Posted on by qscrisp

Like true macabrists

I've just been thinking about someone I haven't thought about in a very long time.

I hope he's well.

I remember a conversation. I don't even remember the setting. Maybe his house, in Barnstaple. We were students, of that generation where some of the blokes probably even thought of themselves as feminists, and wanted to be known as Loretta.

We were discussing the various pros and cons of being male and female. Women, of course, seem to have all the difficult things (was the conclusion we were coming towards), childbrith, menstruation, possibly the lion's share of sexual abuse, and so on. And then there was the question of what problems men have (of course there are some), baldness was almost definitely mentioned. And then someone said, and I paraphrase, hoping to regain the simplicity of the remark, "Of course, the biggest tragedy in a man's life is that he's not a woman."

I thought that was spoken like a true poet.

34 Replies to “Like true macabrists”

  2. “Of course, the biggest tragedy in a man’s life is that he’s not a woman.”if this “tragedy” were ever solved what would we do all do for a healthy genetic inheritance?

  3. “It wouldn’t matter anymore.”Q, I agree. On a ‘higher plain of esoteric thought”, and as poet myself, it would not matter at all.But getting back to some of the things you say I am in empathy with your general remarks. History is full of the ‘nobility” (my sarcasm is showing) of male endeavour, in invention, discovery, and so on. Females were always “held back”, patronised by male ‘leadership”I’ll write more later

  4. We all have the potential to “realize” our ‘other’ side. The part that is in tune with the female / male hormones each of us has in our gender, and this latter definition is bilogically set for each of us through the complexity of genetic inheritance factors. All very clever stuff, though possibly not as accurate a description as I would like it to be. But then I am a poet and not a genetics professor.Women have always had a ‘hard time’ of practically everything, through out recorded history unto the present day. Men have tended to be ‘dominant’ in general, or pretended to be so.But the real intellectual, emotional and profoundly thoughtful ‘power’ of female minds has often (always? many times?) been ‘supressed’ or ‘disregarded’ by males in power, or seeking to be in power. Now I am making outrageous statements and have not quoted “sources” to back up my comment. I take that risk. I know what I am saying.I may write more later.

  6. Please do.I often the of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, the short story. It’s says a lot to me, that story. If I’ve got the title right.

  7. Loretta. That’s an interesting name. Italian.About your discussion with Loku, I do agree that women were always “behind” men and we both know why. There’s no more discussion about it.But we both know also that in these days, women are still behind men just because they want, or because religion wants.That’s a true that almost nobody wants to admit but religion was always in the scene when we think about discrimination, reproaching, repression, submission… Dont matter which religion is, but any of those, in some part of their beliefs, there are something telling that “women have to respect their hsbands” or “men are the tree of the family”…

  8. Still Justin Isis writes:As a corollary of this, people who find beauty in what the mainstream of their society considers to be “ugly” are often labelled as perverts or otherwise considered somehow mentally unsound.

  10. Justin Isis writes:Keep in mind “ugly” in the above post is intended to mean “looking different from what the mainstream in your society thinks is attractive.” What is “ugly” in one time period and culture is often “beautiful” in another. I’m not suggesting there’s an objective or meaningful standard for what ugliness is.

