More on terror

As I read the nytimes article one page at a time.... The author talks about winning or losing the war on terror. He does not define his terms, yet he seems to imply that one more terrorist attack on US soil would constitute a defeat. Presumably, the abscence of such an attack would constitue victory. But since an attack is always possible, victory is unattainable. It is an unreachable goal state, since it cannot be assessed until the end of time. This is a problem inherent in letting the pro-perpetual war folks define the terms of debate. They create a perpetual, unwinnable war, which is ultimately against ourselves. The writer "warns" against this pehnomenon, saying we want to hang on to some of our freedoms. But since he quotes the highly reliable Rice talking about terrorists absolutely planning on tampering in the november elections (oh, i just bet they will. i feel fear, and not from angry foreigners), his biases are clearly evident.

He is also too willing to excuse government misdeeds, stating, "Even so, after 9/11 we were frightened, and Congress and the government weren't always thinking straight." Right. The patriot act, passed by congress without having been read by any of the lawmakers, was definitely an act of political expedience, if not fear. But from whence did this act come? Who wrote it? Who had it sitting ready until the time was right to broaden police powers? Somebody planned it. They wrote the legislation and then sat on it, waiting for an opprtunity. That is not fearfully not thinking striaght.

He writes also, "To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war. These are evils because each strays from national and international law and because they kill people or deprive them of freedom without due process. They can be justified only because they prevent the greater evil." Even if we accept this line of thinking as valid, it still raises numerous problems. First of all, we already do these things abroad and the result of them has not been truth justice, and the american way. The result has been Hussein, the Shaw, massacres galore in south america, human rights abuses upon human rights abuses. And who do we trust when it seems like pre-emptive war is justified? Hitler neutralized the terrible Polish menace. Now we're in Iraq, lookingin vain for Weapons of Mass Destruction. They were going to be horrible, remember? All aimed right at us. But it turned out, to nobody's surprise, that really, we wanted to increase the profits of Halliburton, get control of oil and expand the reach of the welathy elite. Hussein did not become a bad guy when he gassed the Kurds. He became a bad guy when he nationalized the oil companies. Our definition of threatening our national interest corresponds exactly with threatening corporate interests. Our government will be more than happy to defend us with pre-emptive strikes, if by "us," you mean oil companies. The greater evil, in our military adventurism since WWII, has always been the potential loss of corporate profits and power.

And how about defeating evil? When is it defeated? When we take over the capital of evil? when us troops occupy the 9th layer of hell? when jesus rises again and judges the living and the dead? Or is evil some sort of war we can win by attrition? Let's say that right now in the world, there are 1000 people in terrorist cells, currently plotting horrible things. something must be done to stop them, obviously. Let's say we bomb the hell out of villages suspected to be hiding terrorists. We kill 700 of them. And 10000 bystanders. Then there are only 300 terrorists left. And all the insanely angry freinds and relatives of the bystanders. We had 1000 terrorists. Now we have 20000. Fighting terroism with "evil" is fighting a hydra. Everytime you use violence without due cause, you inflame anger. Violence is a blunt and ineffective tool for change or communication. Moreover, it becomes the only tool. the more a stae uses violemce, the more it has to use violence. We would fall into a perpetually bloody struggle, leaving a trail of dead behind us. This is not a definition of "winning" a war on terror, unless by winning, you mean being the most effective, bad-ass terrorists. And damn, we already won that. Our elder staesmen are wanted war criminals. Look at what we did in Guatemala in the 80's! Man, look where our aid money is going. The more a country violated human rights, the more military aid they receive from us.

no, i do not have time to be worrying about this.

I lack emotional robusteness

I want to say it's cuz I'm tired, but really I just cannot handle emotional stress. I mean, if someone rejects me or I think they're going to reject me, it freaks me the hell out. Even people I don't like that much. I mean... I think this is definitely a pattern. I dunno what to do about it. Fortunately, people do not act in a manner that makes feel/fear rejection very often. And I can see how such a reaction might have come into my life recently or at least been recently amplified, although it's scary to think how many of my life descisions might have really centered around this tendency. or not. i dunno. Obviously, if I'm going to be a functioning member of society, I need to be able to deal. step 1: recognize the issue. step 2: ?

I swear, I get happier and more functional every day. But "all better" continues to ellude me. I have to much stuff to do before wednesday to worry about this. maybe i'll just live in a cave till i'm done here. and then live in a cave forever! no, not really. i should go look at my Feeling Good book, as it contains many strategies for dealing with stupid every day things. Cuz a lot of depression is just not knowing how to react to everyday things.

terror

In other news, the new york times magazine has an article on the war on terror, which i don't have time to read, but which I've heard rumors that it says we should use torture in interrogations and carry out assasinations. Well, of course, we already do these things. where do people think Hussein got all that torture stuff? the CIA has the greatest torture technology in the world. A lot of the tools for it are manufactured right here at home. Torture = american jobs. And you can get training on how to do that plus learn how to set up death squads at Fort Benning, at the renamed School of the Americas. I'm going to assume that the writer is conviently ignoring US-sponsored terror and torture in client states (we do car bombs, yes we do) and thinks we should start torturing people domestically.

Oh that's a great idea. For instance, torture in Iraq's prisons have really raised our stature in the Arab world. The question, tho, I guess for people who utterly lack a moral compass, has to do with the ends of the means and not the means themselves. What countries openly assisnate and use torture? What countries have terror? Well, there's a lot of terror in Europe. Want to know why there are no garbage cans in the London Underground? How about the see-though garbage recepticles around Notre Dame in Paris? Yes, other countries, like, I dunno, Spain and all over Europe deal with terror all the time. I'm picking them vs South American countries, because they're all democracies. Also, as the US is the source of South American, terror, it would make an odd comparison. Anyway, all of these countries have to deal with terror periodically, but somehow they maintain democracy. Of course, they've had experiments to responding to terrorist events, like say, the Reichstag fire, by adopting a more totalitarian model. That didn't work out so well.

Contrast this with Israel, a contry with a ton of terror and assymetric warfare. They torture. They assasinate. Doesn't seem to help much. Seems to make things a lot worse.

Lookit, the head of the department of education recently called the NEA a terrorist organization. If we say, "you can torture peple, but only suspected terrorists," then who is a terrorist? People blocking the entrances to federal buildings? (I've done it. It used to be called peaceful protest.) Teachers? This strategy is a pandora's box. Police forces will always use every tool available to them to solve crimes. To do otherwise would be to underacheive. Do we want them to have this tool? What if you, yes you, were mistaken for a terrorist? what if you did something that sort of brushed against a definition of terrorism? I know a guy who thought it would be cool to scribble stupid grafitti in an airplace bathroom. For a good time call, or something lame. Well, if he's done something that looked illegible, like those stylized scripts you see used in artistic grafitti, law enforcement could assume that he was communicating with other members of a terrorist cell aboard the plane. No joke. No exageration. It was a lame thing to do, but do we want to torture lame college students?

The part of the article I did read contains some errors. First of all, Al Queda was never monolithic. Politicans have asserted otherwise, but they also said Iraq had WMD. There are many groups who are upset about US foreign policy (and rightly so, as we export huge amounts of inequality and terror) and willing to respond to that with assymetric warfare. Trying to say they all follow one guy with a video camera is rediculous. The power of these groups lies in their independance. The writer goes on to talk about dirty bombs. The Journal of the Atomic Scientists, a publication which included Einstein as an associate of some kind, recently ran an article on dirty bombs. First of all, the material needed to make a dirty bomb, spent fuel rods, are extremely heavy and toxic. They are very hard to move. anyone involved in such a project would certainly quickly die of radiation poisoning. Ok, so even if you say they're suicide bombers, it would take fo team of people to grab the rods and they would all die shortly thereafter. then, the spent fuel rods are attached to a conventional explosive device. Like dynamite or something. The idea is that they spread radioactive material everywhere. Well, the folks quoted in the article that I read, a trade journal for atomic scientists, say the risk of anyone being harmed by that is low. So fuel rods, who and unexploded are very radioactive and toxic, but once they're dispersed, the little pieces are a lot less dangerous. You clear the area and then send in a cleanup team. I mean, it's not harmless. People caught in the actual explosion would be maimed or killed. but not by the radiation, by the bomb. the real, huge danger from a dirty bomb is panic. Panic that is way out of proportion to the threat. the way to prevent massive damage from a dirty bomb is to inform people about the real (much lower than they think) risks and make sure that people stay calm. That's how you fight the effectiveness of dirty bombs. Their danger and power is in the symbol, not in the actuality. Nobody would go to the deadly hassle of messing around with spent fuel rods if they knew it wouldn't cause panic. but how have our leaders responded? By whipping up fear to a fever pitch. They're smart people. They have undoubtedly been briefed on the real risks of dirty bombs and know that the real problem is panic. the fact that they have chosen to increase the risks associated with dirty bomb attacks rather than decrease them suggests that protecting us from terror is not their primary agenda. Not that this is surprising, given that they've been diverting anti-terror funds to our Iraq adventurism and totally ignored terror reports from before 9-11. As it's clear that fighting terror is near the bottom of the Bush agenda, we need to ask ourselves why they or their lackeys would be lobbying for torture and assaination. It's not to make us safer...

