you're living on the guest list, up against the big rack

[satyrica]

becoming by necessity something of an expert at tesellating my time at the mo, I managed to catch a showing of 9 songs between work and the DisCard meeting which I found interesting; I find it very interesting that (like Closer) it felt the need to make the main female character American. I can't exactly see this being a bid for transatlantic success a la Four Weddings and I have a suspicion that the reason in both cases is a reluctance to see English women as such nakedly sexual beings, in a way that it's somehow okay to think of those brash Americans as being. The film gave so little away that it was difficult to draw too many hard and fast inferences but I wondered if her being the more obviously sexually-focused of the pair was being linked to her also being the younger. It's main effect, however, was to make me want to go to more gigs where I get to fling myself about like a loon.

this triggered, or at least formed part of, a chain of feelings of dissatisfaction along the familiar pattern of getting the sense of being partially involved in many things but never fully belonging to any of them: this is the almost certainly fallacious pang I get that if only I devoted myself to one group or society or pursuit (Cam/the protest community/gigging and clubbing/getting fucked the whole time like K. does) I'd have much more of a sense of *belonging* somewhere and less of being half-way involved in a hundred different things but not properly immersed in any of them.

right. must get my head round Interregnum. It's been waaay too long since I did sci-fi . . .

Comments

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean to an extent but I do feel that being part of 'many' different groups/sub-cultures/whatever is actually healthier. It broadens your perspective and also gives you alternatives to turn to if the shit hits the fan in one circle of friends or another.

I've always been a 'walker between groups' in this respect. I have immersed myself at times in one thing more than others (be it the Cam, magic, Wicca, goth, etc) but generally kept my hand in all the others at the same time.

As to gigs, you should always try to go to more gigs. I've just put something up on LJ about my 'gig-going' life since I first ventured out into the world of live music many, mnay years ago. Gigs are good :)

I think I'm going to have to see '9 Songs' as from what cryx and yourself have said it sounds very intriguing.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

yeah, I'm sure I'd go crazy if I just immersed mysel in one pursuit but I do kinda pine for it sometimes

intriguing is probably a good word for 9 Songs, it isn't a film I'd urge people to see or describe as good (there's barely anything to it in some respects) but it's certainly a very different kinda cinematic experience (and pretty short to sit through if you can't stand it!)

[essentialsonly.livejournal.com]

being partially involved in many things but never fully belonging to any of them

I can totally relate to this.

I think there is fundamental (bioevolutionary) yearning in most people to *belong* to a tribe. adolescence is so awful partly because you are trying to find it, whilst everyone else seems *more* part of whatever tribe than you. I'm not sure it ever totally leaves us.

The further away from the insecurities of adolescence, the easier it is to accept multiple membership of different subgroups. Merely admitting to liking rock and dance music would have been unthinkable when i was 15! But i think the more divergent (contradictory) those identities are, the more compartmentalised, fragmented, we feel sometimes. I swing wildly between feeling i dont belong anywhere (with half of my identity under-expressed at any one time)& glorying in the ability to have it all and break the mold. For me, having one person (best friend or lover) who shares the mix, gives acceptance & security (continuity?)to make misfit into extraodinary! It only takes 2 to be your own tribe.