, my first experiment at fudging has failed. It seems that I can't help but be gauchely, recklessly honest. So be it.

subtext

A friend of mine once told me that he feels violence in the air almost everywhere he goes. I feel sure he would have felt the violence in the close, humid air of Friday night just past. I could.

It was there at the Public Bar, thick in the atmosphere between me and the two men trying to chat me up. They were doing the faux-friendly, faux-jovial schtick, and even admitted that they enjoyed trying out the techniques from The Game on women they met in bars. I told them that I didn't think that kind of thing would work on me and we all had a little laugh about it. But all the while I could tell they hated me. I was just waiting for them to turn on me, to call me a slut or a bitch. One of them, in particular, had eyes full of fear, loathing, bitterness. Misogynist's eyes.

Later, on the tram, I tuned into a "friendly" exchange between the black driver and a white Aussie bloke holding a stubbie. "Nah, mate, they keep comin' in, and we don't want 'em. I mean, mate, you seem ok ... but this is our country." And the driver was laughing nervously and half-agreeing, although he was clearly a recent immigrant himself. But what was he going to do? He obviously knew that this man would immediately turn on him if he made one false move. I thought back to that scene in This Is England, where neo-Nazi Combo bonds with Jamaican Milky over a spliff, only to suddenly snap and bash Milky into unconsciousness. I looked around the tram and caught the eye of a young Indian man. I had the feeling he'd been observing me observing them. He smiled at me sadly.

So much for the season of peace and good will to all men.

***

Thankfully, closer to home, all is full of love.

I hope the same is true for you.

Merry Christmas.

x