Got flight

May 12 Wed BDL-OAK Southwest Airlines Flight 278 Depart Hartford (BDL) at 4:55 PM Arrive in Oakland (OAK) at 10:25 PM

Need: ride from oakland. Also need use of large suitcase or duffel bag for the summer.

classes are OVER! woot. Now I just need to write longer 20 page paper about Joan of Arc's gender, clean up and document some supercollider code, and document doing stuff with digital performer. at the risk of getting a reputation for being a total slacker, tho, there is no serious deadline on the last one before fall. I should talk to Ron about it. I want to do really good docs and not rush them, and I can do them from my own little laptop, mostly.

Oh yes, and southwest is doing a one way fare sale, which actually also makes them the cheapest way to buy coastal round-trip tickets if your dates are more than seven days and less than two weeks off. and by far the cheapest one-way fare. if you are a wes musician, i can try to get you west coast gigs. i may be hosting a living room concert series in my own berkeley home. fyi

My summer plans

Drink, have sex, smoke pot and write tons of music. Not in that order. So I'm prolly not going to find a groovy job. oh well. I still get my stipend during the summer months. I can live large... errr... small on my wages. ideally, somebody else will pay for the beer. or: homebrew! home soon. dunno when, but soooooon.

the revolution will be webcast

my thursday concert will be webcast. you should come in person, if you can, but if yer too far away it will be at 8:00 PM EDT. url will be forthcoming.

random question

how do i pack dishes to ship in the mail? what about records (as in vinyl) and cds?

For a Long Time Festival

I spent the weekend working at this aptly named festival. Musical events for 14 hours yesterday, counting the parking garage excursion. I see a lot of concerts at Wesleyan and they affect my thinking and that's a good thing, but I don't write about them much as I don't have time to ponder them. I'm on musical overload and it's a wonderful thing.

So on Friday night, Phil Niblock played and showed moves for two hours. His movies seemed to have an aquatic theme at first. boats. fishing. shipping things on boats. then it switched to agriculture. first wheat sort of stuff and then meat. Animals being killed. cut up. cooked and eaten. The animal part had a triumphal feel in the music. some folks in the audience said that the pictures of animals being killed and processed (by hand, as these were images shot in the third world), made them want to go vegetarian. But i dunno, with the triumphal loud drone music going on, it made me feel some sence of victory over banyard animals. there was a long section of chasing, catching, killing, plucking, cooking and eating some chicken, all with this almost victorius feel. The last two nights I've been dreaming of eating chicken. So the meat eaters want to stop and the meat avoider wants to start.

And then saturday, I saw a bunch of installations, then Jascha played a very nifty droney-piece. And I had a sudden insight. I know what I am going to do for my thesis! More later. Jascha's piece was very nifty. then I wandered around more. Talked to a reporter. The second repoerter from the Hartford Courant to interview me about the festival. Apparently, I have not been mentioned in the paper. I should have done more than just parking garage pieces. I was just so tickled by the idea. Anyway. aaron had a nifty staticky installation derived from field recordings of sounds in the area.

Too much happened to post about it. Also, no sleep.

I am working on stuff for my May 6th concert. 8:00 pm. my house. 177 Liberty Street. Analog modular synthesizer. There is a reason you never see these beasts in concert, cuz they're monophonic, they take a long time to patch and you can't "save" patches like on a computer. you have to do it manulaly every time. However, the concert is free. Bring your own beer. I took some pictures of the synth for the flyer: http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/pics/gear.html I also have a nice patch going right now, which maybe i'll record, but prolly not.

ok, i did record it

adventures in civil liberties

so i was just walking back from the parking garage, where i went at 1:00 am to hear my pice played. (after some beer. pardon typos.) i didn't hear my piece played, but i heard three or four pieces. i dunno when mine is on. anyway, i was walkiong back, and me and two guys: a phd student and a grad alum, guys in their 30's at least were walking back towards campus down the street of the city when a public saftety guy started yelling at some kid from his car. he jumped out and demanded id from the kid and started shouting into his radio about spray paint. the kid was just walking down the street, i guess carrying a can of sprsay paint. the public safety guy was giving him a really hard time and me and the two guys were watching, unhappy about how the student was getting hassled. then the guy yelled at us about how we were with the student, so we started to walk away. he starts yelling into his radio for backup. i kid you not. for a can of spray paint. two seperate public safety officers appear and stop us. want to know who we are. want to see our ids. want to know if we're involved in some very seious incidints of vandlaism!! so they question us and demand to know ids. the alum guy gives his phone number and keeps saying he's staying in the guest house, as that must give him some non-miscreant creds. the phd guy gives out his name and id. i shake my head and walk off. /another/ public safety guy appears as we get back to campus where i'm trying to retrieve my bike. he takes my picture with a digital camera so they can id me later. for a kid with a fxcking can of spray paint. so i start yelling at him, saying, "you guys think you're the fbi!" and he comes back with, "i know who you are! i've seen you walking around campus here last year before you graduated!" this guy works night shift. there is no way he's seen before, especuially last year. so i laugh at him and he's all "i know who you are! i've seen you! i know who you are!" i think the civics department must be in trouble.

In other news, the festival is groovy. and i have an alibi for whenever this spray painting thing occured!

Offline

My laptop has just been volunteered to do duty as a part of the huge music festival happening this weekend. It will spend time locked in Ron's office and then it will deployed to run a multi-channel audio piece.

I'm doing backups now. I'm assured that it won't walk off, which is good because I would actually sob if it did. Anyway, so I'll be offline for the next couple of days, which I prolly would anyway cuz of the festival and it's prolly for the best because I have so much reading to get done. so much reading. Anyway, I don't need to be online all the time. I can go away from my computer for a couple of days. No problem. I could quit anytime. This won't affect me at all. Smooth sailing. *shakes* and theere's email in the laaab. ii'll bee ffinee.. nnoo prroblllem..

for a limitted time only

My (almost)entire photo library

Have you been living in a box for the last four years?

Um, kinda seems like it, doesn't it...

lalala

Yes, I worry too much. sometimes, I worry about how much I worry. But now I've posted my worries a few days ago and they worry me less. Do people know I have a lot of baggage and will it change their opinion of me? Well, they know now, I guess.

I was talking to somebody the other day and she told me I was telling her something I had already told her. So I switched to being entertaining instead. But really, most of the time I talk to get things outside myself. So I say the same things over and over again. This is why it's good to have many friends, so you can tell them your latest tale of triumph or woe or whatever and you end up telling 10 people and by the end, you've expelled it from yourself.

The last day of class is May 4th. One week from today, May 6th, I am giving a concert. God willing I will be done with my paper very soon. I must do some reading for it. Foucault. Something about cross dressing in the middle ages. Too many books. And I must document the lab more fully. I think I'll be home in two weeks. Hopefully less. Not that I've bought tickets yet or anything.

When I get home, I will need a bike and an internship. Somebody who reads this has an extra working bike lying around that they want to give up for the summer. Or maybe it's only a little broken? Flat tires or something? Busted breaks? Some small but annoying thing that is preventing you from riding it and if you lent it to me you would get it back fixed in August. Let's be honest. You'll never get around to fixing it yourself. It's just making you feel guilty, sitting there broken. You keep meaning to bike places, but you're always running late and that little piece of plastic over the spring thingee on the breaks is cracked and you really ought to get it fixed, but the guy at the shop will realize that yer a poser and it's too much work to get it over there and you don't have time, you'd rather watch tv or something and damn now you feel guilty again. see, you can get this out of your life by lending me your bike. then, you'll feel a little glow when I talk about how nice you are. And that will last for a few weeks after you get your bike back, before you feel guilty again for not riding it. Byt then it will be october and so hot the tired would melt off of it as it sits locked in front of a Bart station, so you wouldn't need to feel guilty then either. And then you'd kind of forget about it for a while. So you can get months of guilt out of your system...

Maybe it's just me that thinks this way? the same thing would also work for getting me an internship, by the way. I will work for very little money (alas) and you would impress your boss by reccomending me and feel like a good person all around and it would totally make up for all those secret solitare games.

I feel kind of spacey today, obviously. I have a bunch of errands to run, but I have to sit here and wait for a plumber before I can do them. I should read some of my books. Which first? Queer theory? Medival cross dressing? Or the rehabilitation trial fo joan of arc? I think critical theory goes well with scatteredness. I notice that I understand it better if I read it while tipsy or on the verge of sleep.

For non-required reading, I got a book out of the library called Bisexual Women in the 12st Century. It's also full of theory stuff. But I figured that everybody seems to be bisexual these days. Makes me wonder what's going on in the world. Am I missing out on something or what? So I read the introduction and it's main point was, "seems like everybody is bisexual these days." Ok, well, I knew that. So I wonder if I might be missing out on something, but then I remember that what I'm missing out on is boys, and well, I'm ok with that. Anyway, apparently there was a huge bi movement in the early 90's that made bisexuality more and more acceptable in the GLB community, in that, that's when they started adding the 'B' to their acronyms. And this movement was centered in the Bay Area, a lot. So when I was a youth, I really wanted to be bi and I guess that made me a product of that time. But I tried it out and boys were just... boring. I have nothing against them, but they're not girls, you know. So I dunno why I'm wondering about this again aside from having so many bi peers. I guess there are very few lesbians in the world (and really, a lot of women who said they were lesbians before had secret boyfriends and stuff, so this isn't new, it's just more out and out is good). One of the few. One of the proud. One of the lesbians. My very deep thought on all of this is: "the more queer women, the better."

indeed

Dog meets skunk

My dog chased a skunk this morning. at about 2:30. bad scene. i am so goddamn tiried now.

