The Invisible Woman

Oh boy.

Non-naturalistic theatre. It's doing my head in.

But this time I may have cracked it. It's what we, here, (yes us commoners), affectionately know as art-wank.

So, here we go. No props. No stage directions. No stage furniture. No sound effects (all banned). If I produce an acceptable piece of art-wank - I mean non-naturalistic theatre - then I may progress up the ladder and wear the badge of the visible student.

But more likely I will go down in history as the one who is neither confrontational or weird enough to be noticed in class.

I am the invisible woman. Which has it's advantages. For instance, I will no longer need to deliberate over what undies I wear (hmmm big black pants or black big pants?), or fret that I have the kids' breakfast down my front. And nobody will be able to tell me I need a haircut.

Teacher-speak

I live to write another day.

What is it with university academics?
Why are they still so much like school teachers, even after all that extra education?
Why are intelligent human beings still treating others as if they are imbecilic 9 year olds?

Tutor: 'So what do you notice about..?'

Audience attempts to notice something.

Tutor nods: 'Hmmm, that's an interesting comment [it obviously isn't], anything else you notice?'

Audience silence followed by more desperate attempts to notice something.

Tutor (with a 'helpful' voice): 'Take a look at the second stanza..?'

Audience still clueless, looks desperately at the two members of audience who have acquired secret knowledge of literary jargon in the hope they will blind tutor with said jargon.

Tutor: 'That's a good way of looking at it...but...is there anything else..?

Member of audience: 'So, are you trying to get us to say..?'

Tutor: 'I'm not trying to get you to say anything, there's no right or wrong answer'

Audience gives up.

Tutor: 'Well perhaps if I tell you ...'

One member of audience realises that of course there IS a required ANSWER and that it's taken 17 people a whole agonising 15 minutes to be led to THE ANSWER, during which anyone who has contributed to the class discussion has made a rectumhole of themselves by muttering apparently irrelevant drivel.

90% of audience go home thinking what a wonderful teacher they've just experienced.

One member of audience (who at some time in the past opted for the red pill and dropped out of the matrix) realises that the class has been exposed to teacher-speak, and feels hugely patronised and rather depressed as a result.

And what can we learn from this story?

1. No matter what teachers say there is always a RIGHT ANSWER, i.e. the one they want you to say.
2. Until you say this answer, you're going to be WRONG.
3. To disguise the fact that there is a RIGHT ANSWER, and that the teacher knows that answer and is deliberately keeping that right answer from you, every time you say a WRONG ANSWER they will say things like 'yes, good try' and 'nearly' and 'I hadn't thought of that one' [they had, just thought it was stupid and irrelevant] and 'that's an interesting thought' and 'hmmm'.
4. If you hear any of the above phrases, you have been exposed to 'teacher-speak' and should immediately seek out a decontamination chamber, consume alcoholic beverage and exorcise yourself through some online ranting.

When the light stops shining out of an author's bum, how many publishers does it take to reach in and change the bulb?

Today in a fit of literate thinking I visited the Oxfam bookshop. Yes I browsed the classics. Yes I even opened a few, read a few lines, then put them back. The thing I've discovered about the 'classics' is that they tend to have a lot of words, mostly in a very small font, clustered together in paragraph-long sentences, which are then organised into page-long paragraphs. Obviously the intention is to send us all blind and mad. I refuse to participate in this lemmingness.

Instead I bought 'Too True' by Blake Morrison. According to the front cover Blake is 'One of our most sensitive and stylish writers'. Or so says the Sunday Times. But we're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, are we?

I've only got as far as page 16, but there are already some interesting quotes. I give you an example:

'Without art, confessionalism is masturbation. Only with art does it become empathy.'

Hmm...well that's nice dear. Anyone for another jelly baby?

A friend and I have been discussing the difficulties of commenting on other classmembers' poetry. I mean what does one say, when one hardly knows the poet, and one is instructed to comment on the blood-and-tears-sweated-over-very-precious poem. Really, when a person's entire future mental wellbeing depends on your delicate choice of words, what does one say?

'Nice words,' my friend helpfully suggested.

Yes, 'nice words'. I think I'll have that on my epitaph.

The definition of desperation

Deadlines. Love 'em or hate 'em, they make you neglect your children, shout at your partner and ignore your friends. In my case they make me cut up a print-out of a wikipedia entry and part of a gardening catalogue and spread it out in little pieces across the conservatory table.


...sorry the rest of this post has now been removed

Brain the size of a pumpkin: hollow and gone to seed.

Last night, at a halloween gathering I was asked about my writing.
So how's your course going?
Eeuukkk...
Who do you have for poetry?
Euuukk...it was supposed to be someone and it's someone else instead. It's a woman. I can't remember her name.
What sort of writing do you do?
Euuukk...

So I failed the intellectual adult conversation test. Three children and now I'm only qualified to talk about the contents of the dishwasher and soup recipes. Will my brain ever return..?