Postmodern Critic

Sydney, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA


Joined May 11th 2006

Number of Posts:
347

Number of Comments:
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About Me
I'm a young independent intellectual living in Sydney, Australia, interested in meeting open-minded, progressive individuals who love life and are more interested in questions than answers! :o)

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Recent Posts

I know you want to (I can see it in your eyes) indulge in the folding, curving, stretching of the lips: outward and up. My lip mass can only increase in anticipation of a mind scrumptiously tickled into and by this expression of contentment.

*

Smiling is addictive... many times I have done without, only to start up again and be unable to stop. The lips crack somewhere in the middle due to the strain, and still I cannot cease manipulating it even more deeply in place. I radiate well-being and creative stimulation. I feel sexy and desirable.

*

I will want you to press your smile to mine. So please show me.

*

You've indicated that you're prone to this kind of fashioning of the lips at certain times... so now all I need to see is the proof. Send me your love, electrify my senses even further with a beam; get your equanimity on.

You are the sweetest thing I can think of.
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Rewriting the Narrative

May 21st 2009 17:54
I'd like to move towards a bolder style in my short stories for Orble. Up to now I've been focusing on narratives informed by the subversion of satisfaction and happiness, however I'm finding that the more I focus on something, the more it becomes magnified and enhanced. Quite simply, to pay attention to your pain is to emphasise it, encourage it, let it multiply, and I'm interested in focusing on more palatable experiences instead.

Waiting For My Lover

I am mesmerised by the intensity of your focus, the things I can see in your gaze. You are so out of sync with everyone else I know, and it's what I'm drawn to. My language for appreciating you is still being developed, becoming more vivid (and more vague, as the number of vivid narratives gather and comprise bodies of assumed knowledge).

I'm sublimely questioning myself into a state of even more enthusiastic question-mark worship...

Today I wandered around, just enjoying my emotional processes, trying to understand who I am and what I want out of the situations I find myself facing. How I got that glint in my eyes, why I am so stubborn about maintaining my legendary openness and friendliness. Why I will become even more subversive in the future, not less. I will keep tiding against the swimmers, cultivating my tantalising revolutions, inspired by mellifluous revelations.

How can I coax myself into surprisingly greater self-appreciation, and lead by example? How can I talk you out of some of your less loving moments? Will you still find a way to beam at me, even when others are making you feel close to dismal?
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I wouldn't think twice about confiding in you my deepest secrets - I knew you wouldn't judge me, and that even if you couldn't offer the kind of emotional spectrum I wanted you to, your input would still be valuable. But I think I've had too much of you now - I censor myself so as to more easily fall into a groove with you. But why? You yourself don't like ingratiating yourself to others. In my loneliness I mistook our contact as sacred, clung to outdated beliefs about my investment in you and how it protected me from the outside world.
And now he says "I'll be your best friend instead." And I don't even know him that well, but I know I can trust him to be there.

*

Turbulent waters, I create - why? I'd like to spawn successively smaller waves across this great ocean that is my emotional base. I want to bask in the sun, free of the attraction of choppy waters pulling my gaze down as I weigh up the probability that I will lose myself in the roar.

A crescendo never reached, the hysteria dies down... slowly but surely. Why did I invent it?

*

"Oh / I've been travelling on this road so long / I'm just trying to find my way back home / The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone," sings Justin Timberlake soulfully.

I bob along gracefully, wishing I had cause to make such an announcement. I'm dedicated towards undermining my automatic sense of speedy rejuvenation. I am afraid to rediscover my limits, because they make me want to be a better person, and I'm not sure I can handle the punishment from the rest of the world. So I simply become one more person who is working against me - the crucial individual, the approval on whose part I could use to restore myself to my former, abandoned glory.

I love the questions I pose/pause to the tune to by the minute. The minute itself is constantly gaining potential. Soon a second will hold more potential than I know I am able to give it.

*

"And that's all that I need / Yeah / Someone else to cling to / Someone I can lean on until / I don't need to..." - All I Need, Matchbox Twenty

Since another door has opened, I can finally close this one. I just hope it's not too late to reclaim my inner harmony. You'll be with me many more hours than you deserve to be. I choose to haunt myself with you as stimulus. For now.

Perhaps we'll meet again someday, and we'll be different people who might realign into a pretty pattern. A crease in a corner of the mouth. A softening of the eyes.

