le projet d'amour

On emotional output

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 13:38:00 +0000

I’m in the middle of what can only be described as bureaucratic hell. Coupled with personal issues. Coupled with other problems that keep adding up. I know two things about myself: I am emotionally transparent, and that can be a huge flaw (especially in England); but I am also strong. This combination of emotional vulnerability and strength is a trait I’ve seen in others in my family, especially my mum. And it means that when things are tough, we are strange creatures.

But, not so strange too; perhaps really, we are like so many other women, because we are expected to be. I’ve been thinking today about emotional output. You see, in academia, there is a lot of talk about ‘output’; publications, research, teaching metrics, etc., etc., etc. This is easy to measure (if somewhat simplistic in its assumption that we can indeed measure learning and knowledge and critical thinking and the development of a human mind in such neat metrics and concrete output – but never mind, this post really isn’t about academia per se, and you’ve heard these arguments before, and no one really cares about them, and this is the way the world turns, etc.etc.etc.). What is not easy to measure, and indeed, what rarely gets acknowledged, is the amount of emotional output required to teach, to believe in another human being for whom you ostensibly owe no emotional output (i.e. they are not your child or family member), and to sacrifice for them in a time in your life when your own immediate concerns are just as pressing.

Which is why I’ve been both comforted and simultaneously annoyed, if that’s possible, by this speech by David Foster Wallace. If you have time, watch it in full, it’s worth it.

Let me tell you why I’m annoyed: I agree with what he says, I agree with the basic, humane, no bullshit capital ‘T-truth’ of it. I also believe that this capital T-truth plays out differently for men and women. You see, when he says that the ‘really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day’, I agree with him. But, isn’t it funny how this form of petty little unsexy and daily sacrifice usually gets thrust onto women as an assumption and expectation?

I don’t think I deserve a gold star or a cookie for those petty little unsexy sacrifices. Indeed, I have chosen to be emotionally invested in my job, and I can stop, if I re-frame my mind. But I won’t re-frame my mind. This decision I have made makes my life more difficult, and means I weigh the ethics of what I do on a daily basis more carefully. It means that I exert more emotional output than perhaps others do who may not approach the job like me. I resent none of this; I have a brain, I have education, I have other privileges, and I have made an informed decision to view what I do from a particular ethical position. This is who I am and the bargain I have made in life. But what I do resent is the assumption that all women, by default, are hard-wired to make this decision to deliver emotional output freely.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting this is David Foster Wallace’s position. Hell, I’m sure he would be horrified to see the kind of demi-god he has been turned into. The combined annoyance and comfort I feel when listening to his speech is however a general annoyance at the lack of recognition of emotional output as genuine work that is a decision just like any other; a decision to invest time, energy, and productivity that is grounded in a thinking mind, not a biological imperative. This is the way the world turns...

That’s how the light gets in

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 11:52:00 +0000

I couldn’t sleep last night (or should I say, early this morning), as I wasn’t feeling well. But I also had another feeling something was wrong. What could be more wrong than the terrible news from America (let’s not talk about it, expletives will come out of my mouth if I attempt to)? I picked up my phone and checked my social media and read that Leonard Cohen had died.

No doubt there will be a flood of opinion pieces, blog posts, articles and tributes online about him. I find myself wanting to write something too, but at a loss, because it feels like he has said all the words and there they stand, needing no accessories.

Instead, I find myself drawn to people’s personal stories, drawn from his words, or around them, such as my friend Will’s beautiful blog post here. I would share a long story of my own that is and is not about Cohen, but I feel I am still not brave enough to write it. So instead, I’ll share a shorter one: this morning as my neighbour was getting ready for work, he played Leonard Cohen. I thumped the wall in sympathy, as we sometimes do living in flats to show signs of life. He thumped back, and I felt this wordless noise was enough.

All I can think now is, tell me again how this poetry thing is not about the blood and guts of life?

There is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic...

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 14:37:00 +0000

I came across this video of Maya Angelou on facebook today via my friend Kate Forsyth (whose own discussions about what reading/writing have meant for her and her childhood are equally moving). This is profound in so many ways, so I decided to transcribe what she says in this video below.

Angelou is basically speaking my personal ethics here. I won’t deny that like many academics, I’ve been questioning what higher education has become and worried about the directions knowledge has been fed into. It feels like the entire world is being streamlined into some soulless dystopian vision of capitalist utilitarianism sometimes, and I wonder what it is we leave behind in this pursuit. I wonder if it’s our essential humanity. So this video is an important reminder to me.

It reminds me of things I often discuss with my students: one is that cynicism is the easy way out, even if life is hard and you feel like the system is against you. It’s still the easy way out. Cynicism requires nothing out of you. Idealism and believing in something is hard and painful – it can tear you apart and make you feel things you don’t want to. But it’s like love – living without it seems a soulless existence.

Secondly, it reminds me that literature, and art, and reading, and writing, yes – they do save lives. No, this is not an indulgence. As a teacher, I’m not in the business of creating productive little units for the workplace alone. My job’s greater aim is to help human beings remain human beings – to remind them that this world of literature opens up a world of knowledge and human fallibility, joy, pain. And armed with this world, you move within the ‘real’ one a richer person, more equipped to deal with the difficulty of life. I truly believe in this, because I can point to specific texts I’ve read that have electrified me, that have saved me, that have helped shape who I am. I can’t imagine my life without this element – and I can’t imagine it without having gone to university to be introduced to these texts.

I know the education I had was a privilege. I remind my students that their own education is one too. Often, when you are really young, going to university feels like a burden or a necessary step required by society. It’s easy to forget what a true privilege it is – it’s easy to forget how many people around the world simply don’t have this privilege, some of whom are literally dying and fighting for it. There is so much that is wrong with the world, and education shows you how to battle this – it is not simply a piece of paper for your CV. Jobs are fleeting things in the end, the core of your humanity is not.

Here’s the transcription (but I suggest listening to Angelou say these words herself here):

“When I was seven and a half, I was raped. I won’t say severely raped, all rape is severe. The rapist was a person very well known to my family. I was hospitalised. The rapist was let out of jail and was found dead that night. And the police suggested that the rapist had been kicked to death. I was seven and a half. I thought that I had caused the man’s death because I had spoken his name. That was my seven and a half year old logic. So I stopped talking for five years.