  11. Justin Isis writes:

    “Of course, the biggest tragedy in a man’s life is that he’s not a woman.”I’m interested in the point at which people would stop wanting to be a woman. Like, what if they were a short, morbidly obese woman with bad skin, and from childhood onwards people shit on them or ignored them in favor of other women? Or even if they had children, the children just ignored them and took advantage of them or something like that. Or like, take the above situation, and you can’t really express desire because society doesn’t allow women to directly express their desires, so you just have to wait until someone asks you to marry them…and it’s just some random guy that isn’t attractive or interesting, or else someone thirty years older than you, and you think “Well, this is probably the best thing that’ll happen, I guess I can’t expect much more than this.”Or you marry some asshole who’s like the Austrian guy who kept his daughters in the cellar, and you’re just reduced to a supporting role in life of lamely and unquestioningly repeating whatever your husband says/does. It probably sucks to be an old woman too. Or an ugly, fat old woman. I mean, there’s such a word as “hag,” but what is the male term for it? Compare the impacts:”Fuck off, Grandpa/Jiji/Old Man, etc.””Fuck off, HAG!!!”Clearly “hag” pwns everything. *All of the above apply to men as well though; it could all be seen from the opposite perspective. Just, a lot of the time with these conjectures, people tend to assume a kind of idealized concept of male or female.There are also lesbians like Patricia Highsmith who would have preferred to have been a man. But even if Patricia Highsmith thought of that, she probably didn’t think “I wish I was a short, anemic man with bad skin.”* another example of the English language subtly enforcing certain ways of thinking.

  12. I’d like to be a man for one day. I’m sure it would be easier.Society is cruel to fat, ugly, old, poor women. If you’re rich, beautiful, thin, sucessfull and young, so everything is nice and easy to you. If not, you’re ruined.

  13. I met a man in London a couple of years back. I must say he looked just like you and even had your name. As I recall, he was (is) a splendid man.

  16. “I’m interested in the point at which people would stop wanting to be a woman. Like, what if they were a short, morbidly obese woman with bad skin, and from childhood onwards people shit on them or ignored them in favor of other women?”That sounds like the female version of me, so, I think as long as we could be the female equivalent of what we are now, it wouldn’t be too bad. To practice this, all that is necessary, so I’m told, is to ‘hide’ the offending male organ between one’s legs, for instance, whilst having a bath. Shaving is optional for this exercise.”Or like, take the above situation, and you can’t really express desire because society doesn’t allow women to directly express their desires, so you just have to wait until someone asks you to marry them…and it’s just some random guy that isn’t attractive or interesting, or else someone thirty years older than you, and you think “Well, this is probably the best thing that’ll happen, I guess I can’t expect much more than this.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZeM8LRCTJoBut you’re right about the idealised form of the other sex. When people, rather cheesily, but forgivably, describe themselves as ‘admirers of the female form’, it’s probably fair to say that they mean about, what, ten percent (?) of the numberless female forms in existence. Attractive people tend to stand out in anything but films, magazines etcetera. It’s sad, really. But this has long fascinated me – where do you find your meaning in life if it’s not in being a walking genetic trophy? Clearly being sexually attractive is a very precarious sort of triumph, even though it often seems like the only real triumph. In the end, no one can hang on to it. It’s like being a gymnast or something. You have to retire fairly early in life. In the end we’re all thrown back on our wits, if we have any, and must survive in very Dickensian ways, which some of us are more used to than others. This is one reason why those who are very genetically unusual (such as some of the actors in the film Freaks) fascinate me. They know that they were never even in the running. Maybe this allows them to exist always in a kind of childhood, which seems pretty ideal to me. I suppose you can’t escape hormones, though. Hormones are a curse and ruin everything.

  17. “I met a man in London a couple of years back. I must say he looked just like you and even had your name. As I recall, he was (is) a splendid man.”That’s spooky. What makes it even spookier is that I do believe I met a man who looked exactly like you, too, also in London, a couple of years back.

  18. “Loretta. That’s an interesting name. Italian.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14cI do believe that it’s no longer impossible for men to have babies, though. But they might have to become women first. So, I suppose you could say that it still is. I haven’t actually looked into it properly. “If you’re rich, beautiful, thin, sucessfull and young, so everything is nice and easy to you. If not, you’re ruined.”Yes, I sometimes think we should all get revenge on attractive, successful people, since we clearly outnumber them and they seem to think we only exist to worship them. We could turn them all into squawking bird-creatures through use of some unspeakable secret surgery. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7gWwaIhCk&feature=relatedA clip of one of my favourite films that someone has decided to ruin by putting some badly chosen music over it. The knife guy is my hero.Just found this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVoFYersD7M&feature=relatedExcellent! The pulchritudinous queen of all my dreams!