But for now I need to let you go.
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Somehow she had come to a starting discovery: She was alienated from her own sense of inner conflict!

It was all very well to revel in the first heady notes of this revelation for now, but how would this new turn of consciousness engineering affect the rest of her system? Was she ready to let go of the delusion that she could fit snugly and comfortably into a corner of society? Maybe if she let go of this search for a safety net she would discover that she could actually perform all the acts without risk of losing her balance


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Invent Your Own Rubric

May 5th 2009 12:48
I recently came across Rubric, a creative writing journal hosted by the arts faculty of the University of New South Wales (UNSW for short), where I found some postmodern material that you might enjoy... You can find the homepage here, and my favourite piece so far here (it's a metafiction piece about a chance encounter in Oxford Street, Sydney and offers some insight into human psychology ). Says the writer of this piece, Mathew Wall-Smith, about Rubric: you can't put rubric on your coffee table. you can't buy it. you have to read it. you have to take your joy not by consuming but by being consumed. Poetry lovers will find quite a few texts in verse amongst the archives of the four issues. Enjoy!

Think outside the box
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A Notice For Registered Orble Users

April 26th 2009 03:50
Hello people of Orble,

I have been reassessing my life of late and have realised that I spend too much time on the social interaction aspect of Orble, getting pulled into the silly, incessant squabbling that is rampant on the network, and not enough time writing - whether it's for my blogs on the network, my personal diaries or the book(s) I am trying to write. I have enjoyed exchanging comments with you (esp Morgan and Ruby) over the many months we've known each other, and I will miss aspects of that interaction, but I fear I will never take my writing seriously enough unless I put some limits on how I spend my net time


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On Becoming More Curious

April 24th 2009 08:31
Being curious is an art form. It's a skill I have to keep fine-tuning and refining as my circumstances in life change. I have to trust a narrative that explores the circularity of my experience so I can leave it behind, abandon such a fruitless construction.

The only obsession I can afford is not to be obsessed, or to seek everything in moderation. It's a question of curiosity that I am seeking - what is the most healthy form? Of course, I need to go into the specifics, otherwise such discussion devolves into some hefty generalisations


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The American front cover


When I picked up the book, I regarded the title as a bit awkward, but decided to postpone my judgment of its level of resonance till my glance had bounced off the last bound page with text. Having now done so, I think it’s likely that Barack spent some time deliberating over which the better choice – ‘of’ or ‘from’. Perhaps I too would have chosen the more esoteric of the two if I had presented myself with this particular dilemma. An ‘of’ would have been meaningful because not only did he have dreams about his almost always absent dad, but most his growing up was informed by a certain positively inspirational image of him that he later had to re-evaluate to some extent


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Staying Up All Day

April 19th 2009 02:11
It was when I woke up to light from the sunset penetrating through the window, putting me in a kind of light-deprived haze, that I knew my adventure was beginning.

I had performed this feat before, not once or twice, and knew what to expect: The depression that comes with spending most of your hours in darkness, the eyeball's inability to process natural light smoothly after being exposed to darkness and the feeling of being tired even though you've had enough sleep that resulted... not to mention having to explain yourself to family, friends and acquaintances, to whom the idea of altering your sleep cycle dramatically over a small period of time seems foreign from their experience


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(c) Postmodern Critic

April 17th 2009 20:55
All writings posted by 'Postmodern Critic' on www.postmoderncritic.com, unless otherwise stated, are the original works of Postmodern Critic (aka Epiphanie Bloom) and copyright laws apply.

As long as you give me appropriate credit, I am happy for my writing to be reproduced elsewhere. In fact, if you tell me about it I can link to you, thereby increasing your traffic


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Recent Comments

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on Fire and Rain/Ode To My Brother

June 4th 2009 12:27
I was moved to tears, and still am...

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on This Is What Progress Looks Like

May 9th 2009 01:33
I see what you mean... if Western practices bring forth greater equality (between the sexes, for example), then they should be adopted by Eastern countries as well... there is no justified defense of inequality. That the West is free-er, as you say, can only be a guide to the East - they have to create their own sense of equality, integrate that equality into their own culture, enrich their culture with it. Join in on the freedom stakes as they will... there are some respects in which some Asian countries are ahead actually - like, the idea of machismo is not very prominent in most Asian countries, and homophobia is less pronounced as a result. Many Chinese people just accept homosexuality without much of a fuss, which I found very nice when I went there. My best friend, who is originally from Shanghai, even says the men in Shanghai are 'too girly' for her! But of course, that says as much about her as about Shanghai.