Now, to show you again how out of evil there can come good, in those 5 years I read every book in the black school library, I read all the books I could get from the white school library, I memorised Shakespeare, whole plays, 50 sonnets. I memorised Edgar Allan Poe, all the poetry. Never having heard it, I memorised it. I had Longfellow, I had Guy De Maupassant, I had Balzac, I had Rudyard Kipling. When I decided to speak, I had a lot to say, and many ways in which to say what I had to say.

So out of this evil, which was a dire kind of evil, because rape on the body of a young person, more often than not introduces cynicism. And there is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic. Because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case I was saved in that muteness. And I was able to draw from human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, enough to triumph myself.”

A letter to my students

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 11:14:00 +0000

‘It set him free,’ said Lee. ‘It gave him the right to be a man, separate from every other man.’
‘That’s lonely.’
‘All great and precious things are lonely.’
‘What is the word again?’
‘Timshel—thou mayest.’

― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

* * *

Last night I was thinking about your graduation, and I fell asleep thinking of smoothing the world out for you. Quite literally. I had a dream in which I was ironing out white sheets – sheet after sheet, endlessly. And then I realised the sheets were the world. It is a lovely metaphor, clean and simple. But we know life is rarely either.

To use another metaphor, I wish sometimes the world was like a slot machine in which you could insert things like passion, spirit, compassion, enthusiasm, and receive your reward, neatly packaged up. But it isn’t. And to be honest with you, you probably don’t want it to be. The best things have come to me through anger, frustration, exhaustion, and sacrifice. Including this job and getting to meet and teach you.

This is a short letter; no doubt you will hear many words of advice in the coming weeks as you supposedly ‘enter’ the ‘real’ world. My view is that you are already a part of it. I hope the degree you have earned will help you navigate this world in which you live, and love, and get angry. But most of all, I hope it has given you a deeper sense of your worth. You are more than a job, a salary, or a social status marker. You are a human being. It has been a privilege knowing you, because you are such excellent human beings – flawed and fantastic like the rest of us.

Thou mayest, and thou can, and thou should – or, to use another one of my favourite lines ever, ‘To burn always with that hard gem-like flame and to maintain this ecstasy is success in life’ (Walter Pater). Don’t lose your flame, whatever you go on to do.

90s babies

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 11:30:00 +0000

I got highlights in my hair the other day. They are quite subtle and barely noticeable. Only I can really see them glinting beneath the layers of darker hair. They aren’t really a fashion statement, or an aesthetic choice to flatter myself. I got bored with myself (note, this is different from saying I am bored – I could do with being bored right now, too much freaking work). So I repeat, I am bored with myself. And so, I’ve been looking at photos of me, some from high school.

There are a few photos from the 90s, where I decided, for some stupid reason, to get blonde streaks. I remember the straw like texture of those bleached blonde highlights, and my shrunken t-shirts. I had two, one baby blue, one white, that I wore constantly to the point where my English teacher said to me he was very well acquainted with my belly button (note, English teachers can’t get away with saying that kind of stuff these days, but he was the best teacher, without whom I wouldn’t have done English at uni). And my hand-me-down sweatshirts and jeans from my brother and a skinny guy friend the same age as me who would give me his jeans when he knew I couldn’t afford new ones. He also gave me a black sweatshirt that I wore to death until, like all good things, it disintegrated into a mass of holes, and smelt like the pot from the lawn where we ate our lunch. RIP black, pot-smelling sweatshirt. To be fair, most of our clothes smelt like pot, you couldn’t really avoid the smell attaching itself to you in my school.

I remember how I would sit in his room and sew the bottom of the jeans, listening to Pink Floyd and Nirvana. And how we would put patches on our jeans from leftover fabric scraps stolen from our mothers. I remember the god awful clothes we all wore that made us look homeless. I remember raiding second-hand stores, because they were all the rage, and really, because they were all we could afford. I remember wearing them while watching Rage on TV (Aussies, you know what I mean – ahh, the nostalgia!). Fashion was utterly terrible, and also, utterly easy in the 90s for me. I often wonder whether it’s harder to be a teenager now – it seems like so much work. Whereas what we had was bad haircuts, bad bleached hair with dark eyebrows. I had purple lipstick that smelt like rubber. Shrunken t-shirts, and lots of flannel. Hand-me-down jeans. The same pair of Doc Martens.

Long live grunge. I may lighten my hair more noticeably. I may also go on a Nirvana binge. Go on 90s babies, join me.

(Image credits: Image 1; Image 2; Images 3-5.)

Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 16:29:00 +0000

I bought this painting by the artist Tali today. It was an impulse purchase. I’m not given to buying things impulsively, as living for so many years with little money means I tend to spend ages thinking about every little purchase I make, even when I’m now on a full-time salary. But I bought it impulsively for two reasons. The first one is because things are quite terrible right now, from all ends, and it made me feel better, momentarily. But secondly, and more importantly, because the girl in the painting is the exact image of how I pictured a fictional character I loved when I was a teenager.

I remember reading a book when I was a teenager, visiting my relatives in Israel, who had black hair and was falling in love with a Russian immigrant. I remember one passage in which she was eating soup and he pulled her black hair from her soup. The perfect material for a teenage crush. But I was equally in love with her as I was with him (as you can only be when you are a teenager). The expression in the girl’s eyes is something I love too. It’s not often you come across a visual manifestation that aligns with a readerly one created by your mind. But when it happens, it feels like magic. This is reason enough to buy a painting, I think.

I hope that when I receive her in the mail, she will make me feel better – like anything is possible, and like big problems have solutions, and like magic is not lost in my life.

2015

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:05:00 +0000

Each time I visit this blog it is with a sense of guilt and sadness. I wonder if I should just remove it and let it die a dignified end, or leave it here to linger slowly. Until I decide, it is stuck in limbo.

Well, 2015 is nearly over. I am proud of many things I did this year, including contributing two poems to this poetry book collection, being a finalist for ELLE magazine’s 2015 Talent Writing Competition, signing a book contract, adoring my niece (even though I had nothing to do with her creation, I feel my adoration is an achievement in itself), giving talks at the BFI and The National Theatre, sponsoring more donkeys and a puppy, getting to know colleagues better, occasionally going out on a date despite myself, signing up for ballet classes (a recent venture), making my English home a bit more cosy and me, perfecting the art of chicken soup, visiting The Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth, receiving messages, emails, cards and spoken thank yous from students, not dying from marking every spare moment of my existence, and hopefully, being a decent person (with the occasional lapses).