Things Celeste Worries About

• Do people around me realize how much baggage I have? If they do, will they still want to talk to me?
• Is my music boring?
• Am I boring?
• Am I working hard enough?
• Is my dog getting enough food, attention exercise?
• Do I have any clue how to communicate?
• what if I keep making the same mistakes over and over and can't ever escape them?
• What if everything that goes wrong is my fault? Like, to the point where my actions actually ellicit, somehow, other people to be mean?
• What if I'm mean?
• what if I'm blind to all my own faults that re important?
• what if I can see them, but can't manage to change them?
• what if all the bad things I've heard about myself are true?
• Do I stand for anything?
• Do I know what my values are?
• If I had tried harder, would it have made a difference?
• Did I do everything I could for my mom?
• Do I know who I am?
• Is identity important?
• If I'm grumpy, will nobody want to talk to me?
• Should I hide being grumpy?
• what if I'm grumpy all the time?
• maybe just nobody has realized my propensity for grumpiness, crotechetyness, and angstyness?
• am i more fxcked up than other people?
• is music important?
• has anybody realized how little i actually know about harmony, history and literacy?
• am i being stupid?
• If I worry too much, will my hair fall out?

Parking Garage Music

I'm writing some tunes to be played out of the Muzak system of the big parking garage in town. Currently, it plays obnoxious baroque music, designed to annoy skateboarders. There is a pretty good coffee shop underneath it, with nice outdoor seating, but which is totally ruined by the classical music warfare, otherwise known as a nonviolent deterrent. Yeah, there's a reason the Pentagon studies how people react to music. I think it might count as some form of psychic violence. So I never sit outside the parking garage and i get coffee there less often than i would otherwise.

So next weekend, we're having a music festival which is taking over the muzak system. And I have tunes for it that will not annoy me, but may annoy everyone else.

• garage-1-mono.mp3
• garage-2-mono.mp3
• garage-3-mono.mp3
• garage-4.mp3

I dunno if I can include all of these. I think that garage-4.mp3 is my favorite and I'm not sure if garage-3-mono.mp3 really belongs in there at all.

Concert

New works by Celeste Hutchins for analog modular synthesizer on May 6th at The Assylum: 177 Liberty Street, Middletown.

More details tba

Song for Medieval Religous Practices Intersecting with Modern Critcal Theory, Thus Creating a New Symbolic Grid of Heteroglossic Discourse

what do you know, shiny little foucault
i took a relic from your grave, a little piece just to save
i keep up upon my mantle, serende you with some handle
the workers strike, it changed your mind
now a little pice of that is mine
i dug you up with a spade
in a secret midnight raid
no where to go with my bit of foucault
on a rainy day i'll put you on ebay
enjoy the present relaity
with the history of sexulaity
we'll have some dinner discourse
afetr the main course
tell me what you know, my bit of foucault
whoah whoah whoah

I was offline and not blogging

but now i am back online. well, i was metaphorically offline. busy, unhappy, etc.

I have just returned from La Domo Ĝensenius, where I playes sapce invaders and other video games on a linux arcade machine and watched maybe 1.5 hours of Tivo and consumed copious amounts of sugar!!!!!!!!!!! bounce! bounce! bounce! crash....

(picture me typing this really fast. read it alloud as fast as you can to simulate the effect. try not to breathe) ok! tv! is really weird! it has really short scenes that cut togther really fast in aseries of nonsequiters only joined together by pictographic or colorthemes or sometimes by sound or animation style or just the knowledge that yer still watching the same program. what happens from moment to moment has nothing to do with what just happened. or maybe this was because i was watching cartoons. seaforce 2021 or something. what was going on? i have no idea. and Dexters lab. every scene is like 20 seconds long. the plot is barely constructed at all. and it's a tiny bit gender normative. although there was a very brilliant james bond parody. i don't understand, tho, why they can't deconstruct the gender dyniamics they seem to purport to parody rather than reinforce them. c'mon. put dexter in a dress! i've only seen this cartoon once, but i'm an expert on it, really. and the simpsons we watched one or two episodes. i can't remeber now. i remeber there being sex on the simpsons, like that one episode where Homer and Marge discovered exhibitionist tendencies and end up hiding in mnigolf windmills and whatnot. i won't say the sex was just hinted ta, because it was really a major plot point of the episode i'm recalling, which was on when i was an undergrad. i mean, it was the plot. but it i don't think it was so explicitly discussed. also, they seem more disfunctional and adverserial than i recall. and i know that they weren't making bondage jokes when i wa sin highschool and college, cuz i would have caught those. and the plots are much fatser paced. and then this happened! and then this! and then this! and this! and this! no, we won't return to what happened to grandpa as that guy was seducing him in florida! and this! and this! no point other than the ride! flash! flash! flash! flashing lights! sugar! sugar! lights! sugar! lights! sugar! sugar! lifghts! Sugar! Sugar! Lights! Sugar! Lights! Lights! S! L! S! L! L! L! S! S! S! L! L! S! S! S! S! L! S! L! L! L! S! L! S! L! S! L!

Queer

Apparently, in the brave new world of critical theory, you don't need to be um, queer to be queer. Stright people can also be queer. As long as you're somehow oppositional to the mainstream. Also, somehow by this definition, the A-Gays or other privledged folks are not queer, even if they are LGBTTFAGIetc.

what a queer idea.

I don't want to be heteronormative for saying het people can't be "politically queer" nor do I otherwise want to be any sort of wet blanket but: do not appropriate my identity! If you have always been the gender you are now and have no problems with it and it matche yer body and the people you like are always of the opposite sex, then yer not queer. Sorry. You can be really special and interesting and nifty, but you can't be queer.

A brief history lesson: as few as five years ago and maybe still for all i know, the word "queer" was controversial when used by LGBT folks, because it was/is still used as an insult. People get/got beat up by angry folks calling them "queer." So when a group formed called Queer Nation, they were really radical for using that in their name. They were a direct action group that would do things like have sit ins where they would chant "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" Such was the era that a bunch of people sitting around, chanting, calling themselves queer was very newsworthy. the group was controversial. why did they have to be so in-your-face and unclosetted?

So when you use the word queer now, to self identify as LBGTTFAGIetc, you are doing so as a person reclaiming language. You are taking an insult upon yourself and saying, "yes i am queer. i am a sodomite. I am just as you say and I am proud of it. Now what are you going to do about it?" this is a powerful and important thing to do. It is claiming identity and seizing the terms of debate. It is liminal, it is transitionary, it is taking a leap. It is part of a tradition of queer activism that started before stonewall.

If you are striaght and you beleive in queer rights, then I saulte you. But you are not queer. when you say that you are, you take a powerful symbol and dilute it. you take a word that people took serious risks to reclaim and you are removing it's meaning. this is a meaning that people were arrested to claim. they were beatten up to claim it. they lost their jobs. It's not something to be taken lightly. words are powerful. If you're het, the word queer does not belong to you anymore. It was wrested from your control and seized by the people to whom it refers. Now put it down. It does not refer to you.

Gender

Can I just say that gender is kind of confusing. Like, yeah it's cultural, but it must be more than that, cuz of trans people and stuff. I mean, people actually change their bodies to match their gender. And Savage Love last week had a letter from a guy who was born intersexed, but the operated on to be feamle, but felt like he was really male. I mean, that's complicated.

When I was a youth, I was thinking about gender a lot. I remeber being in 7th grade and Louis demanding whether or not I wanted to be a boy and whether or not I would get sex resassignment surgery if I could and me not answering cuz I didn't know. I hated girl drag. I hated having to wear a skirt every day to school. I felt like it limited my motion and my freedom, but obviously I felt more than that, cuz I won't wear women's clothes now unless I have to. I try to avoid activities where I have to wear costumes that are gendered female. Joan of Arc got burned at the stake rather than wear a dress everyday. I can kind of see where she's coming from.

So when I was an undergrad and some folks started coming out as trans, it was something I wanted to think about, but Christi was having none of it. she did not want to date aboy and if I became one, she would leave me. So I liked her and I wasn't sure and anyway, I was at a women's college and I liked beign surrounded by women and feeling like I was among my people, so I didn't go there. If I had gone there, maybe I'd be a boy now? Who knows. My first girlfriend is a boy now and a bunch of women that I admired or was attracted to or both have switched.

Lois, in Dykes to Watch Out For questions her gender for a while and then lies about being trans becauase she's annoyed at one fo her friend's transphobia. Then she comes out as untrans and explains that she enjoys being a girl "in a perverse sort of way." which is kind of how I feel. I'm finally comfortable with my body, at least for the last few years and I really wasn't for a long time. So when I write about Joan of Arc being on both sides of some sort of gender binary/hiearchy, that's kind of me projecting myself onto my research, which everybody does and in this pomo period we can all be somehwat honest about it. so before I didn't know whether I was a girl or a boy and now I say that I'm defintely a girl, but maybe I'd rather be a heretic than wear a dress. Does this make me genderqueer? I dunno. I'm about to go put on a tux for queer prom. Seriously, wearing dresses makes me as uncofmortable as hell. It's not right. It's not me. It's like hammering a peg into the wrong shaped hole or something. I used to feel happy when people called me "sir," but then other times I would be annoyed by it. It's annoying now.

