when there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire

[raven]

Am reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and getting irritated. I mean, Article 1:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Lovely, isn't it? Liberal in its core. And then it goes and uses the word "brotherhood". Obviously the word is not intentionally being used in gendered fashion, but still, it's such a ridiculous word to use. They couldn't have used "cooperation" or "fellowship" or "community"? Possibly the only worse word they could have used is "sisterhood", which I hate with the irrational fire of a thousand suns. It always seems to be used in the context of the terrible, menstrually-obsessed, drippy-hippie^[1] "feminism" we're hearing so much of lately.

All I have done today is sit and eat miniature chocolate doughnuts and listen to Stars' "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" on repeat. Well, I say "today"; I saw the dawn from the wrong side, as per usual. A gorgeous, purple-streaked dawn, the sky cut out in broad, blurred slices by cirrus clouds and contra trails. When I woke up it was one o'clock in the afternoon and raining. It's staying light later every day, every day is a few minutes closer to the solstice, I am getting older. People are asking me when I'll be a fully-fledged Oxford philosopher. The answer: I don't know, I don't know, I want a summmer full of dizzying freedom and bare feet in the river and sunshine reflected from glass and river water back up in a sky so blue it hurts to look at. On a cold Saturday in March, with a stack of notes on democratic peace theory and the United Nations, I'm allowed to daydream.

Stars, on their next studio album, released another song on the same theme. It was called "Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead". I don't know why I find this hilarious. Possibly I should not. The album is called "In Our Bedroom After The War", which has the same quality I love in all their songs; the way the lyrics are simple and epic in the way they carve out huge spaces. I'm as fond of purple prose as the next girl, i.e., not very much, but I can see the appeal, sometimes. Some prose is textured, lush, and you know the author put a great deal of time into it, tried very hard to use metaphor and simile and allusion so it feels like something. But what I like, what I strive for, is the type of writing that picks up, in broad brushstrokes and careful words, the whole scope and beauty of a landscape, does it with neatness and elegance and leaves you feeling like this was the only way that sentence would have worked, this is how it ought to be. A writer whom I admire enormously - who occasionally makes me sigh and want to give up writing altogether, in fact - once described it as writing like a particular style of Japanese painting, sparse but suggestive of all the required detail. Yes, I said. Yes, that's it. I want to see like that; with clear eyes.

I want to write better than I do. I also want to not give my remix the Funky Remix Subtitle of (the "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" Remix), but you can't ask for everything in life. (My remix is 492 words long, at present. This is the whole of the first section. The fact that this section seems to want to be the first of thirteen worries me somewhat.)

Seeing as I'm in the sort of mood where I find the Universal Declaration of Human Rights irritating, it is perhaps time I stop talking to other humans. I'm going to London tomorrow, as I think I've said; I'll probably be internetless for a couple of weeks, so in the unlikely event that anyone needs me for anything, it's probably best to call me. I'm hoping to be in Oxford over the weekend for purposes of revision watching Doctor Who. Now, I go and be productive. And eat doughnuts.

---

[1] Use of this term is intended to convey no offense to people who a) identify as flower children and b) have just stepped out of the shower, one of which categories currently encompasses the author.

Comments

[zed92uk.livejournal.com]

Problem is, "co-operation", "community" and "fellowship" don't have the same familial ideas, and therefore recognition of equal importance and the necessity of selflessness, as "brotherhood". Maybe use "siblinghood"? Only problem with that is that it's ugly and not a real word.

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

The only thing is, 'brotherhood' and 'sisterhood' both make me think of those tedious self-discovery films, where teenagers learn the True Meaning Of Friendship or some such. And decide that after having fights, and growing apart, and then getting over it, their best friends from High School were really their brothers/sisters/[delete as appropriate].

Ah, the problems of connotations.

'Fellowship' is nice, but mostly makes me think of hobbits. Community - that's a lovely thought. Togetherness?

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Er, I don't suppose you could share "In Our Bedroom After the War"?

*hopeful*

[frustratedpilot]

I forget who it was that said it, or the exact quote, but it was to the effect that "those who speak of 'brotherhood' in a political sense probably were the only child of their households".

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

Hahaha... brilliant.
John Peters Humphrey is one of my highschool's most notable alumni. Of him, it could be said that "those who speak of 'brotherhood' are isolated enough from the female of the species to forget that she exists." It was a single-sex school at the time.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

YES. This is so true.

Also, if you have to be gendered about it, I like "fraternity" so much better than "brotherhood." (On the other hand, unfortunately "fraternity" has two widely divergent connotations in my mind: the French Revolution versus leagues of college men who drink a lot and objectify women.)

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

Ugh, 'brotherhood'. Also 'sisterhood'. Blah. *hugs* Doughnuts are good, though.

[nerves-patterns.livejournal.com]

I love "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead." The whole Set Yourself on Fire album, to be exact. Their earlier stuff is growing on me now, too - particularly the AM and FM mixes of "My Radio." I haven't listened to In Our Bedroom... yet, though - is it good?