This list does not, of course, take into account the many days in the past year I wanted to give up, was so tired I couldn’t even bother to eat, felt stress caving in around me, experienced loneliness like never before, and questioned every one of my life choices. I would like to suggest 2016 will be easier, but I live under no such delusion. Resilience, I’m learning, is as much a skill as writing.

Take care friends, I hope you see this year out safely. And I leave you with a final request for 2015. I’m fundraising for Yad Vashem, to help raise money that goes towards recording Holocaust survivors’ testimonies. It costs $1,500 to record just one testimony, and these are of vital historical importance. Yad Vashem primarily relies on public donations and support rather than government funding, and so I urge everyone to please donate and spread the word. There will be a permanent link on my blog sidebar for this soon.

Be kind, 2016.

Wonder

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 10:35:00 +0000

Last night I celebrated Havdalah with a bunch of great people by going on a small boat cruise on the River Soar. Havdalah is a Jewish religious ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat and begins the new week. We often conclude it by saying ‘shavua tov’ – ‘have a good week’. The distinction between Shabbat, the day of rest, and the working week, is becoming increasingly important to me. I’m also realising how much common sense there is to the spiritual practices that I’ve taken for granted.

I think in academia in particular, there is a tendency to conflate your identity, who you think you are and your sense of self, with your job. But I am not a job. I am not very good though at making this distinction all the time, just like I’m not very good at maintaining the distinction between the day of rest and the working week. I am a workaholic, and this is not news to anyone who knows me. If you’ve been fighting for a particular job for so many years, once you do get it, there is a tendency to ‘pay back’ your gratitude via overworking. But ultimately, as I’ve found, this is counter-productive to doing this job well. A job only works as a job when you learn to maintain perspective about it.

This made me think of a couple of things last night. Firstly, a comment I saw on a friend’s Facebook post (I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning it here): this comment described how Rabbi Abraham Heschel argues that religion begins from wonder, and that this wonder is integral to ethics in our lives. I do remember discussing this a few years ago with someone. Interestingly, it made me think of Susan Sontag’s famous line that, ‘Cinema began in wonder’.

Last night, as I was watching the calmness of the water and sunset with a glass of Kiddush wine in my hand and a man playing the guitar next to me, I thought of both of these wonders. I wondered if my natural inclination towards researching cinema within my academic discipline and job is related to my wonder at basic things about the world: how is the water this calm and still, how is someone able to play the guitar this well, how is the rain this beautiful from the confines of a boat, and why do I find so much wonder in a religion that I simultaneously interrogate with that same curiosity that drives my research?

Okay then, maybe my job and my life are connected, integrally. Maybe it’s naive to think I can separate the day of rest from the working week so neatly and philosophically. But maybe that day of rest exists to remind me of that wonder, and so I need to protect it, even in small ways.

Two things

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 15:12:00 +0000

What’s this, I hear you say, another blog post only a few days after the last one? Actually, you’re probably not saying that because nobody reads this blog any more (or blogs in general, apparently, and sadly).

Anyway, if you are reading, my last two readers, I have to bring to your attention these two things, about which I have little add, because they are eloquent on their own.

Oliver Sacks: Sabbath

The last paragraph in particular makes my heart ache:

“And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.”

On my new lifestyle

“I’m not that kind of woman, I want to say to the people who look at me as if I am a woman with a dog in a bag. I want to gesture, to explain, but they’ll probably look at the bag, which has a dog’s head sticking out of it. The face of the dog-head will be making an expression like Andy Rooney would make if he was riding the subway in a bag. And the fact of that dog-head will surely trump anything I have to say about what kind of a woman I am, or what kind of dog I have in a bag, even though it is not a dog that was born for a bag. So I won’t say it. I’ll just pet the dog in my bag and think: I guess I’m not so afraid of commitment.”

(Jean writes posts that hide so much warmth and intelligence behind humour. Or should I say, not hide, but display them through humour?)

Jean also has a newsletter you should totally sign up for.

The Aussie literary scene

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 11:17:00 +0000

When I lived in Perth, there would be the odd phone call from Eastern states companies calling at what were obscene times of the day in Perth. You’d never believe the degree of surprise, cluelessness, or simply thoughtlessness in response to the annoyance they received on the line from someone who happens to live in Perth and does not share the same hour of the day as them. ‘Why are you angry?’ Err, because Australia does not revolve around Eastern states clocks and perhaps you should have checked the time difference before waking me up (especially if you’re a professional business – act like it)? It’s a simple gesture to check what time it is in the city you are calling, my life revolves around this act now that I live in England; my life has always revolved around this act living in Perth, whether I was trying to contact someone in another state/city, or another country.

I also remember listening, numerous times, to my parents’ own frustration on the line with Eastern states companies. Many companies within Australia don’t ship standard art supplies (and numerous other products) to Perth, did you know that? Since my parents own an art business, I do. I’ve listened many times to their conversations with companies, with lines such as ‘you are aware Perth is part of Australia, aren’t you’, being sarcastically trotted out. Who could blame them. This is not even mentioning event organisers who refuse to acknowledge you exist as an artist because you don’t live in the Eastern states, as my mother has found out too many times.

We’re not talking about simply the logistics of geography. Sure, Australia is a huge country and Perth is one of the most isolated cities in the world. Businesses, rightly or wrongly, make business decisions that often cut us off from the rest of Australia (and the rest of the world) to save money (I’m pointing the finger at you, Qantas). Capitalism is as capitalism does. But I’m also talking about a wider issue here – a cultural, artistic and national definition of what it means to be Australian and who is included in that discussion.

Let’s look at the jokes about Perth. Hands up if you’ve grown up in Perth and went to the Eastern states, only to hear the smug, self-congratulatory jokes about your ‘backwater’ of a city and its bogan inhabitants? Look, we Perthites also make these jokes, but we make them lovingly. Even when my friends and I legitimately and seriously critique the problems in Perth, we do so from a position of knowing the city and its people and wanting it to be better because we love it and have grown up there. It is a little bit different when it comes out of the mouths of others.

We all know the problems in Perth: the lack of jobs, the lack of opportunities, the ridiculously high cost of living, the insular attitudes. These are problems faced Australia-wide, yet we are rarely included in the wider national discussion about them, as if this insignificant ‘backwater’ has nothing to add. Economically though, it was fine to ride on the back of our mining boom. You’d understand then why so many in Perth felt this stank of hypocrisy. I find this hypocrisy about as productive or intelligent as the old ‘Sydney vs. Melbourne’ as ‘best city in Australia’ debate. Let me remind you, there are more than two cities in Australia – it is, as I said, a huge country with diverse people.