  19. :lol::lol:monty python is the best! never saw something so better than them! I remember to watch them when I was a child, with my old brother… I used to have, 7, 8 maybe… and he was 21, 22.a great time!i have them on dvd!and yes, that scene is perfect! a good reason to become a woman.

  23. There are definitely days when we all wish we were someone else. And being a woman, I don’t think women are all that great–I’ve never understood the sentiment that ‘things would be better if women ran the world.” Nonsense. We’re snotty, chatty, gossipy, jealous and mean, especially to each other. And think of how long the wait to use the toilet would be…

  25. “one of the best scenes of that movie, in my opinion.”When I was at school I had a friend who used to recite certain of the Monty Python sketches/scenes to me word for word, so that I knew them off by heart before I’d ever seen them. Unfortunately for me, this was one of them. When I actually watched it, I didn’t find it that funny, and it could be that it was because I already knew it too well. Except for the slapping, which was visual – that made me laugh even this time, when I watched it again. “I’ve never understood the sentiment that ‘things would be better if women ran the world.’ Nonsense. We’re snotty, chatty, gossipy, jealous and mean, especially to each other.”Well, I suppose my original intention when I wrote this, apart from to remember aloud a certain poet (and who can say exactly what he meant?) was to express something of the idea that men will always feel unfulfilled because they are not women. Something like that. Or, to paraphrase (or perhaps just quote), Mishima Yukio, “In a man, the desire for beauty is always the desire for death.” This is very true. I was talking to Greg, the bus driver, down the pub the other day, and he was telling me how fed up he was of all this striving for beauty. “I spent so much time striving for beauty last week,” he said, “that I lost my left leg, up to the knee. I’d pack it in, but what can you do? It’s a man’s life, eh?” I nodded understandingly. So, no, women are not perfect, as I’m told. In fact, you could make a fairly good case for war being the fault of women. Men are, on the whole, so sexually frustrated that there’s really nothing left for them to do except just go out there and kill each other, and die, extravangantly, in each other’s arms, in a crimson swoon, on the field of battle. “monty python is the best! never saw something so better than them! I remember to watch them when I was a child, with my old brother…”It’s strange, I was told in Japan that only the British find Monty Python funny. Obviously a lie.

  26. Very much a lie–there are just as many of us annoying fans over here who enjoy quoting MP way more than we should, but we can’t be stopped.Wink wink, nudge nudge…

  27. “Very much a lie–there are just as many of us annoying fans over here who enjoy quoting MP way more than we should, but we can’t be stopped.Wink wink, nudge nudge…”Ah well, say no more.”Only British find MP funny?That’s not true. I know many people who love MP. They’re my friends. heheh.”Maybe it just doesn’t translate into Japanese:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7qT1zxmLJsActually, I think it’s possibly even funnier.Hoshii no ha bonsai da!Classic.

  30. reminds me the same as watch videos on the old videocassete machine and when we put it to rewind (back), the image and the sounds were very fast and funny.

  33. For a long time now I’ve noticed how old women seem unable to bake a decent cookie. I’m not sure why this is. Old ladies make the hardest, toughest, most inedible cookies. I’ve found this out over the course of several years in frequenting farmer’s markets, church rummage sales and charity functions. Somehow, I think this observation may prove to be a valuable key in unlocking the mystery that is woman…

  34. “one question for you: how can you find those videos on youtube? hehehh…”I have a good memory for this kind of thing – supplying the quote or the anecdote at the appropriate moment in conversation is one of my few strengths. “For a long time now I’ve noticed how old women seem unable to bake a decent cookie. I’m not sure why this is. Old ladies make the hardest, toughest, most inedible cookies. I’ve found this out over the course of several years in frequenting farmer’s markets, church rummage sales and charity functions. Somehow, I think this observation may prove to be a valuable key in unlocking the mystery that is woman…”You may have something there. But it seems like this particular mystery might be a tough one to crack.

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