Visting Denmark

Arrived in Denmark yesterday on a kind of working social visit, but the highlight is spending time with my best friend and his family in the cute little island house. Since spending some time here about three or four years ago, I have always had a fond affection for this place, and it seems that the Danes share a very similar sense of humour to the British. It's a very flat little country that sticks out from the Northern point of Germany almost straining itself in its independence.

Picked up a book at the airport by Mark Curtis which looks at Britain's human rights abuses. I'm only about a hundred pages into the text, but it seems pretty solid. I am a bit of a sucker for the self-hating armchair activisit book, and I already have quite an impressive shelf at home, boasting No Logo, and Das Kapital amogst others. That said, the more of these texts you read, the more they they start read the same; they appear to work at developing a pathological rage about the many issues that plague the world as a priest emphasises sin. That is not to say that these books are a bad thing - I think they're extremely important - they're just not 'feel good' reads, that's all. Oh, and God bless Noam Chomsky, my own personal hero.

Also reading the new Harry Potter novel, and I have to say that it isn't a patch on her previous works. The Goblet of fire was my own personal fave, but even The Order of the Phoenix seemed to mark a slight decline, which is hardly surprising considering it's the fifth one she's had to write. Having said that, I am only two-thirds of the way through so anything can happen, and they are certainly getting darker, which is a good thing.

beautiful morning rise

not sure what's going on. I'm currently living a student house in the rough end of town, that usually has little to offer other than banality - however, awoke this morning to a beautiful sunrise. For the first time in 30 weeks I dared open the curtains, and instead of the usual slate-grey rooftops and magpies, there was sunshine, and blue skies...and even the sound of small children laughing. Amyway, flug the windows open, stuck some Kelly Joe on the CD player and spent the whole morning feeling good about myself.

...been thinking about how much I want to live by the sea. Days like this would be so wonberful on the English coast...fish and chips on the harbor wall, penny arcades and the deep smell of the ocean.

...might treat myself to chips tonight...

Movies Gift Certificates

Right, well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last confession...

Been reading Judith Butler..something about the performative nature of gender, since I'm supposed to writing an essay about gender roles and female body-building. Apparently, according to Butler, gender identity is a kind of cultural 'discourse' qualified by hsitory. In other words, gender is an 'idea' that became popular and consequently invested the 'idea' with authority, since more and more people adopted the now stereotypical traits that we all think are innate. All a bit confusing really. She writes about Drag Queens, and how they 'perform' feminity, using it as an example of gender in performance. The ideas of gender are so well ingrained that it seems natural and biological, but she argues that before the popularity of biological sciences, (pre-19th century) people just saw the body as a lump of flesh riddled with the marks of original sin etc. So, it turns out I'm not actually a 'man', I'm a collection of stereotypical traits invested with historical authority...I'm sure my ex-girlfriend would agree, but the trick is to relate all this to female body-builders.

Tuesday 15th

Currently reading Stiffed: The Betrayal of Modern Man by Susan Faludi. I'm hoping to write a paper about the changing face of masculinity, looking at Kerouac's On The Road and Palahniuk's Fight Club. Think I might try to incorporate the trope of the abscent father and how an impossible desire for freedom has been manifested in delusion and schizophrenia. Been reading a lot of Postmodern stuff lately and I'm not sure whether it's suffocatingly prententious or entertainingly awkward - a monkey puzzle. How these things are supposed to compete with the likes of Playstation and BigBrother I don't know. A lot of the time we are encouraged to read from a female point of view - sympathetically analystical, and seldom do we look at masculinity as something that needs to be considered as something that is as damaging to the individual as to society in general. It would appear that it has served well as a tool of survival, but as Faludi points out, it now traps those who once saw themselves as its master. I'm still very confused on the issue. It's hard to know where to stand on such matters. On the one hand you want to be openminded and considerate, but on the other hand you feel if you so much as dared to question and criticise the movement and it's philosophy, you run the risk of being labelled a mysogonist or worse. But like I said, this is only my first real venture into the issue on a critical level.