All of this is a way of introducing a more specific topic within this wider one. I’ve been having long and thoughtful email conversations with writer friends in Perth about the concept of the ‘Aussie literary scene’. More specifically, about how much harder Perth writers have to work just to get their foot in the door with the holy grail of the Eastern states literary scene, where most of the writing gigs and publishing opportunities tend to be. Whether this is acknowledged outright or simply implied, let’s face it, our literary scene is dominated by writers primarily from the Eastern states. Or at least, it is so in the public imagination and ideological conception of the Aussie literary scene, if not in actual statistics. For example, Melbourne is highly regarded as a literary, cultural and artistic centre; Perth is regarded as a cultural backwater. Perhaps these stereotypes have a reason and a truth to them. But they are also recreated and perpetuated by individual and collective practices of writer and editorial communities within the Eastern states.

What do I mean by this? I can only direct you to the lived experience of writers I know in Perth, and a little bit of my own. They fall into the headings of geography, perception and convenience.

Geography: Put simply, a writer growing up in the Eastern states has more opportunities over one in Perth. Being a writer is not easy wherever you happen to live in the world, I think we can all agree on that. But for an Australian writer who wishes to stay in Perth, it’s slim pickings. Not just because Perth itself needs to more aggressively and passionately develop its own literary scene, but also because editors, writers and literary communities in the Eastern states tend to function through cliques that perhaps unwittingly or unthinkingly privilege Melbourne and Sydney writers, and you often feel like the uncool kid in school trying to join the cool gang (and pathetically taking the bread crumbs where they fall). I’m not saying this to be mean or to suggest that I’ve not had supportive and excellent relationships with Eastern states writers and editors. In fact some of my own life experience would negate what I just wrote. But my life experience is just that, only mine.

The geographical politics of this is that Australian literature has, in my opinion, narrowed in focus to the experiences of those who live in certain parts of Australia. I see the same voices in literary magazines and journals. I see the same types of people getting freelancing gigs and columns by media outlets. I see the same people talking to each other online (and if you join in their conversations, there isn’t the same level of intimacy because you are not really part of their community). I worry that geographical distance is making our literary scene insular – and insularity is a problem that I see facing Australians in general. We have to fight it because we are actually so smart and talented. We really are.

Perception: I don’t generally think Australian editors and writers think of you any less or are less willing to give your work a chance, individually speaking, simply because you are not from the Eastern states. In fact, I find the idea quite silly. However, I do think many work under (what I hope is!) an unintentional perception of what literature and writing are based on the instinctual intimacy and knowingness that comes from working with people who share your life experiences and your immediate world.

The terrain of your city, even your suburb or individual home, is its own little universe. The terrain of your Australianness is likewise its own diverse thing. It is human nature to reach for the familiar, for those who reflect your world to you. I do the same too. I also try to challenge myself with the opposite, but this is a conscious act that requires hard work and requires risks. This relates to the next issue of convenience.

Convenience: I’ve been an editor, and still am one. When you have a million deadlines, when you need to get an issue out, when you have other projects of your own you need to attend to, it is so much simpler to fall back on your ‘go to’ writers. I see nothing wrong with this. I’ve become one of those ‘go to’ writers for some of my editors, and let me tell you, I worked damn hard to reach this position – I’ve proven myself. You establish those relationships through hard work, mostly. But I don’t live in a fairy tale of meritocracy where I don’t realise that privilege and convenience come into play too. It requires a conscious, dedicated and responsible effort on the part of editors to not simply give new voices a chance, but to actively seek them out and encourage them, even when they are hiding or hidden. If you are not willing to do that as an editor, you have no business being one. You are doing yourself, your writers, your community and your readers a disservice.

I understand that if you are an editor in Melbourne, for example, it’s just easier to reach for your Melbourne writers, whom you’ve probably known for years, whom are now your friends, whom you went to university with, whom you see at regular literary events and parties, with whom you socialise and share ideas and have coffee and watch your kids grow up. Writers in Perth, or other Australian cities, cannot compete with that, and we know that. We know we have to break the barrier of convenience and perception in order to get our foot in the door. Perhaps some of us give up too easily; but perhaps there needs to be a wider gap in the door. Perhaps convenience is the killer of diversity.

There’s a part of me that feels bad in writing this, mainly because people have been incredibly kind to me (even when I didn’t deserve it), have given me chances, and have allowed me to get my foot in the door. There was also a lot of shit behind the scenes, but I won’t go there because it’s irrelevant now. I don’t seek to create an ‘us vs. them’ debate here. Only to speak honestly about some things that concern me. I feel emotionally and professionally invested in Australia, even if I live in England now. I feel we are so much better than we think we are. So maybe we should be having these difficult conversations more often. After all, we critique that which we love most.

Jane Eyre on Stage and Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:56:00 +0000

I’m giving a talk at the National Theatre in London in September, so if anyone would like to buy tickets and spread the word, please do so! Here are the details:

Jane Eyre on Stage and Screen
Friday 11 September, 4 - 5.30pm
Cottesloe Room, Clore Learning Centre
£5 (£4 concessions)

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

In this richly illustrated talk Dr Hila Shachar explores some of the many and varied adaptations of this classic novel. Film, TV and stage productions have approached the story in different ways from the conventional romance to a social drama of class and gender. Starting with stage productions soon after its publication in the 19th century, Dr Shachar will consider how adaptations of Jane Eyre are often a barometer of the times.

Feel free to share widely and I hope to actually meet some of my online London buddies in September.

Gracia also shared this review on her blog, which features some lovely words about one of the zines I did with her and Louise:

“Taking inspiration from contemporary artists, the duo has engaged and commissioned others to participate in the making of new work. Writer Hila Shachar provided the poetic text, Evening Postcard, an enthralling tribute to the night, which features in It’s the Dusty Hour, (August 2012). This enchanting zine, hand-stitched with a single piece of golden thread, presents spirited animals that occupy a series of interior spaces. These worlds are at once theatrical and delicate, presenting readers and print lovers alike with the perfect escape: animated wonderlands inhabited by enthralling narrative.”

Click here for the full article.

And no biggie, but today is my one year anniversary since moving to England. I have been here for a year and slightly terrified at how quickly this year has gone. It has been a difficult and life-changing year, but I don’t regret the decision to move here. I’m still in the middle of end of term madness, marking, and far too many deadlines with editors. But when I have the chance to collect my thoughts, I suspect some words will be written about this year.