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on This Is What Progress Looks Like

May 8th 2009 13:54
Hey Ruby,

Great post!

I'm with you on religion being detrimental, for the most part, to society, but I view 'culture' in a neutral way - it's too complex to be merely good and/or bad to me. I'd say that certain cultural practices are oppressive and limiting, but culture on the whole is not, because it's fluid and constantly changing.

I'm really pleased to hear about the 50 year old man filing for divorce, and I do think it's remarkable how popular Ellen has become, and what that says about the US status quo.

Thanks for pointing out these changes... I too have been feeling better than usual about humanity's progress of late, and I think the more changes are made for the better, the easier it is to make other changes for the better. I mean, look at same-sex marriage... For many years Massachussetts was the only state in the US to allow it, but now Connecticut didn't even have a year before Iowa and Vermont joined in... and now we have Maine legalising it as well. Same with Europe - for four years The Netherlands was the only country to allow it, then countries began following suit more and more rapidly.

Also, Obama recently signed a bill that strengthens the idea of crime against homosexuals and the disabled as hate crime. And he is working on abolishing 'don't ask, don't tell' as well.

Oh yes, and Washington D.C. will now recognise same-sex marriages from other US states. Slowly inching towards progress there too...

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on Invent Your Own Rubric

May 6th 2009 13:33
I'm very pleased so many people found the links interesting! Keep up the good work...

Lilla - Reviewing your hateful comments again, I realised that I've already said what I wanted to say, and can't really be bothered hearing what you come up with in response. I won't be networking much on Orble any more, so I can only hope you learn to stop hating yourself and others.

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on A Smattering of Postmodern Lyrics

May 1st 2009 10:39
Hi Gilbert,

I identify as both a postmodernist and an atheist, and I think they go together quite well. While the table above is interesting, I don't hold to it strongly. It's just another text, suitable for some kinds of exploration and not for others.

Truth is a construct, not an entity. I avoid this word, especially in writing, because people tend to take it out of context.

I like treating other people the way I would like to be treated myself - it's just something that works for me. I don't believe there is a cosmic imperative to do anything. I can't tell you that you shouldn't lie, cheat, etc - you have to design your own values.

Everyone has a different opinion of the historical figures you mention. It's all a state of mind: to a neo-Nazi, Hitler would be better than Ghandi. That person's viewpoint is no more or less valid than yours or mine, it's just different. I may think that that person needs counseling, and I would try to help them get them that help, or else leave them alone, but I have to acknowledge that they are entitled to their opinion.

You can call Hitler whatever you like, and other people will agree, disagree, or be inspired to adopt a position that does neither.

how one can be postmodern with intellectual consustiency and coherency

The whole point of postmodernism is to celebrate inconsistency and incoherence!

Thanks very much for the link, Morgan...

I wanted to add to this review that it was interesting to find out that when he moved to Chicago Obama discovered that the mayor, Harold Washington, was black, and no doubt found someone to admire and perhaps even emulate in him. Barack represents a conversation he had at a black-owned barber shop regarding this figure, in which Harold emerges to the reader as an iconic and iconoclaustic individual who made a deep impact on the black community. The black customers exhibit a euphoric sense of pride, stressing how his election was an unforgettable moment, and I imagined that many black Americans would be having a similar conversation about Obama's own election to the Presidency, many years later. I had never thought about who Obama's role models might be, and since he is the first black President I hadn't given thought to what kind of precedents there might have been for him to be influenced by, but it just goes to show that if you are determined to succeed you will make the best of each situation where the odds are around you.
Is there any event without some kind of precedent, I wonder?

Comment by Postmodern Critic
on A Notice For Registered Orble Users

April 26th 2009 23:36
Ruby - Best of luck in the future, I'm sure bright and beautiful things will be coming your way v. soon!

Nevar - Thank you for the (unexpected but welcome) kind words. I wish you all the best as well.

Natalina & Morgan - Thanks so much girls, I'll make sure I post something about my work here if/when it ever gets published! Stay fabulous.




Comment by Postmodern Critic
on The Redcoats Are Coming!

April 26th 2009 23:15
Very astute, I think it's a combination of both factors.