In a bar the other night someone was explaining how some Duke University psychologists in the 1930s developed this instrument for measuring how happy people were. The instrument was a Euphorimeter, and they called the units of potential happiness ‘euphors’. Apparently, when people with very low euphor levels were shown how lots of people had really high euphor levels, the low-euphor people suddenly stopped being as depressed.

Maybe this is not the best metaphor to describe the last week, but it does come close. Transsomatechnics was by far the best conference I’ve ever been to. So little of the usual competitiveness and depoliticised intellectual wankery; so many people humbly offering their ideas in the spirit of collaboration and shared resistance. It was especially refreshing for people not to have to do the ‘trans 101′ spiel at the start of papers; here was a space in which some things were already known, and critical conversations could begin right away (rather than question time being full of random people whose contribution is “OMG that is so INTERESTING!”). A lot of fruitful things will come out of this conference, I think.

And then there was the brilliant high school dorkiness of the after-party, which was just like Trans Prom, and hanging out in Vancouver parks and streets and this tiny slice of beach, and catching up with people I never ever see enough, and making a whole crew of new beautiful friends. Seriously, if someone could measure my euphors right now, I might break the machine.

Here’s a meme. It came from livejournal, where it circulates around and around, but maybe it’s time that some bloggers got in on the game.

1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie. (Or in some cases, just remember them.)
3. Post them for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it correctly and the name of the movie.
5. No Googling/using IMDb/Wikiquote search functions. That would be cheatin’.
6. Tag five people.

I really wanted to quote the line from Aliens, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” But it’s way too recognisable. Some of these are pretty easy, some are a bit more difficult. Oh, and I tag Jonathan, Wildly Parenthetical, Gaylourdes, Eric and Nate.

(more…)

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I, too, am having difficulty with the first instruction. Maybe it’s because of my literal brain. See, my desk is right next to bookshelves. If I reach for the nearest book on the desk, that is farther away than the shelf at my left. (And I reach with my left hand, because I’m a left-hander.) Aha. It’s not Anti Oedipus, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality or Freud’s Introductory Lectures. It’s — see, I really need to sort my books by subject — Homocore: The Loud and Raucous Rise of Queer Rock. Which is just because it’s a large format book, and the spine juts out further. The three sentences:

“I don’t want my art to be quarantined, filtered, and safe. I am quite open with my sexual preferences, which do give me some sort of edge. If my behaviours are offensive, I take the apprehension of others and use it to my advantage.”

That would be Joshua Starr, from the Dead Betties, who is apparently the “gay Kurt Cobain.”

Don’t think I’ll tag anyone at this point (maybe later) but if you feel like doing it, you can say you were tagged by me. I’m off to see I’m Not There this afternoon, as a reward for being very studious all yesterday and today. And to the travel agent!

Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975

I was just doing a quick search for bibliographic details of Origins of Totalitarianism and found this. Conversations between two incredible twentieth century lady communists. I wonder if they gossipped much; my guess is often, with arch subtlety. (At least, McCarthy would have done arch subtlety. Who knows about Arendt.)

I guess you don’t have to be a fly on a wall to read a book of letters…

Reading:

• Wildly Parenthetical.
• Slaves of Academe on interracial marriage and miscegenation politics.
• Kpunk and Poetix on Lee Edelman, a crossover of theoretical fields (queer theory-freud vs high-philosophy mondopostlacanian-badiouism) that has resulted in some unintentionally amusing claims. Like, ‘the queer event’, assuming there was only ever one and we can know it: Stonewall, or Freud? People are seriously debating this.

  On the other hand, Kpunk’s musings on Rebecca are serendipitous (as well as interesting), as I’ve been rereading that novel this week, enjoying the slow build of our unnamed heroine’s desire for this hauntingly beautiful, but curiously also genderbent, object of desire: “I knew her figure now, the long slim legs, the small and narrow feet. Her shoulders, broader than mine, the strong and clever hands.” Mmm, gotta go watch the film again soon.