Image credit: Jane Eyre poster from the National Theatre website.

Sink and swim

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 18:15:00 +0000

Just a quick note to say I’ve written and published this article over on Medium. It was a difficult write, and I really don’t have much more to say on it here.

Words, and more words

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 15:32:00 +0000

I haven’t been here in a while and it is not due to lack of wanting but lack of time. We are nearing the end of the teaching year here in England – there will be a few more weeks of teaching, and I will most likely be marking non-stop till the end of May, but I can see the end. While the end of this, my first teaching year here, is most welcome in the sense that this year has been simply nuts in terms of workload, I am genuinely sad at the thought of not seeing my students each week. It’s almost cliché to say it, but I like them – I like them as people, I like them even when they frustrate me, and I like encountering other minds encountering texts I know and love for the first time.

So it seems appropriate to me to visit this space on World Poetry Day, which is today, and bombard you with words I love just as I feel I have been bombarded this year with so many things I love, yet so much pain and homesickness and adjusting to a new life. I want to write more and perhaps in a few months when things settle down and the university is quiet and the students have left for their summer holiday, the writing will once again dominate my life as teaching has dominated it for the past few months. But I find I like this ‘domination’. I always thought of myself as a person who loves order and who feels overwhelmed by chaos. I always thought that people exhaust me too much simply because I am shy and introverted. But this year, I feel that despite the stress, I have found a purpose, and I have sometimes enjoyed the exhaustion for what it is rather than fighting against it.

So here’s to words and more words, and to students and more students.

P.S. I have passed my probation period and am now a permanent member of staff at my university. This still seems like fiction, like a fantasy. Perhaps typing it out will make it seem real. I often return to this photo and stare at it early in the morning to convince myself of my new reality:

P.P.S I have nearly been in England for a year, can you believe it?

The more things change?

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 18:23:00 +0000

I was waiting for the bus early one morning last week, really really tired, and really really cold. And wet. Mid-way through the rain, it turned into snow and I could feel my fingers going numb from under my gloves. I started swearing in my head at that stage and wishing I could just crawl into bed for a week.

Because it will soon be International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my mind drifted to other people who stood in the snow. I forgot how cold I was and felt rather stupid and selfish.

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately: what it must have felt like, physically, emotionally and psychologically, to be in the snow, with little protection, in those camps. To feel that abandoned by the world. To be that naked with no one to care. How do human beings endure that? Our bodies and minds are not built for that kind of assault. It shocks me every time I think about it, and that shock never wears off.

Each year we say ‘never again’ and each year we mean it, but also, we know it’s not the truth. Because the only thing that protects Jews from ‘never again’ is not the goodwill or benevolence of the world which has learnt its lesson, but our own determined self-protection. You don’t need to look very far to know that the world has not only not learnt its lesson, but is mutating and expanding anti-Semitism in varied new directions.

Yesterday, the UN held its first-ever meeting on anti-Semitism. It took till 2015 for them to do that. What the hell were they waiting for, exactly? The more things change, the more they stay the same.**

I don’t want to remember the Holocaust for my own sake, or the sake of present Jews alone. But simply, for the sake of those whom the world failed to protect, those who were turned into numbers, standing alone in the snow.

**I leave you with illustrative and necessary reading:

‘The Jewish situation, too, is marked by a disjuncture between what we say about ourselves and what is said about us.’

Belgian public schools becoming ‘Jew-free’ zones.

‘My great uncle Alex led a wonderful life after the war as an art dealer, but, as I said, he never again trusted the country that had betrayed him so badly. When I asked once why he refused to keep his paintings in a bank vault, preferring instead to keep them hidden in his house, he replied: “Because they always come for the Jews.” Plus ça change.’

‘What will it take for progressives to understand in their bones that Jew-hatred can never be one whit more defensible than any other racial insanity? A competitive number of Jewish bodies? Will resolutions flow now through academic associations calling for sanctions against Jew-hating institutions? Why is there any hesitation about protecting a vulnerable and long-devastated people—even when the Jewish State commits its own crimes? Is there always to be an asterisk about racism, where the attached footnote reads: Jews need not apply?’

‘The silence that descended on Paris on the eve of Shabbat, after the echoes of shootings in the north and east of the city quieted down, was not light. It was thick, strangling, burdensome.’

Averting the gaze

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:56:00 +0000

I recently saw a facebook friend, who is Jewish, write that she and other Jews feel abandoned by the left. It’s a sentiment that isn’t unique to her, I’ve heard many of my fellow left-wing Jews express similar sentiments, as have I. We are not really wanted on the left anymore unless we swear a loyalty oath against Israel. Black and white versions of the world, loyalty oaths, boycotts, simplifying human beings and their complex relationships to their various cultural and religious identities, their homes and their families, etc., seems to me to work against what the left has always represented to me. But now I’m starting to wonder whether I ever was considered part of the camaraderie of ‘acceptance’, or whether that acceptance has always been conditional on being a ‘good Jew’, defined mainly by non-Jews.

I don’t think I need to explain why it’s not up to non-Jews to tell Jews what they should or should not feel about their religion, or culture, or even about Israel. Nor do I think I need to explain why non-Jews don’t have a right to place us into ‘good Jews’ and ‘bad Jews’ categories where they set the boundaries of acceptance and belonging and make them contingent on selective criteria. You don’t walk up to any minority and make them tokenistic emblems, or require loyalty oaths from them, or set conditions about their very own identity. But yet, this all seems to be acceptable practice in most left-wing events I’ve attended, and seems to be the status quo in the kind of behaviour I see on social media.

In my stupidity, I expected there to be a large response from my non-Jewish left-wing twitter feed or facebook friends about the recent anti-Semitic attack in Paris. But instead, the silence was deafening. It’s a pattern I should be used to by now – I usually only see my Jewish friends react or condemn when such events occur. Which is in stark contrast to my feed when any other minority group is targeted in a similar hateful and murderous way. I have raised this before with non-Jewish left-wing friends, trying to explain to them, on a really basic level, why we feel abandoned by the left. The response tends to be that not everyone has to react to every single injustice, that people can’t always react publicly to everything. There is truth in that – after all, I myself don’t always have the energy, the time, or even the knowledge to react to every single injustice – and sometimes I may condemn something without feeling the need to make it public all the time (after all, my principles and my ethics aren’t a public performance, so not everything is up for public consumption). But there is something else going on here.