I wanted male privledge, but obviously something more was going on...

This is me sharing too much. goodnight.

too drunk for homweork

ok, i'm not really drunk. i had less than one pint. but ifeel like i shoudl not drive, for example and i'm eschewing going to the library due to the late hour and the rain and my level of confusion. So not TV. People I would instant message are offline. I'll post to my blog.

I just got back from a bar-hangout after a concert. One of the concert pieces was 4 blogs set to music. These two guys culled funny blog posts and harmonized them. It really shows how stupid blogs are. Yes indeed. Glad they didn't pick this one. The concert was very long seeming, but it closed with some excellent steve reich. I want to sound like that guy. I played in Aaron's piece, which was very nice.

On tuesday, my composition seminar went to Mass MoCA to see the sound installations. Mass MoCA is a museum of modern art in the Berkshires, which is a mountainious region where new yorkers go on cultureally themed vacations.

There are four sound installations in the museum, of which we only managed to hear two. One is a free way piece. There is a long pipe, open at one end and with a mic at the other end on an overpass. The sound from the ic is amplified and played back on two speakers under the overpass. The mic and the speakers are far apart. It's nice cuz it sounds like pipes and pipes are cool.

The other piece was by Ron. Mass MoCA used to be a power plant before it was a museum. So there's a bunch of power plant and power plant -closure related stuff. Ron has a permanent sound installation about the plant and it's closure that's set up in a narrow walkway between two buildings. There's speakers set up overhead. And if you look through the windows, there's electric generation equipment laid out all installation-y and a long table with capacitors on it. The big coke-can size capacitors - one for every worker employed before the plant shut down. The apeakers had sounds from the plant's history and workers talking about the plant shutting down and the museum moving in.

This next one was temporary. It was the best installation ever. It's not really pink. It's a big white room with papers all over the floor. The room is as big as a foot ball field. And those things hanging down that look like lamps are loudspeakers like for making announcements. And attached to the roof are penumatic devices dropping down signle sheets of paper. So periodically one or more of them would go off and then a piece of paper would flutter to the ground. The whole thing was monochromatic except that the windows had pink film on them. nd the loudspeakers were making announcements, but sort of like poetry inspired by reading too much critical theory. In the very back was a door to another smaller, dark room with concert-type speakers whirling around overhead, playing choral parts by meredith monk. In the big room, you can hear the chorus, the announcements and the paper dropping. I think it's the most beautiful piece of art i've ever encountered. Awe inspiring. When I'm sober, I'll look up the name of the artist.

Chris sits, watching a piece of paper drop to the floor. It was so beautiful how they twisted and fell. It was onion skin paper, it said, thin and light. There were big, slow spinnign fans on the ceiling, changing the pattern of falling. they driften bauetifully to the ground, twisting in the air. The annoucements were about text and bodies and representation. It was really very wonderful.

how much sleep do i really need?

Less than 8 hours, moe than 4-5 of been getting. too bad. i liked having all those extra hours.

How much time do I have left at school?

And today, I suddenly realized how alarmingly close to May 4th it is. good lord. I must write a 5 minute piece or two sutibale for playing out of mono parking lot speakers by monday. and then i got ta stuff and my 20 page paper that i should start researching. yes, i should. none of those are due till the 14, but the faster i get done, the faster i can go home.

and now, i think i'm going to take some action regarding my sleep defecit, despite that i have no job lined up yet. alas. hire me. Resume.

Gender and Joan of Arc

Celeste Hutchins
Gender and Joan of Arc

In her trial, Joan of Arc testified "that, from the age of thirteen, she received revelation from Our Lord by a voice which taught her how to behave." (p 47) This revelation eventually told her to dress like a man and take up arms. Centuries later, during her lengthy trial for sainthood, one of the Devils Advocates arguing against her suggested "that perhaps all of her voices were manifestations of hysteria . . ." (Kelly p 221) If we use hysteria as a tool for unpacking Joan of Arc's gender identity, then what Freud wrote in General Remarks on Hysteric Attacks comes to mind. "One may observe that it is just those girls who in the years before puberty showed a boyish character and inclinations who tend to become hysterical at puberty." (p 23-4) We do not know if Joan showed "a boyish character and inclinations" before she started hearing her voices, but we do know that the voices guided her in such a direction.

Joan's voices may have functioned according to what Foucault terms "Christian techniques of the self." (p 368) In Sexuality and Solitude, he discusses how Christians formed sexual identity through confession. Joan testified that she had a confessional relationship with her voices. When she was being questioned about leaping from the tower of Beaurevoir, she said "that she knew by revelation from Saint Catherine that she had received forgiveness after she had confessed. And it was by Saint Catherine's advice that she confessed it." (The Trial of Joan of Arc p 112) She was no stranger to the confessional, telling her judges earlier, "One cannot cleanse one's conscience too much." (p 110) Therefore, Joan sought to fulfill her "Christian truth obligation" as often as she could and continued these conversations further with her voices. Because these truth obligations cover thoughts as well as actions, her virginity, something which she must have thought often about, did not mean that she would not have thought deeply about sexuality.

The voices had an immediate sexual effect on her. During her trial, "[s]he said also that the first time she heard her voice, she vowed her virginity as long as it should be pleasing to God. She was then of the age of thirteen years or thereabouts." As soon as she was a pubescent age, she began to hear voices and swore off sex. It seems these are linked, but perhaps a Freudian reading is more correct than a Foucauldian one. The transcript immediately continues, "Asked if she had ever spoken of these visions either to her her curé or to any other churchman, She said no . . .." (p 96 - 97) Thus, even to her judges, voices, virginity and confession are linked. However, Joan fails to make the final link. Presumably, as a pious youth, she was already cleansing her conscience. Yet she never mentioned divine voices or, presumably, her pledge to her confessor.

Joan's path to adult sexuality thus took place outside of normal paths. At puberty, she rejected gender roles assigned to her. She refused marriage, even suing to escape one, and she refused the convent by making her virginity pledge outside of the confines of the church. Having rejected a female role, she seemed to turn to a male role, but not fully. She did not attempt to pass as male. It may have been possible for her to put on male dress, adopt a male name and join the French side of the conflict as a peasant soldier. In so doing, she would have joined the bottom rung of the military. As a military man, she would have had more freedom, would have been able to take part in the conflict and would have lived in fear of discovery. Instead, she chose a third path.

Cixous, writing about western thought, claims that "thought has always worked through opposition." (p 63) She starts Sorties: Out and Out: attacks / Ways Out / Forays with a series of oppositions. She notes, "And all these pairs of oppositions are couples." (p 64) All thought is subject to binary oppositions, which must then somehow be "related to 'the' couple, man/woman." (p 64) However, Joan did not simply switch sides of the male/female dichotomy. She clung hard to her female identity by proclaiming her virginity, even adopting it as a title. The second Devil's Advocate during her trial for sainthood argued that Joan "was hardly consonant with modesty to boast of [her virginity] and to offer her body for inspection." (Kelly 217-218) She made too much of her virginity, and thus her femaleness, according to him.

However, she also clung hard to her male role and identity. Her "maleness" was not simply her military knowledge and abilities, but also manifested in her male attire. This attire was a powerful symbol for her enemies and the official reason that she was finally burned. It also seemed to be a powerful symbol for her. Her male dress is often described as pragmatic. During her trial for relapse, she stated that "it seemed to her more suitable and convenient to wear man's dress being with men, than to wear a woman's dress." (The Trial of Joan of Arc p 157) If she wanted to be around soldiers and avoid rape, it was necessary for her to wear men's clothes. However, among her own troops at least, her clothes did not hide her body. "They had seen her dress and undress in their presence, as a fellow-soldier concerned little with her privacy while on campaign." (Joan of Arc: A Military Leader p 33) Her squire testified during the nullification trial that he had seen her breasts. The duke of Alençon testified, "sometimes he saw her breasts, which were beautiful." (ibid p 33)

During her trial, she was repeatedly asked about why she was wearing men's clothes and repeated over and over again that it was God's orders that she do so. Her clothes seemed to have meant more to her than a pragmatic explanation suggests. There is a telling scene during her trial when she is suddenly offered what she wants most, if she changes clothes.

her questioner said: I promise you that you will hear Mass if you put on woman's dress.
She replied: And what do you say if I have sworn and promised our King not to put off these clothes? Nevertheless I say, Make me a long dress, right down to the ground, without a train, and give it to me to go to Mass, and then when I come back I will put on the clothes I now have.
Asked if she would wear woman's clothes at all to go and hear Mass,
She said: I will think this over and then answer you. she further asked, for the honour of God and Our Lady, that she might hear Mass in this good town.
They then told her that she must take a woman's dress, unconditionally and absolutely,
And she replied: Bring me a dress like that of a citizen's daughter; that is, a long houppelande, and I will wear it, and also a woman's hood to go hear Mass.
But she also begged, with the greatest urgency, that they should leave her the clothes she was wearing, and let he go hear Mass without changing them.

