I’d never read Flannery O’Connor until lockdown. I’d seen her listed as one of the outstanding writers of the twentieth century, specifically in terms of her short stories. I had time on my hands, so I bought her collected works.
Continue readingArchive for the Pretensions toward cultural theory Category
Flannery O’Connor Hates You
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Dante, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka, Huberty Selby Junior, Inferno, The Ramones, Virgil on March 20, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
Happy 60th Birthday, Henry Rollins
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men, resistance training with tags Asylum, Cronos, Judith Herman, King Lear, Morbid Angel, Rollins Band, Slayer, The End of Silence, The Palace St Kilda, Trauma and Recovery on February 28, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
The first disturbing event of first-year university was the day I went to meet a childhood friend of mine when he was discharged from the insane asylum.
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Why I Don’t Believe in the Patriarchy (But Still Consider Myself a Feminist)
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Clementine Ford, Eurydice Dixon, feminist, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Berger, Laura Mulvey, Lisa Wilkinson, Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, The Project, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Ways of Seeing, Women Don't Owe You Pretty on February 19, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
When Lisa Wilkinson explained on ‘The Project’ television program that Eurydice Dixon was murdered by a man who was the pointy end of a patriarchal culture which is driven to murder women as it sexualises them, I was outraged.
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Why I Don’t Believe in the Patriarchy (But Still Consider Myself A Feminist).
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Easter Bunny, Feminism, patriarchy, Santa Claus, Satan, sexual assault, Simone De Beauvoir, The Beauty Myth, The Female Eunuch, The Second Sex on February 16, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
The patriarchy is like Satan, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Sure, there’s some kind of cause and effect involved, but the figure itself is bought into being by those wanting to explain more subtle and complex phenomena, but are happy to settle for an easy answer with a face on it.
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‘Ashes in Your Mouth’: Spending Time in Giovanni’s Room.
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading on February 7, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
“You think,” [Jacques] persisted, “That my life is shameful because my encounters are. And they are. But you should ask yourself why they are.”
“Why are they – shameful?”
“Because there is no affection in them, and no joy. It’s like putting an electric plug in a dead socket. Touch, but no contact. All touch, but no contact and no light.”
“I asked him, ‘Why?”
“That you must ask yourself,” he told me, “And perhaps one day this morning will not be ashes in your mouth.”
– James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room,
P. 49
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‘Art With Values’.
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading, Real Men, trauma with tags Ajax, Ancient Greece, Bryan Dorries, Drama, Navy SEAL, Sophocles, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, The Rolling Stones, Theater of War, trauma on December 22, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
There’s a friend of mine, a very successful artist, who I admire very much. I met him twenty years ago when we were working together in a dirty nightclub in South Melbourne; he was collecting glasses and I was bouncing. We both aspired to art, and he hit critical pay-dirt much earlier than I (who am I fooling – I still haven’t got there).
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‘…Just Don’t Put It on the Internet.’
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags blog, Instagram, Internet, no filter, poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Graves, social media on December 15, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
Caveat:
This has been written to disturb you.
Invitation:
Summon your personal incarnation of this figure into your mind’s eye and look through it like a lens while you’re reading this.
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My Dark Vanessa
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags Lolita, My Dark Vanessa, Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, Vladimir Nabokov on August 7, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
4.
“I called Lolita a love story and the professor cut me off, saying, ‘Calling this novel a love story indicates an unconscionable misreading on your part.’
She wouldn’t even let me finish what I was trying to say. Ever since then, I haven’t dared bring it up in any of my classes.”
p.291,
My Dark Vanessa.
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My Dark Vanessa
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags Andrea Dworkin, Bessel Van Der Kolk, facebook, Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa, The Body Keeps the Score, trauma on August 2, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
3.
Our relationship lasted until after I graduated. She left her husband and I’d left school, and she came over to my apartment one day and we talked about doing it properly. Continue reading
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My Dark Vanessa
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa, sex with your teacher on July 30, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
Kate Elizabeth Russell, author of ‘My Dark Vanessa.’
2.
I had an illicit relationship with a teacher that started when I was sixteen. I hadn’t thought much about it until recently, once I’d started reading Vanessa. Continue reading