This pattern is consistent for a reason. The left-wing gaze is consistently averting its eyes from contemporary anti-Semitism as if it doesn’t exist, or is simply not as relevant as other injustices. As if Jews don’t have a genuine reason to be afraid just like any other minority group that is under attack. If I want to actually be informed about what’s going on in worldwide and in particular, European, anti-Semitism, I have to actively seek it out in Jewish press.

I’m sure that for every line I’ve written here, there is an example that contradicts what I’ve said. God, I hope so, please prove me wrong. But at the same time, many of us left-wing Jews are saying similar things to what I’ve said above, and maybe it’s time people started believing us.

I have closed comments on this post for obvious reasons.

Sivan and snow

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 22:26:00 +0000

Today, Sivan, my niece, was born in Australia. It began snowing here in England in big fluffy flakes soon after. I don’t think this is a coincidence. The best way I know how to show love is through words, so it was also not a coincidence that my first instinct was to write a poem. I wish I was good – I mean really good, good enough to use these words and write poems that capture exactly what I feel, the intensity of it, and the wonder, and not just the shadow of these. I doubt I ever will be, that greatness seems to be reserved for a few. But so what, it’s better to say something, no?

So this is for Sivan, who came with snow. Welcome to the world, little one.

Sivan and snow

There are many symbols
I would have chosen for you,

but today, you came,
followed by diagonal lines
falling from the sky

until today, I did not know
they had their own sound.

The large criss-crossing ones
landed like locks of hair
the smaller buzzing ones
that came an hour later

congregated on my windowsill
melted into water
and clung as breath to glass.

I think of you
all new and fresh
warmer, yet as swooshing
and clumsy as these lines.

I think of the world
that is out there for you,

and hope that like this
fragility,
you will be strong enough to melt
malleable enough to fall
and ever-suspended in
the beauty.

2015

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:31:00 +0000

I present you with a (bad) selfie at the close of 2014. I keep looking at this photo because it’s hard to believe I’m the same person. This year has been an upheaval in different ways. I miss so many things. I also miss writing here, and simply writing because I want to, not because I have to.

Last year, I ended the year with a blog post on this film, quoting the last letters of Missak Manouchian and Marcel Rayman. I would like to quote them again; they insert a sense of perspective on everything. At the very least, they remind me of who I am and how that will never change, despite upheaval. They also remind me as the year closes that I am quite insignificant, and it’s okay.

Missak Manouchian’s last words in a letter to his wife, Melinée:

My dear Melinée, my beloved little orphan,

In a few hours I will no longer be of this world. We are going to be executed today at 3:00. This is happening to me like an accident in my life; I don’t believe it, but I nevertheless know that I will never see you again.

What can I write you? Everything inside me is confused, yet clear at the same time.

I joined the Army of Liberation as a volunteer, and I die within inches of victory and the final goal. I wish for happiness for all those who will survive and taste the sweetness of the freedom and peace of tomorrow. I’m sure that the French people, and all those who fight for freedom, will know how to honour our memory with dignity. At the moment of death, I proclaim that I have no hatred for the German people, or for anyone at all; everyone will receive what he is due, as punishment and as reward. The German people, and all other people, will live in peace and brotherhood after the war, which will not last much longer. Happiness for all ... I have one profound regret, and that’s of not having made you happy; I would so much have liked to have a child with you, as you always wished. So I’d absolutely like you to marry after the war, and, for my happiness, to have a child and, to fulfil my last wish, marry someone who will make you happy. All my goods and all my affairs, I leave them to you and to my nephews. After the war you can request your right to a war pension as my wife, for I die as a regular soldier in the French army of liberation.

With the help of friends who’d like to honour me, you should publish my poems and writings that are worth being read. If possible, you should take my memory to my parents in Armenia. I will soon die with 23 of my comrades, with the courage and the serenity of a man with a peaceful conscience; for, personally, I’ve done no one ill, and if I have, it was without hatred. Today is sunny. It’s in looking at the sun and the beauties of nature that I loved so much that I will say farewell to life and to all of you, my beloved wife, and my beloved friends. I forgive all those who did me evil, or who wanted to do so, with the exception of he who betrayed us to redeem his skin, and those who sold us out. I ardently kiss you, as well as your sister and all those who know me, near and far; I hold you all against my heart. Farewell. Your friend, your comrade, your husband,

Manouchian Michel

P.S. I have 15,000 francs in the valise on the rue de Plaisance. If you can get it, pay off all my debts and give the rest to Armenia. MM

Marcel Rayman’s last letter to his mother and brother, Simon:

Little mother,

When you read this letter, I’m sure it will cause you extreme pain, but I will have been dead for a while, and you’ll be consoled by my brother who will live happily with you and give you all the joy I would have liked to give you.

Forgive me for not writing at greater length, but we are all so joyful that it’s impossible to think of the pain you will feel. I can only say one thing, and that’s that I love you more than anything in the world, and I would have liked to live for your sake alone. I love you, I kiss you, but words can’t describe what I feel.

Your Marcel who adores you and who’ll think of you up to the last minute. I adore you, and long live life.

My dear Simon. I’m counting on you to do all I can’t do myself. I kiss you, I adore you, I’m content, live happily and make Mama happy the way I would have had I lived. Live the beautiful and joyful life that you will all have. Tell all my friends and comrades that I love them all. Don’t pay any attention if my letter is crazy, but I can’t remain serious. I love everyone and long live life. Let everyone live happily.

Marcel

Maman and Simon I love you and would love to see you again.

Reading women

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:42:00 +0000

Everything is neglected in my life, including my meal intakes and sleep. But also, this blog, making phone calls to my grandparents, and just the general ‘bits’ of life that make your life more than work and actually bearable. I won’t complain, this year was never going to be easy. But I am annoyed that one of my ‘side projects’, the Women Writers Reading Group, is so neglected by me in particular.

I was reminded this week of the emotions that sparked this ‘project’ (or, whatever the hell it is now – a big flop?). I was talking to someone about how hard it is to get guys, especially young guys, to read women’s books. I guess one of the commonest complaints we both hear is that they feel they can’t ‘relate’ to women’s books, and there’s nothing in it for them. The question is though, how many more books by white men do you want? Is literature all about ‘relating’ rather than learning something new, seeing the world from another person’s perspective? I.e., is it always all about you?

I don’t blame guys entirely for this. The rigid model of masculinity they are still required to enact does not allow much room for them to see the world differently; it does not leave much scope for the idea that perhaps the world isn’t created for you, by you, to service you, and that art and literature by extension, should be all about you. How they are supposed to react to women’s literature and fiction has already been coded for them from birth, and shoved down their throat as ‘masculinity’.