(The Trial of Joan of Arc p 114 - 115) The argumentative nature of her replies in that section is not unusual. However, more seems to be at stake than her typical obstinance. The promise of mass almost seems to have alarmed her. She asked for a dress to be made, making specific demands. This seems like a delay tactic. And even if the dress were made to specifications, she would change back out of it immediately. The questioners asked her directly if she would change clothes for mass and she directly asked for time to think about it. She asked frequently to hear mass, but could not commit immediately to making the compromise of changing clothes just for Mass. It's clear by the end of the exchange that she very much wanted to keep her clothes and hear mass. She "begged, with the greatest urgency." Her clothes were clearly very important to her and had a meaning for her beyond the pragmatism of avoiding rape.

Male clothes and virginity were technologies of the self; her identity was formed through her voices' instructions to stay a virgin and to wear men's clothes. She constructed her self through her abstinence and costume. Her virginity was her title. She died rather than switch dress. At puberty, she began a path both towards "boyish character and inclinations" and also away from them. She did not simply change sides of the male/female binary opposition; she stood with one foot clearly planted on either side of it. She straddled the male/female dichotomy and would not budge from one side or the other. She denied the hierarchal ordering of things. She existed outside of patriarchal system of thought and dominance. What did it mean for her to be on both sides?

It meant that, at least while she was with the French, she escaped the male gaze. Her squire testified at her rehabilitation trial that, "never, despite any sight or contact he had with the Maid, was his body moved to carnal desire for her, nor did any of her soldiers or squires, as he had heard them say and tell many times." (Joan of Arc: A Military Leader p 33) The duke of Alençon also testified that, "he never had any carnal desire for her." (ibid p 33) In fact, the royal esquire went so far as to testify that the soldiers "believed it was impossible to desire her." (ibid p 34) Joan existed fully outside of the male gaze. To put her back within it would be impossible. She no longer belonged to the category of beings to be gazed at. Not only did she escape the subordinate side of oppositions, she jammed the system. The male gaze broke down her presence. The royal esquire testified, "And often when [the soldiers] spoke about sins of the flesh, and used words that might have aroused carnal thoughts, when they saw her and approached her, they could not speak like this any more, for suddenly their sexual feelings left them" (ibid p 34) Her presence as a masculinized woman changed the soldiers to de-sexualized, feminized men. By straddling the binary opposition of gender, she caused the men around her to do the same. When she refused to function as woman, the subordinate other, they ceased to function as dominant men.

She offered them victory and "religious possessions, in particular salvation." (A Woman as Leader of Men p 5) In exchange they were willing to offer her loyalty and suspend gender hierarchy. No such arrangement existed with the English after she was captured. They wanted to place her back within their gaze; to show her to be a witch and thus following a female gender role. The trial returned again and again to her clothing. The clerics wanted her in woman's dress and offered her everything short of freedom to change. They would let her hear mass, if only she would step back into the box labeled "woman" and become subordinate, trapped in their gaze and, as Cixous explains, asleep. From age thirteen, she had rejected "beauties [sleeping] in their woods, waiting for princes to come and wake them up." (Cixous p 66) She danced around the fairy tree like other little girls in her village, until her voices told her not to; a different path awaited her. Other women, Cixous explains, "[have] slept, [have] been put to sleep." (p 66) If she would not go willingly they would push her.

They did push her, all the way to the final sleep of death. If she would not exist within their system, then she could not exist. It was not enough to call her a witch and discredit her; she must be killed. Indeed, they would not allow her to willingly go to sleep, she must be "put to sleep". Pernoud reports that after Joan finally agreed to wear woman's dress either rape was attempted against her or her dress was removed while she slept and replaced with male attire. (p 132) She was thus condemned to die a violent death by trickery or by force. She was already very ill. One of her doctors, who treated her while she was in prison, testified at her rehabilitation trial, "more than anything in the world the king did not wish her to die a natural death. . . . he did not wish her to die except at the hands of justice and he wished that she should be burned." (Pernoud p 125) This was political. It was a reaction to her power and her specialness. She had lead Charles to Reims for coronation. If she had done it through witchcraft, then Charles' claim to the throne would have been tainted.

However, her specialness arose from her voices, her gender and her identity. Her disavowal of gender roles was both the political weapon against her and her political strength. If she had joined the French forces disguised as a boy, she would have been at the very bottom. Her family was not "wealthy enough to train their sons for military service, let alone their daughter." (Joan of Arc: A Military Leader p 37) Only by creating a special niche for herself was she able to gain power. This niche was dangerous. It was only big enough for herself. As far as we know, she did not inspire a generation of girls to take up arms. Cixous writes, "today, writing is woman's. That is not a provocation, it means that woman admits there is an other. In her becoming-woman, she has not erased the bisexuality latent in the girl as in the boy." (p 85) Joan of Arc did not know "A from B;" she could not read or write. She existed as a person of actions and not words, aside from her letters. However, she inspired Christine de Pisan to come out of retirement to write one final poem. She inspired her troops. She was inspired, by her voices. Instead of being a writer, she was written on. Her voices inscribed her identity and sexuality. They dictated her actions and told her to answer her judges boldly. They told her to lead Charles to Reims.

Joan of Arc as actor, not writer, inspired by voices, carved out a niche just big enough for herself, which collapsed on her when she was captured by the English. Her voices transformed her, from female to "bisexual" as Cixous would define it - "the location within oneself of the presence of both sexes." (p 85) They, as a technology of the self, lead her to wear male attire and take male actions, while also leading her towards virginity, a female construct. They formed her identity such that she was unwilling to renounce either her femaleness or or her maleness. These pubescent visions may have resulted from hysteria as Freud describes it, but they function as confessor, writer, and formers of identity. They formed her self and her gender and gave her strength.

---

Cixous, Hélène. "Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks / Ways Out / Forays." In Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément. The Newly Born Woman. Trans. Betsy Wing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

DeVries, Kelly. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Thrupp, Stroud and Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1999

DeVries, Kelly. "A Woman as Leader of Men: Joan of Arc's Military Career". In Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1996

Foucault, Michel. "Sexuality and Solitude." In On Signs. Ed. Marshall Blonsky. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1985.

Freud, Sigmund. "General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks." In Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. Ed. Philip Riefe. New York: Collier, 1963

Kelly, Henry Angsar. "Joan of Arc's Last Trial: The Attack of the Devil's Advocates" In Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1996

Pernoud, Régine and Clin, Marie-Véronique. Joan of Arc: Her Story. Trans. Jeremy Duquesnay Adams. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999

The Trial of Joan of Arc. [Trans. W. C. Scott]. Evesham: Arthur James, 1996.

When the worst has already happened

That's a dead squirrel on a paper plate with a wilted flower placed in front of it. A zoom of the photo seems to reveal that the squirrel's throat has been cut, but maybe it died of natural causes . . . and somebody thought it would be nice to leave it in the CFA area next to a tree. I came by the next day and it was still there, but the paper plate was gone. I have a pic of that too, but it's a less fluffy squirrel after being dead for a day in the rain. I haven't been back by there since.

So the squirrel paid the ultimate price for art or maybe became art accidentally after tossing aside this mortal coil. One thing you can do when you're distressed is to ask "what's the worst that could happen?" wtwtch? this I learned from Olga's blog. So maybe the squirrel's predicament is the worst that could happen to anybody. But I don't think so. Some people seek death as escape, which would imply that it's not the worst thing ever.

So what if the worst thing that could possibly happen already has? Jean asked me a couple of days ago. *blink* What would I have to lose? I'd be free. I could stop worrying. I could love everyone as much as I could. I could take any risk. I could go in any direction.

So what direction to go in? Man, I dunno. I feel kind of damaged. I'm kind of glad to be trapped in the limbo of grad school as much as I want to get home as soon as I can. As much as I feel isolated, it's like havign a testing ground for differnt directions or something. being here doesn't feel like real life. I saw a movie over winter break called The Red Desert, in which a woman has a nervous break down and is surrounded by desolation. She says to a sailor, "It's just that I need to remember that these things that keep happening to me are my life." It's a really good movie but it was bit too much for me to watch when I was watching it.

I feel sadder about losing my mom than I feel about losing Christi, and I dunno why cuz I always thought it would be the other way around. Maybe cuz when I lost my mom is when I lost Christi too, really. Maybe cuz I never really had Christi. Maybe cuz Christi's not dead, thank god. Tho I don't really want to see her or talk to her right now.

Ok, so I said I would post about sleeping with as many women as possible and I wrote a post and I decide to post it and then I change my mind and then I change my mind again. Which is kind of how I feel about sleeping with as many women as possible.... la la la.... here's the post I wrote yesterday:

Sleeping Around

Normally, I try to keep my blog posts pretty pg-13 and I think this one will prolly be around that level. Maybe R. However, if you are a relative or have the power to write grades on my coursework, please shoo from this post and read the archives instead or something.

Now that I've got your attention.... ok, so one of the rebounding things I listed was "sleeping with as many women as possible." Which has a million pros and cons. I met a guy a couple of nights ago who was all sad about some boy and I said that people had been telling to rebound by sleeping around. The sad guy said he didn't think he was capable of such a thing, which reminded me of my first girlfriend....

