Saturn returns
Posted on | October 10, 2006 |
Last week I turned 28. As some of you following the progress of post-AoIR-related flickring have noticed, I died my hair blonde to celebrate! I’ve also since received numerous warnings that the next two years are pretty much going to suck. Is it wrong that I had no idea about this? I guess a certain phase of my life is over, in as much as I’ve done a PhD, my book’s just come out and my first real job contract is soon going to end. I’ve been feeling pretty introspective about all that anyway - and I think it has more to do with the combined impact of RSI-induced awareness of my i-book/work addiction, intense relationships coming and going, and the fact that the ARCs are announced tomorrow.
It’s also because I’ve been reading a lot of Lauren Berlant’s work in preparation for the piece she is kindly offering for The Affect Reader I’m editing with Greg. I’m not sure what queer theory has to say about Saturn Returns. But for me it offers some solace as I attempt to feel okay about constructing a coherent story for what I’ve been up to all this time; something that Berlant helps me explain as a scepticism towards the number of participants signed on to ‘the sentimental contract’: “the couple form, the love plot, the family, fame, work, wealth, or property. Those are the sites of cruel optimism, scenes of conventional desire that stand manifestly in the way of the subject’s thriving.”
I’ve been reading some old diaries this morning, looking for some information and some indications about how these culturally sanctioned sites have appeared and changed in my life over time. It’s painful to read a self I can’t remember very well, and slightly scary to feel nowhere near as angry. But there are some sweet lessons and half-cute poems I’ve stumbled on which I might share here over the next little while - perhaps as a warning to those who’ve professed they want to stick with me despite the difficult time ahead. Most people who read this blog didn’t know me during my teens and early 20s, but if you read the following entry as an example, you might still recognise a juxtaposition of concerns that is familiar in its schizophrenia:
November 14, 2000
121 students voted twice
1 4x
cigarettes to homeless[spare lines]
Flatmate #1: ‘Didn’t they have smoke alarms in the 70s?’
Me: ‘I don’t think so.’
Flatmate #2: ‘That’s why they had so many disco infernos.’[stapled in snippet of paper]
Bornstein: union lawyer
D’Souza: supervisor (Patrick)
Corrigan: Patrick
Coombs: MUA national secretary
Houlihan: PCS
Combet: ACTS
Kilfoyle/Harris: fynwest (Dubai)
Hein: P&O
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7 Responses to “Saturn returns”
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October 10th, 2006 @ 1:58 pm
blonde eh! did you burn your scalp? i gave myself severe chemical burns when I went blonde once.
and ‘cruel optimism’ ouch, what a bitingly accurate description. Hope seems to have become unneccessary baggage for neoliberally getting on with things. hmmm, but the rest of the quote needs to be problematised, surely?
“scenes of conventional desire that stand manifestly in the way of the subject’s thriving”
isn’t it just judgemental academic arrogance stemming from esoteric valorisations to suggest that the punters of the conventional ‘mainstream’ aren’t ‘thriving’? or, perhaps more critically, that ‘thriving’ itself has actually become a discursive and affective script where the coordinates of which exist within the stunted materialistic conventions of the mainstream? what is ‘real’ thriving? it is a bit like asking if or how do people on _Big Brother_ ‘thrive’?
anyway, Berlant’s work looks interesting.
October 10th, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
Happy birthday Mel!
I’ll have to put a drink up for you on the Alibi shout board.
I remember a flatmate of a friend rang me up just after my 28th birthday and spent about 2 hours telling me about Saturn returns (something I’d never heard of before Rose called me). At the time it seemed silly, but in retrospect, 10 years later, it does seem as if a new cycle of experience started for me. Which in turn ended perhaps 2 years ago - and the transition to where I am going now wasn’t particularly pretty. It’s odd.
Good luck with the ARCs too!
October 10th, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
What, you mean there’s a reason the last two years have sucked out loud for me? Crud. And still six months to go as well. Heavy sigh.
I’ll match my belated happy birthday with the premature one from a couple of months back. It all works out somehow.
October 10th, 2006 @ 9:12 pm
happy birfday!
October 11th, 2006 @ 7:36 am
Hey Mel, happy birthday!
Well, I enjoyed my Saturn Return, but then I have some interesting Saturn stuff going on in my chart apparently, and I enjoy throwing myself against boundaries to see if they’re as hard as they look. (and I guess from Saturn I found out: yeah most of them are). Or maybe I enjoyed it more in retrospect :). An amazing time though. Personally, I think Saturn gets a bit of a bad rap. Hard work, grounding and wisdom are fairly useful for academics, and I find them sexy as well. I think it’s about going with the flow during that time and not being afraid to make big changes if they’re what you really want - I think a lot of people who think of their life path in a more linear way get a bit shaken up, which accounts for the downside expressed. I don’t see it like that, it’s just a resettling.
Lauren Berlant would have to be in my top 20 writers. An acquaintance of mine has just gone to Chicago to study with her and I’m hella jealous.
October 11th, 2006 @ 10:10 am
Hey Mel, I see you have an upcoming event at the Darlington Centre. As it’s almost within sight of my office, will you have time for a coffee? Or is this a virtual event?
October 12th, 2006 @ 11:25 am
I’ll be in Sydney in the flesh that week - give me a shout closer to the time!