The best title I could come up with

I haven't blogged in a while. I know.

School has been overwhelming. One class in particular, a 'nonlinear documents' class, a.k.a photography course, has proven to be tremendously time consuming. I've been working on a research paper on 'postmortem photography in relation to art and reality' for photography class, as well as two other research papers for a film course (Editing of Fritz Lang's M versus Classical Continuity Style Editing and Soviet Editing) and a reception history of Bruce Chatwin's novella, The Viceroy of Ouidah, which hasn't actually been started...yet. In between reading research and writing research papers, I've been working on an idea for erotic fiction. I only have about 2000 words, so it's only an idea at this point. I haven't worked on writing poetry lately (sad face). I've also been going through one of those in-between phases. I guess the best way to describe it would be the scene from Sideways where Miles (played by Paul Giamatti) refuses to drink merlot because he'll go to the 'dark side' or if you prefer Cold Souls, the scene where he says "My soul is a chickpea?!"

Well I guess I've been there for a few weeks now; my motivation (to start anything) is at a very low negative one, that's right, it's beyond zero. I can't sleep and when I do, I wake up every few hours (e.g. I woke up last night at 10:46pm, then 1:30am, 4:54am, 6:30am, 6:57am). All I want to do is bake, watch movies, read, write and sleep. Some day's I worry about my future, the next, I'm pretty much like 'fuck it.' I don't want to be a consultant or travel (unless it's to actually travel to see the world, travel and work is a big fat lie). Any-ways... and then there's the bit about the guy. I watched Benjamin Button and started crying because Benjamin goes away and disappears...it's a reminder of a loss of friendship (or was it not?? Friends don't just disappear when things aren't all smiley faces and warm, fuzzy kittens so in that case, we had nothing but an illusion of a friendship, my fault for misunderstanding), what if's, wants, all that crap you know what I'm talking about. I go from angry to sad to sadder and then saddest of all. I don't open up to people often, it takes years, and I took a risk and I did and it just hurts. But I'm working on letting go, moving on and jotting down whatever comes to mind, in case I get a poem or two out of all of this. It may be surprising (probably not) but I'm good at expressing myself through text, hence the poetry, but I don't share my emotions so well verbally. I come off cold, insensitive and unfeeling if I feel things such as disappointment, sadness, emotional pain, anger, etc. Apart from feeling crushed and slightly heartbroken, I'm still functioning at a relatively high level.

I think I've rambled on about nonsensical things enough now that it would be the right thing to do to let you go back to being productive members on the Internet. Live Long and Prosper.

Hypocritical Susan Sontag...is positively pedantic and pretentious

Reading Susan Sontag's On Photography and second essay, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly, is just infuriating! Arbus' work is so original? No it was not. And it was Weegee's disaster series that inspired her work? No it wasn't. It was Weegee's photography on the absurd, the grotesque, the odd that inspired her work. 

And you're going to tell me that Warhol's work was narcissistic!? His work is a direct reflection of society, in particular the disgusting obsession with celebritism (the obsession with fame, hence his 15 minutes of fame quote) which has just gotten worse. That's not narcissistic; his work acts as a mirror. Arbus' work on the other hand is absolutely narcissistic! 

Arbus has chosen this subject matter because she sees her 'safe' childhood as a form of adversity, as a flaw. Ergo, her work is narcissistic because she experimented with photographing the strange, the odd, the taboo for her own personal experience and personal gain (and personal satisfaction) to make up for the lack of the absurd, the grotesque in her youth. 

It's interesting that Sontag admires her work so greatly - she says it's a fuck you to popular culture, it's an active statement against the conventional, the popular, which is fascinating because Sontag considers the act of photography as passivity ( read previous essay). Sontag is arrogant, pedantic and pretentious, and her work is arrogant, pedantic and pretentious. Her argument is flawed - its structure is so holey it metaphorically resembles that of swiss cheese.

The obsession with uniqueness is so....completely banal and prosaic. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest are boring and repetitive and the impulsivity fostered by 'social media' leads to a narcissistic society mental model which happens to become quite monotonous. It's narcissistic of Sontag to give a completely one-sided argument, but that is/was her personality; always going against the current. It gets boring to be so rebellious, and to maintain the same facade for so long, is well, rather inhibitory.