Ok, so I was very young. 17.5 - 18.5. She was the same age. (I'm in disclaimer land. I bear him no lingering ill will. I hope him the best.) Our relationship was non-monogamous. (I know the hip term now is " polyamorous," but this was 1993 and we didn't yet know such a word.) What this actually meant is that she slept around and had another girlfriend who she'd been seeing forever . . . and I was just seeing her. This was not an ideal arrangement, obviously. She encouraged me towards non-monogamy. She told me where to meet chicks. She even left me alone with aggressive females she knew were hot for me. For whatever reason, I was only interested in her. Our relationship wasn't very good, obviously, and we broke up around the time I left to go to college

I arrived at Mills and decided maybe I should finally embrace this nonmongamy thing and try to get some chicks. this was grossly unpopular idea. Several people explained to me that monogamy was where it's at. Some of those people (ok, one) later had six girlfriends who didn't all know about each other, but whatever. It was during this time that I developed my current mack technique which involves giggling stupidly, blushing and looking at my shoes. This didn't work so well at the time, but somehow is working now. anyway. So finally, I succeeded in getting a couple of chicks who I was kind of dating, but not seriously and it seemed kind of doomed and then I got with christi.

christi insisted on monogamy. I was more or less ok with it, although it was an issue that came up occasionally.

Fast forward many years . . . christi and I were still together but on different continents. We decided to be nonmonogamous due to separation. I was half heartedly pursuing a few straight women who were really not interested. As far as she told me, Christi wasn't hooking up either.

Um, so this idea of "sleeping with as many women as possible" would be a dern new experience, even as it's an old idea.

Pros

Make up for missing life experience. Fuck the pain away. (as Peaches would sing) Make new friends. Feel like a part of the queer community. Get a larger audience for thesis concert. Know more undergrads. Kind of fun.

Cons

undergrads are all around 20 years old, I think. risk of drama. risk of disease. risk of her getting attached to me. risk of me getting attached to her. um, could this hurt my future academic career? takes a lot of effort. cuts into sleep time. pain just comes back later, maybe worse cuz of no sleep. getting shot down could hurt ego. somewhat confusing.

And so, rebounding person can have a warm body next to her for one sleepless night. and feel like there's some human connection, where there hasn't been that much of one, unless there has: who knows? if you take critical theory ( a required subject for all undergrads here), you wonder what does it all mean because things do not just signify themselves. Sex with near-strangers is certainly a technology of the self. Maybe identity is formed in contrast to the other? Maybe it's hard to know what to think.

Jean told me to do it and a bunch of people have agreed, but I dunno.

Tumultuous affair was a good idea.

Sleeping around is, well, different. hypothetically i mean. of course. yes. goodnight.

Last letter from mom for a good long while

So I was reading through the letters and I came upon this one and I think I'm going to put them away for a few more years after this.

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 14:40:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: Bro Robert

Dear Celeste,
Brother Robert's address is [address] Dad gave me some bad news last night. He said that you and Christie aren't coming on Thanksgiving. Of course I know that this is only a vicious rumor. I was counting on you.

I'm losing my memory in odd ways. It isn't Alzheimer's, I don't think; the pattern, judging by articles and tv reports I've seen, isn't right. Daddy's and Tom's patterns of deterioration were pretty much similar to the reports. My problem isn't so much in being confused. I can still learn new presentations for the museum, and remember what I previously learned; I can do great in narrating the slide presentation for Westward Ho! and communicate very well with visitors on my tours.So what is the problem? Well, it's hard to describe. The other day I went to the Moo to help count out fliers to be distributed to school district offices. I walked in and there was Chuck Morrow, who has been out sick for months. I gave him a welcome back are you ok now, etc. One of the other docents very tactfully explained that Chuck Morrow was out leading a tour, and this was Richard Sachen. I was mortified. Still, even at that, it took me about half an hour before I really realized who was who. The bad part is that I know these people well. Then when I was assembling the packets, I got them all mixed up. No one realized, but it scared me. Daddy thought I was Winifred, but by that time he was disconnected generally. What's happening? The pattern is wrong. Some other things have happened also, but none as serious as this. Still, I can take detailed notes at meetings (2 a month), produce an average of 4 to 5 typewritten pages, and there are no corrections made at the next meeting. But I have to realize that something is beginning to happen. Please say a prayer for me.It's scary. These things never used to happen. Is there a forseeable weekend you can go to LA to see Catherine? Grandma will come too. I think we should do it soon, while both of them are still able. We took Grandma to the Grand National Horse Show and Rodeo yesterday. I think she really enjoyed it.She said she went to Bro. Robert's for dinner last week. She was delighted that you asked her. You can't imagine how important your continued contact with her is. Bro Robert was right when he said that your heart is in the right place.

Please come on Thanksgiving if at all possible.
Love to the world's best daughter, Mom

Um, so I guess that helps answer the when-did-it-start question. I guess this means I never really knew my mom at all, really. I don't know what I wrote back to this. In the letters around it, she's responding to me trying to convince her that feminism and communism are good ideas. And she writes for a while about being depressed. This wasn't long after she got on prozac. Maybe she was never depressed at all. Yeah.

I think I prolly wrote back the wrong thing. The right thing was "go see a neurologist now!!" I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.

this is a public service message: if yer family member complains of these symptoms, take her to a spciealist. If her tumor had been operated on then, it might have been treatable.

yee gods

oh yeah. Tom was my cousin, Catherine's older brother. He had memory deterioration and lost his short term memory before he died. Daddy was my grandpa. He broke his hip and had emergency surgery and when the anesthesia wore off . . . well, it never did really. He was extremely confused for the five years before he died. My family, which celebrates intellectualism, learning and intelligence as high virtues, has a pattern of deaths involving slow, lingering brain diseases.

Letter from mom

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 12:11:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: Grandma

Dear Celeste
I left a message on your voice mail this AM. Grandma is having some medical problems.(Bloody urine) and needs cheering up. Paul is coming over to dinner tonight, and I was hoping my two daughters could come tonight or tomorrow if possible. If not, maybe next week sometime. Grandma is definitely not moving to the Retirement Inn until all her medical problems are solved. She also has a cataract and some other problems. Love, Mom

dead letter. dead things in the letter: mom, grandma, "two daughters" relationship.

Rebounding

Pros and cons of different methods (not all of which have personally been tried by the author):

	Pros	Cons
Moving far away	Seems like you can run away from problems Locations don't remind you of anything	Problems follow you You leave behind support structures and friends and end up feeling alone
Graduate School	Learn nifty things Get a degree at the end Chance to network in yer field	Lotsa work Possible Debt Might have to move far away Danger of becoming a professor if overused as rebounding tool
New Relationship	Comfy Reassuring Hopeful Might have picked the right person this time	Might be making all the same mistakes again
Sleeping with as many women as possible	Hrm, this deserves it's own post in the morning

Letter

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 12:24:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: forgot

Dear Celeste,
I forgot to mention that Bro Bob will be in Oakland next week, so we gave him your phone number. I think that's cool' that he wants to see you guys.

Catherine called and wanted to be remembered to you. She is in a swwimming exercise program, only this morning she couldn't find her bathing suit. She saidit is worn and mended. We wondered whether the laundry thought it was a rag and pitched it. One day Dad put out the garbage and the garbage man took the can.
Love you, Mom

Brother Bob is a family friend. He now hosts all the holiday dinners for Christmas and Thanksgiving and whatnot. Catherine is my cousin. Actually, she was my grandma's first cousin. She's in her late 80's at least now. She's a nun. And I can't blame the garbage man for taking those cans. They were rusty and dented. One didn't have a bottom anymore. I don't know how my dad kept using them. when we moved from San Jose to Cupertino in the early 80's my dad moved the garbage cans too.

Left in this year

I got one ten page paper due monday where I must apply critical theory to Joan of Arc. I will be relying heavily on Cixous and talking about how, while with the French army, Joan of Arc escaped binary oppositions about gender. I got one 20 page paper due May 14th, which is a research paper applying critical (feminist?) theory to Christine de Pizan's poem about Joan of Arc. And I've got to do my documentation of the electronic music studio + test utlities for setting up 4 channel audio, prolly also by the 14th. and some sort of installation for a parking garage muzak system by the first week of may. that's it. then I'm done. till next year. My plan is, of course, to finish this all as early as possible so as to coast thru the last few weeks. or leave early.

all the undergrad thesises (thesi?) were due tuesday, as were many of the graduate thesi. Isaac, tho, is still working on his, although he can sometimes be spotted on the porch of India House, taking a smoke break.

but class has been a bit relaxed as a result of so many folks being done. Especially in the one with the prof whose still out sick.
Tom, who just turned in 70 pages single spaced, and whose concert is sunday, participates in a class discussion and installation artists.

And I took some time yesterday to finally get a haircut. Issac was nice enough to take my picture afterwards.
If I look like I've been rained on, it's cuz it was pouring yesterday. connecticut doesn't go half assed with this weather thing.

rainy day

but happy anyway. In fact, when I went to my see my shrink, I've been so chill lately that she told me not to schedule another appointment unless something came up. Apparently, the Wesleyan student health services has deemed me sane. Or sane enough, at least. Part of the reason I was in such a good mood is because Cola sent me a CD of an Oakland-based duo called The Coup. Cool stuff. Also jelly beans and dark chocolate. Cola is awesome.

So yeah, I'm not a game show host. I'm not gleeful 24/7. But damn, I'm doing better than I was in February when I had devised a plan on how to harm myself. Um, yeah. A plan I decided not to execute. Would have gone to a hospital instead. Didn't want the world to know what a loser I was. Didn't want to hurt my dad. Also knew that I would probably feel better later. But I did think about it. Bad times. I wouldn't be blogging this unless it was 100% past tense.