But on the other hand, I do expect more from most human beings, just as I expect more from myself.

So the question is again, how many more books by white men do you want to reflect the world to you as you know it? Why is it so difficult to view women as people, rather than as a niche group you can’t empathise with? Why is it perfectly okay for women to read books by white men as emblems of their own humanity, but not okay for a white man to read a book by any woman of any class, race, or nationality as part of their own humanity too, but instead assume: ‘I can’t relate’.

One of the things about fictional worlds is that they produce all sorts of responses. Not all of them should be comforting. Some of them will require you to stretch what you have been told about yourself and to move beyond yourself and your own ego.

But really, reading women shouldn’t be such a stretch by now – we are, after all, despite what you may have been told, people too.

For imma

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 11:16:00 +0000

Last night I had a dream that people were allowed to enter my apartment and take whatever items they wanted. Some of them asked me what I would like to keep for myself, and from my hazy dream-memory, the things I wanted to keep were to do with my family.

I woke up and found myself thinking of this poem:

Home is so Sad

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

–Philip Larkin

But this is, and is not, a sad post. Today is my mother’s birthday, and with the biased confidence of anyone who has grown up loved, I can say she is the best mum in the world. So here’s to her. I miss you and love you lots, imma.

Biopic Adaptations Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:24:00 +0000

I’m organising a conference with Deborah Cartmell at De Montfort University, and this post is to tell you all about it as well as to invite people to submit paper proposals and register while there’s still time.

The conference description is:

Biopic Adaptations Conference
Centre for Adaptations
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH
24 February 2015

Although ‘biopics’, or film biographies, have been around since the beginning of cinema, scholarly interest in the subject is only beginning to develop. This conference will bring together scholars and practitioners in a range of topics, such as the evolution of the biopic from the silent to the contemporary period, biopics of writers, sporting heroes, politicians, royalty and gangsters, and debates concerning gender, sexuality, race and historical integrity.

Proposals (between 50-100 words) and a brief biographical note should be sent to Deborah Cartmell and Hila Shachar by 27 November 2014.

Papers will be selected for publication.

Download the Biopic Adaptations conference poster (PDF).

Our keynote speaker for this conference Bafta award-winning writer Amanda Coe, discussing her work for the BBC’s upcoming drama, Life in Squares. Deborah and I will be doing a Q&A session with her in front of an audience, which will also be part of the Cultural Exchanges Festival.

Amanda Coe is a screenwriting associate of the National Film and Television School and she’s written extensively for television, including creating the award-winning Channel 4 series As If and writing the feature Margot for BBC4. She’ll be discussing her work with us, particularly her most recent project, the three-part BBC drama, Life in Squares, which explores the lives of the Bloomsbury Group, including Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, E.M. Forster and Maynard Keynes.

Registration is now open for the conference for those who want to attend, and I also strongly encourage any academic friends reading this to submit paper proposals or to pass along the details of this conference to anyone who would be interested. So in short, you can:

: : Register here.

: : Submit paper proposals/abstracts to Deborah Cartmell and Hila Shachar by 27 November, 2014.

: : Share the conference poster here.

Happy Sunday!

Scoping my inbox

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 10:37:00 +0000

I often complain about some of the strange and hateful emails I get. However lately, the opposite kind of random emails have been falling into my inbox. They are filled with kindness from strangers and beautiful things. One such email I received recently is from artist, Philipp Haager, whom I wrote about here.

There’s something about Philipp’s work that just speaks to me on a visceral level, primarily, and then I move on to consider the intellectual implications of it. Not all art follows this logic for me, sometimes the intellect dominates and I feel like I’m doing a disservice to both the artist and their work. At the same time, I’m increasingly unwilling to bend the intellect to any will but its own. Isn’t it lovely though when emotions and thought combine through a piece of art? That’s how I feel about Philipp’s work.

I re-read what I wrote about his work and this passage is worth repeating when describing it: “The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romantic paintings I am familiar with symbolise a different conceptual world where form is grand, but self-contained. Haager’s paintings, on the other hand, require the viewer’s participation alongside the artist’s vision. These are paintings that are so layered, they literally require you as the viewer to interpret them through your own vision – they move you back into the outside world, and into context. This movement back to the external world of the viewer is a postmodernist tendency that self-reflexively reminds us that all art is the product of a specific time and specific place, rather than something that emerges pristinely transcendent, rooted in an ahistoric Sublime. In a sense, Haager simultaneously calls upon a Romantic ethos while requiring a postmodernist response; and this is an exciting contradictory pull that seeks a ‘both-and’ relationship with art.”

The images above are updated room-shots from Philipp’s last show, Paramountscope, combining paintings he worked on for several years and shown in several exhibitions. In the document Philipp sent me, these paintings are described as a process of “constant questioning of the meaning of the image itself: What we see and how we see, the changing nature of our gaze. The exhibition title alludes both to the dramatic, cinematic aspect of large-format pictures as well as to an inquiry into the visual essence of our media-attuned perception as reflected in painting. Similar to double exposures in photography, or the restoration and digitalisation of old (film) material, the artist has reworked what are in some cases older works that have already been exhibited under a different title or in a different format and rearranged them for this show.”

There’s so much I want to write in response to this, perhaps I will at a later date when I have more time. But in the meantime, you can gaze at some of his images.

* * *

On a somewhat related note, a few weeks ago I received the longest, but also one of the kindest, most sensitive and intelligent emails from someone who reads my blog. It shouldn’t matter that he was a man, and really I’m not in favour of giving guys a cookie every time they act decently to female bloggers. But I do want to point out: women bloggers get a lot of crap thrown their way. I don’t pretend that the emails I get, and have gotten, even compare to some of the constant barrage that other women writers receive. In comparison, my situation is relatively mild. However, when a man who reads your blog sends you a supportive email instead of an abusive one, it can’t help but feel like a glimmer of hope – hope that the loudest misogynist voices can be counteracted by others. So if you’re a man who loves reading a woman’s blog, send her a kind email. Seriously, we get told to shut up all the time; for being too smart/too dumb, too pretty/too ugly; or, for whatever flavour of the month insult it is; or, for simply existing. It would be nice to hear from those who refuse to tell women to go sit quietly in their corner.

And, thanks Andrea!