So damn, what a year. There's only three weeks of school left, but I have a paper due May 14th. I'm actually starting to really like school, now that it's almost ending. Not that I'm not anxious to get home for the summer. Xena will be going to dog summer camp in Kentucky with Angela. I have two offers for house checking up, but no offers for subletting. Alas. I was thinking I should drive across the country, but Sophie points out this would take a week and flying is faster and cheaper. So... do I really need all the gear I was going to haul around? My desktop is excellent for running protools, except it doesn't work. And I've barely run protools all year. Do I really need it for the summer? What if I just had my laptop, my bass guitar and some clothes? Maybe my basshead too, cuz it's small. I keep thinking I should bring my drum machine, but I can't think why. I mean, it needs MIDI to work and I have no MIDI on my laptop. Why is my drum machine calling to me? Maybe I could have discussed this with my shrink today. She wanted to know what's been bugging me lately. Same old stuff, you know, but not so much I can't just annoy my friends or feel better by the next morning. Couldn't think of much to talk about. She said, "can't you dig up some anguish?"

I got rythm, I got music. You're wondering what a basshead is. Some bass amps are in two parts, the amplifier and a seperate speaker. I have an insanely huge speaker cabinet because some boy was giving me grief about my rig and I caved into peer pressure and now I have gigantic speaker that I don't ever want to move anyplace. the head is a seperate part that actually does all the electronic amplification. It has a power cord. the speaker does not. Most people, despite what peer-pressuring boy says about "professional" bassists, have these peices joined together in a combo amp. the electronics are at the top of the amp and the speaker is below. I have helpfully taken a photo of my basshead sitting on my ludicrously large speaker. It will come in handy if I play in a too-loud punk band next term...

augh

protools is not working on my desktop. it crashes the computer with an evil hard bad crash. everything has been sketchy on that system since i went to 10.3 instead of 10.2. now i can't run my most important application, basically the main thing i use the desktop for. can't run protools on my laptop because it requires a pci card. double plus ungood.

pictures

what better way to distract myself from my woes than posting bad pictures of my campus?

That building is called the music studios. It actually has windows on the other side. there are practice rooms in the basement, then a bunch of classrooms and offices upstairs. There's also a computer lab upstairs, but i don't have any classes in that building this term, so i only go in the lab when i need to print.

That's the big concert hall. It slopes downward into the earth. the stage is two floors below gournd level. It's a nicer concert hall than Mills has, but there is not quite enough seating. It was built with some 70's idealist goal of not having enough seating to turn a profit, so that it would always remian unblemished by commercialism. it's pretty reverberant with all that cement, but they've got some wood stuff inside, which makes it ok for concerts.

That's the rehersal hall, where I spend too much of my life. the concert hall is directly to the right of it. They're connected underground. There's a windowless classroom two stories down where we get to hear long lectures about random subjects once a week. On the surface level, the left window is the Electronic Music Studio.

I take classes in other buildings, but i spend most of my time in the music area. If somebody tells me to go to another building, I may stare blankly and ask them where it is. Which reminds me that I haven't done any reading for my mom-music class tommorrow... dern it.

Give me feedback

on my resume. Or pass it along to you work's audio department. Everyone is always looking for interns cuz we work cheep and it's short term and companies will hire interns even as they're laying off real employees. alas.

when acronyms go too far

I was just looking at the calendar for "wesfest," a bunch of events organized for perspective students:

Queer Issues Panel Curious about queer life at wes? Come talk to members of the LGBTTQQIPFAGBDSM etc. community about dating, coming out, bathrooms, activism, and anything else that suites your fancy. Location: PAC - PAC 004

Is this a joke?

Um, so yeah

I'm trying to post everyday, but there's not stuff I want to post about happening every day. "Had granola for breakfast. Went to class. Hadn't done half the reading. Went home. Gooffed around and IMed people. Walked dog. Went to bed." yay. I could write a CGI script to post that for me every day.

happy easter

Today is somehwat interesting automatically as it is the holiest day in the xtain calendar. I went to Easter brunch at Emily's house. Emily is an ethno student studying drum and bass. She's exciting. Nick, another ethno student, brought champage and mimosas were made.

Show and tell

That's wlater and Chris. Walter is a grad student. He plays piano and improvises and is very good. He's from Argentina. Chris is a sophomore undergrad. He's the one that brought Peaches to class on tuesday, which is when I took this picture.

That's the inside of my house before the Seder. My house is not as big in the part I've got than it looks in the picture of the whole thign from the outside. And the oven outside on the sidewalk is gone. yay.

This is David after supercollider class. He just got back from the left coast and he says he bought those glasses at a toystore in Portland Oregon, but couldn't tell me which one. David is a geek. David is living on the wrong coast. When he was in SF last week, he was excitedly IMing me about "war driving." Pull up on a side street, see whose wifi network is wide open. Get online. CT is not like that. no.

That's the Olympia Diner. I went there after Supercollider class yesterday with Jess and Tom. Tom is possibly going insane from his thesis, but is very happy UConn won. I once flew on the same plane as the UConn women's volleyball team. I asked them what school they went to. then I asked if they were from Canada or Alaska. Confusing school names.

And last, but not least, this is my housemate Aaron, who is very nifty.

Another letter

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 15:07:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: hi

Dear Celeste,

I'm sorry we didn't get up there for Christi's mom's crafts show. Dad and Grandma came in Saturday afternoon . Dad was exhausted, and slept until noon Sunday, then it started pouring rain, and Granddma didn't want to go out in it . We went out to dinner and she was very uncomfortable. I hope the crafts sale was a big success.I would like to have seen it.Remember the Wiener dog vest? We would probably have bought sometthing.

When can you come for dinner again? This time we'll call ahead for reservations if you would still like to go to Fontana's. yum.

I had some problems logging on to the email. Dad said the problem was with Yahoo.

I love you. Love, Mom

PS, Grandma loves to see you both.

Christi's mom made a vest for my mom with pictures of Mikey, the weiner dog I had as a kid on them. Reading these letters makes me happy. I don't know why I'm posting them. We buried my mom in the weiner dog vest.

Even more letters from mom

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 08:48:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: getting a cold

Dear Celeste and Christi,

I am coming down qith a cold. I 's not terrible but since you have that commute you can't afford to be feeling under par. Let me know if you would like to poatpone it for a day or two.

Grandma appears better than she has in a long time. and is very upset that Dad is selling her car and house and moving her into a home. She is ready to kill Ruby because she says Ruby needlessly exagerated her condition and caused Dad to panic for nothing.This after calling several times a week telling Dad to find her a place. Unfortunately she doesn't remember that, and now Dad and Ruby are the bad guys. sigh

Let me know whether you guys will come today. I thought, since Paul is coming, we could go to Fontana's. Did you get my Welcome Home email? Be sure to let me know how your trip was. Did you fight off any more biker nuns? Love, Mom

Ruby is a relation of my grandma's. I'm not sure how I'm related to her. Fontanas is an Italian place that we went to every single time I saw my parents after I finally said no more Hunan Palace, which is the place we went to every single time for the three previous years.

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:23:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: new job

Dear Celeste ,

I'm glad you are changing jobs. If you are unhappy in a place, raising pay as a bribe to stay on won't make it any better. When do you staet at Netscape? I want to hear about tonight at dinner. You,ll find Grandma better than she's been in long time.It' amazing.

Please excuse errors.

I'm

typing this without my glasses.

Ilove you. See you tonight. Love youu, Mom

Netscape and the doomed-seeming dot com got in a bidding war for me cuz i'm soooo coool. yes.

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 21:41:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: thank you

Dear Christi and Celeste,

Thank you for coming tonight. It was particularly important to Grandma.Didn't you think she seemed better than before? Her new home (if she likes it) will be Sunnyvale Retirement Inn, on Remington. It's acrosss from the Sunnyvale Rec Center, you know, with the park and fountain. It will be very important to visit her frequently, keep calling her, and invite her out often. so she won't feel abandoned. Thank you also, Christi, for salvaging my computer. I thought I had ruined it forever.

Congratulations on your new job, celeste.

Love, Mom

and thus I began taking my grandma out for coffee at Cupertino's Coffee Society once a week, especially since her new residence was near my new job.

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 17:59:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: book

Dear Celeste,

Many thanks for the Feminine Mystique. It will make interesting reading.It arrived today.

I spent until about midnight last night surfing the net. Thanks, Christi, the computer is working better than ever now. It zips along.
Now I'm a cooooooool kitty from Kansas City.

love, mom

Um, so I decideed my mom wasn't liberated enough and sent her a feminist classic from an online bookstore. And I would like to say that my mom was online in '99, before your mom had even heard of the internet, because my mom was cooler than yours. neener neener.

Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 21:37:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: feminism

To the World's Greatest Daughter,

Thank you for the Internet address for feminist materials. I'm starting a folder for your incoming emails, to conserve information. You may have noticed that I have reduced the number of emails sent. I decided that 3 a day may develop a certain nuisance value, especially since you were kind enough to reply to all of them. .

I have sent an email to Paul, suggesting that, since he and Chuck can both burp the alphabet, they should have a contest. They would prepare by drinking a carbonated drink. First to vomit is disqualified. So far he has not responded.(strange, that)

I love you , Mom

hehehehe. chuck is my uncle: my mother's brother. Apparently, I was still trying to liberate her. Um, and that's enough emails for today, yes.

More letters from mom

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:44:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: what is this?

Dear Celeste,

What is this? I don't have any email!

What is happening re your work? I couldn't ask on the phone.I am anxious to hear what you are doing. Hope everything is OK. We're looking forward to seeing both of you tomorrow evening. Love, Mom

I was thinking about quitting my startup dot com job to go work at Netscape

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 12:08:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: welcome home

Hi, Celeste and Christi!

It's Sunday noon, youre' not back yet, but I want you to have message waiting when you get home. Acctually, I'm sure this will be one of many you'll have waiting.

I hope you had a wonderful trip. Wasn't it great to get away for awhile? Drive carefully on the way home and watchfor those biker nuns! You can't be too careful! I want to hear about your trip when you get back. Don't forget to come Tuesday.

Please call when you arrive in Berzerkley.

PAUL HAS REGISTERED AT DE ANZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HE'S taking 11 units of computer (2 classes) df programming. Please, please encourage him. Now is the time for him to create his future.

I am now the new recording sacretary for the Volunteer Committee at the Museum! Wowsah!

oops got to leave for Mass, and I' not dressed

See you soon, love, Mom

Paul is my brother. De Anza is a junior college.

Letters from mom

Posting emails my mom sent me.

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 19:12:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: friendly hello

Dear Celeste and Christi,

How are you? Hope everyone is OK.

Did I tell you that Dad is in Tempe now? He got her into a place in Sunnyvale. They are coming here on Monday so she can check the place out.It is not at all like the one where Grandpa was. She can come and go from this one, as long as they know when she's leaving and returning. Everyone seemed to be friendly and nice;they were all nicely dressed, and most are ambulatory. I saw a couple of walkers and one wheelchair. The only problem I could see is that there are so many ancient ladies. They make the Ladies of Carmel look like spring chickens. But, the place is NOT dead! There was an elderly couple embracing in the hall. It seems they met there! Everyone calls them The Lovebirds.

Why do museums use volunteers as docents? Because they are cheaper by the docent.

Keep in touch. Love, Mom

My grandma lived in Tempe, Arizona, but got sick, so my dad went out to get her and found her a place to stay in Sunnyvale, CA that was assisted living.... and my mom was a docent at the San Jose Historical Museum

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 06:17:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: have a good trip

dear Celeste and Christi,

I hope you have a wonderful trip to Portland. Please call me (collect) when you arrive. I think it will do you both a lot of good to get away for a few days into a completely different environment. Work situations can really get to be the pits. Celeste, I'm praying for you to get into a job that is something you can enjoy and take a pride in, not stressful. Work related stress is a primary source of emotional and physical health problems. Anyway, drive carefully and be careful! All I hear about on the news now is those three women who disappeared on the road between Yosemite and Stockton.

Three of them! So much for safety in numbers.Don't get friendly with anyone on the road, even if ther're nuns! Anyone can rent a nun's outfit (habits, I believe they're called) The old advice about not speaking to strangers is taking on new meanin , especially where women are concerned.

Are you bringing your bowl-shaped sled in case there's snow? Please be sure to say a big hello to Christi's parents.Have a great time! Love, Mom.

My mom was funny... I miss her

Explination of how pitches are picked for avant-happy song

Why? Because it's homework

There exists an overtone array: [ 2, 5, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23]

notes can be constructed from this array as overtones:

2/2 5/4 3/2 7/4 9/8 11/8 13/8 15/8 17/16 19/16/ 21/16 23/16

or the inversions:

2/2 8/5 4/3 16/9 16/11 16/13 16/15 32/17 32/19 32/21 32/23

the three notes played are always adjacent to each other, for example:

17/16, 19/16, 21/16

Melodies are formed by taking a triad, picking one of the ratios to be a pivot, inverting it and then picking adjacent ratios. For example, if we pick 19/16 as the pivot from the above triad, we would invert it to get 32/19. We then pick adjacent ratios. We can take the two ratios above the pivot, the two below the pivot or one on either side. 23 wraps around back to 2 in case we go off the edge of the array. So we could pick

32/19 32/21 32/23

as out next set of triads. then we would pick a pivot from that array, invert and pick adjacent ratios.

Each set of rhythmic patterns for the marimba sound goes through this process and saves the result in an array, so the marimba plays the same triads every time it plays a particular pattern.

The pivot ratio is played a bit louder than the other two. It is also sent to a sustained baseline tone. The adjacent frequencies played by the marimba and are put into another array for the counter-melody.

The counter-melody gets it's pitches from the array created by the marimba routine. It treats this as a FILO queue. It does not play when the marimba is playing or if it's current rhythmic pattern calls for a rest. The length of the note played is the length last used by the marimba.

Some patterns, especially in the first and third section, add more notes to the FILO queue than they leave space for the counter-melody to play them. the patterns in the middle section have a lot of space (and long durations) and the FILO queue may empty by the end of the section.

Signs of spring

So first things first, we've got the current status of my todo list. I'm filing an extension on taxes. My floors are clean. My two short papers are done. woot. still left:

• Write up description of tuning + algorythm for avant happy music (due thursday)
• Write more lab tutorials (asap)
• Ask advisor for resume advice, figure out where to send resume, send it off (asap).
• do paperwork for out of department course (should have done this weeks ago)
• installation idea for first weekend of may symposium (due?)

I went to class this morning and it was lead by Jess because the teacher is still sick and might be out for most of the rest of the semester. We listened to music and discussed it. Some of us brought in stuff to play. One of the two undergrads brought in a CD by a Canadian pop artist called Peaches. It is so low-fi. Her drum beats were cheesy, as were her baselines. Her lyrics were tawdry, but it was still somehow compelling. I was ready to dismiss it when she started singing over and over again "fuck the pain away." Oh my god. right fucking on. Seriously powerful statement, something worth pondering. Deeply angsty. It resonated a deep and powerful chord within me. So I give a thumbs up to Peaches. And I am ready to officially proclaim that angsty music is better than non angsty music almost all of the time. something trvial can be made awesome through use of angst.

Went out later today to do Deep Listening meditation. http://www.deeplistening.org/ I had a hard time getting into it because somebody was playing some bass-heavy music that my heartbeat kept matching, so I kept focussing on it instead of the whole sonic world. But then we went outside in the cold but pretty weather to do something called the Slow Walk. you walk as slowly as possible with your eyes closed while trying to listen with your feet, sicne they're sensitive to vibration. The turf was uneven and rough. My feet felt like they were gripping the ground, even through my shoes. They listened their way along the uneven path. I felt grounded for the first time in forever. when we stopped slow walking, I tried my pagan trick of visualizing tree roots growing out of my feet and a beam of light out the top of my head (connecting to the universe or something). I've been trying this periodically since December. I would end up imagining all the space between myself and the ground, if I was indoors. there were many meters to traverse. And outdoors, well, the ground is really hard. There's prolly cement buried right below the surface. but today, I tried for a moment, and it was right there. I felt like throwing my arms up over my head in joy. Seriously.

Then Angela and I went to Dunkin Donuts. Ironically, this is something to write home about. I said earlier that I'd never been to one, but that was wrong. I went once when I was 16 to buy coffee for folks doing clinic defense at the Sunnyvale Planned Parenthood. they do exist on the left coast, but only in suburban areas.

And finally, there was a seder at my house this evening, lead by Aaron. Much food was made and consumed. Many folks came over. Every dish in the house was eomplyed. Mchu wine was consumed. All good.

Pictures

That's my house in Connecticut. the thing sitting in front of it is an oven. You may wonder where there is an oven sitting in front of my house. I did too. My upstairs neighbor said he thought the landlord left it there. There's always trash in people's yards left out like that. I asked a local woman why folks did that and she said, "because they're renters." but now I know it's the owning class using our yards as temporary dumps. Eventually, it will be big trast pickup day and then and only then will the oven go away. Seriously. Anyway, I live on the first floor of that house.

That's Tom in a customary pose. For some reason, he shaved his head. His thesis is coming very very soon. Maybe he wanted to save the time he used to spend washing and combin his hair?

And lastly, you can acually buy this stuff here. I saw it while going out to get Manischewitz.

Confess

Celeste Hutchins
Mystic Voices
Foucault, Sexuality and Solitude

Foucault makes the point the identity is formed through repression. The self-examination of thoughts required for Christians to confess their sexual sins, including impure thoughts, lead people to develop strong senses of self and sexuality. During her trial, Joan of Arc frequently asked that the bishop hear her confession. However, peasants during her time did not confess frequently. It would have been normal for her to take communion only once or twice a year, thus necessitating few confessions.

Although the correct thing for her to do when she first had visions would be to seek the advice of her confessor, she did not. She heard mass with unusual frequency for a person of her class and took communion frequently enough that it was discussed at her trial. It's difficult to guess how often she went to confession before she decided to "go into France." We know she learned religion solely from her mother, so it may be unlikely that she confessed often.

Nevertheless, Joan of Arc seems to have a complicated gender identity, where she takes on male traits, while retaining female traits. Gender and sexuality are clearly linked. While we can see the technologies of the self that she uses to assume her chosen role, but how she got there remains mysterious. Perhaps her dialog with her visions was a recreation of her dialog with her confessor. When asked about jumping from the tower while in prison, she reports that she was doing penance for the sin of jumping, a penance assigned by her voices. Therefore, she does seem to have a confessional dialog with them, which may have facilitated her forming of gender identity.