Images, from top to bottom: Paramountscope, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart 2013 (f. l.: n. T. (white); Nearfield, Phase 13; Paramountscope, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart 2013 (f. l.: Nearfield, Phase 15 / melting memory (red), Nearfield, Phase 16 / melting memory (green); Paramountscope, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart 2013 (f. l.: Nearfield, Phase 15 + 16, Phase 11 (Vers. 2); Paramountscope, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart 2013 (v. l. “Tale about a chinese moon”, Phase 14, Misty Memory, Abstract Painting No. 1 (white).

All images are copyrighted to Philipp Haager.

“Then I take a deep breath, and lie”

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 16:39:00 +0000

I read this article by Etgar Keret and felt more comforted by its lack of comfort than anything else I’ve read lately. Keret doesn’t provide me with a ‘Moral of the Story’ for Yom Kippur, but just a story that points to our inconsolable imperfectness, and the perfection of our vulnerability. I don’t like moralising, didactic points from personal narratives, or linking those holidays which mean so much to Jews around the world with some grand gesture about the world. I like something that reminds me of how weird we all are – we bizarre human beings and all the stupid but lovely things we do.

It’s customary to ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, to atone for any hurt you may have caused. I would ideally like to do so too. At the same time, I know this gesture, when ritualised, can become cliché. In order to remind me how it’s not cliché, how it’s profound and essential, Keret also reminds me that as he asks for forgiveness, he prepares to lie. I like that:

“I remember going home from school on that day. I rode my bike, the pedals turned easily, the road felt smooth, and even the uphill parts felt like they were downhill. I never saw her again, but since then, whenever I have a strong urge not to tell the truth, I think of her outside her high-school classroom, smiling broadly, her face full of pimples, saying she accepted my apology. Then I take a deep breath, and lie.”

Image credit: Alone by Emilio Longoni.

A Year of Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:36:00 +0000

Photo: Amber Scott by Justin Ridler

Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandl’d were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, ’twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!

--From “Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

* * *

To help celebrate The Australian Ballet’s launch of its stunning new 2015 season, A Year of Beauty, I’ve compiled my own ode to beauty. If you’d like to take part on Instagram, the hashtag #whatisbeauty will take you to all things ballet and beautiful.

Found here are some beautiful images coupled with some beautiful words...

Full disclosure: I do write for The Australian Ballet, and although I’m biased, I am totally besotted with the 2015 season. It is worthy of a million blog posts. So enjoy!

Giselle

Photo: Juliet Burnett and Adam Bull by Georges Antoni

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes

--From “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

The Sleeping Beauty

Photo: Lana Jones by Georges Antoni

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirred
That lie upon her charmèd heart.
She sleeps; on either hand upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.

--From “The Sleeping Beauty” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Photo: Chengwu Guo and Madeleine Eastoe by Georges Antoni

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

--From “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats

20:21

Photo: Andrew Killian by Justin Ridler

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

--From “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

Cinderella

Photo: Amber Scott by Lynette Wills

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

--From Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Swan Lake

Photo: Amber Scott and Adam Bull by Liz Ham

I love thee, mournful, sober-suited Night!
When the faint moon, yet lingering in her wane.
And veil’d in clouds, with pale uncertain light
Hangs o’er the waters of the restless main.

--From “To Night” by Charlotte Smith

Exit by way of here...

All images are used here with permission from The Australian Ballet. Please seek permission if you’d like to re-blog.

Nausea

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 14:42:00 +0000

I woke up today with a horrible headache and nausea. I’ve been feeling this way for the past few days. I know exactly what’s causing it: work/deadlines stress. This is called life and it’s pretty normal stuff.

Here’s something that isn’t ordinary that causes nausea too.

How do I separate my ordinary nausea from this one – this one that I seem to write about repetitively and futilely? I don’t even know what to write anymore.

I will say this though. I know my nausea in all its forms is a privilege. It’s the privilege of being alive. There are 6 million people who don’t have that privilege, who are not here to speak for themselves, and who did not die so we can keep abusing their deaths, their innocence and their memories.

Europe and the UK are pretty unpleasant places to be a Jew right now. I find myself negotiating basic things, like what kind of jewellery to put on (better not wear that Star of David necklace I got from my grandmother), or who will recognise my very Jewish and very Israeli name and react badly (this has happened, usually from men, and it’s very intimidating). I find myself frustrated at the smug banality of other people’s reactions and slogans, and the self-congratulation of ‘respectable’ middle-class people who tsk tsk at all the ‘savages’ in the Middle East, but who casually contribute to the rise of both anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish sentiments in their own countries.

But all of this comes with the knowledge that I have the privilege of being alive. So I’ll take my nausea and my tears, and I’ll take my rage and shaking hands, and I’ll take my daily negotiations. What I will not take is the minimising and appropriating of 6 million Jews, over and over again.

I would like everyone to visit Auschwitz. Go stand in that pit of pure hell and then tell me if you don’t feel nausea too. If you do, take it as a sign that your body knows, somewhere deep inside, what was done here, and that it will not let you stand by and watch as this hatred rises up again.

Not saying much

noreply@blogger.com (Hila) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 10:40:00 +0000

I’ve noticed today that most of my posts lately begin with ‘who the hell reads this blog anymore?’ I realise this is annoying to read as someone who isn’t the author of this blog. It’s not fishing for compliments, it’s me wondering what I’m doing, or not doing, with this blog. So many things are conspiring to not make me want to blog, not least of which is me not quite feeling like me.

It will take a while to get used to the changes that have occurred in my life, to really comfortably sink back into my skin. In Australia, even at my lowest point of ‘what am I going to do with my life/career’ panic, I always held onto this version of myself that I could comfortably sink into – it’s a version that I feel is me without the self-defensiveness, shyness, insecurity. It usually comes out through daydreams, or night-dreams, where I could picture stories in my head and just enjoy them. I haven’t been dreaming much lately – of course, I have normal dreams when I sleep, what I mean is, I don’t really feel like me enough to take those elaborate awake dreams with stories I like to make up. This may explain why I’m writing more poetry lately, because I find it easier to write disjointed, metaphorical sentences, rather than big long narratives.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s most likely a temporary thing. You don’t just make huge life changes and feel completely comfortable in a few short months. You certainly don’t when you do it alone. I’m not unhappy, there are many things in my life that have changed for the better, and for the first time I’m getting paid to do work I love full time. I feel useful, productive, appreciated. Those are not things to be diminished. But I don’t quite feel like me yet. This makes it hard to visit my blog and write. This place only makes sense when I make sense. But then, I do like that it exists and is here waiting for me when I need it.