Author: stevendouglasblog

Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.

This blog is a queer take on Matthew Brown’s film ‘Freud’s Last Session’. 

June 28, 2024

This blog is a queer take on Matthew Brown’s film Freud’s Last Session.  In one of the fast shifting moments of the fragmented discussions between the two men (supposedly about the source of love and meaning in the face of human mortality), Anthony Hopkins as Freud asks C.S. Lewis, played by Matthew Goode: ‘Does homosexuality … More This blog is a queer take on Matthew Brown’s film ‘Freud’s Last Session’. 

Let us practise to ‘Sing the song of sorrow, but let good prevail’. Advice from Edith Hall (2024) ‘Facing Down The Furies: Suicide, The Ancient Greeks, and Me’.

June 27, 2024

‘Sing the song of sorrow, but let good prevail’. The terrible beauty of a book that while looking for the ‘perfect therapeutic mantra in the face of suicidal despair’, sometimes finds itself ‘somehow taking over from the central actors the role of communicating a tragic subjectivity and trying to find relief in psychological candour’.[1] This … More Let us practise to ‘Sing the song of sorrow, but let good prevail’. Advice from Edith Hall (2024) ‘Facing Down The Furies: Suicide, The Ancient Greeks, and Me’.

This blog attempts to articulate what it is to be and feel ‘in-between’ in ‘The In-Between’ (2024, 2023 in Australia) by Christos Tsiolkas.

June 26, 2024

In a profound new novel of queer romantic and sexual love between older men, a Serbian landscape-gardener, Ivan, talks, in a plush flat rented for the night, with a young sex-worker called Troy, also rented for the night, about the latter’s father. Ivan imagines Troy’s father must be older than him but only just, but … More This blog attempts to articulate what it is to be and feel ‘in-between’ in ‘The In-Between’ (2024, 2023 in Australia) by Christos Tsiolkas.

The contradictions of the freedom that poses as choice. A reflection and a brutal stanza.

June 25, 2024

If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be? This question hurts. The terms used are difficult to get your head round. That you are ‘forced’ suggests coercion, perhaps  backed by possible sanctions for not obeying the rule implied in donning the outfitting of yourself. After aĺ, one … More The contradictions of the freedom that poses as choice. A reflection and a brutal stanza.

Wasted time is the time you spend not appreciating having time to live life with varied pace and productivity, including the unproductive moments of rest and recuperation.

June 24, 2024

How do you waste the most time every day? This gif is, as it is intended to be, funny because it takes a number of negative clichés that get said in moments of stress  and knots them together in a way that, all together, the effect is comic. This gif is, as it is intended … More Wasted time is the time you spend not appreciating having time to live life with varied pace and productivity, including the unproductive moments of rest and recuperation.

Is self-care satisfactory if it doesn’t see the ‘self’ as a problem for remedy first of all.

June 23, 2024

How do you practice self-care? The self-care INDUSTRY tries to pretend it is not a money-making business but a tool of love and esteem. There is still money in practicing that self-care is not self-interest or self-indulgence. The questions of ‘self-care’ were thrown into the air philosophically by the attention the philosopher, Michel Foucault, gave … More Is self-care satisfactory if it doesn’t see the ‘self’ as a problem for remedy first of all.

One person’s favourite ‘historical figure’ is most likely to be another person’s partial or total historical misrepresentation of the same figure. The elder Michelangelo must have been awesome. According to some, whose ‘favourite’ he is, we  will not see that in the British Museum’s reconstruction of him in ‘Michelangelo: The last decades’? We see that exhibition on July 21st at 12.30.

June 22, 2024

Who is your favorite historical figure? One person’s favourite ‘historical figure’ is most likely to be another person’s partial or total historical misrepresentation of the same figure. Michelangelo (‘in his last decades’) must have been awesome. According to some whose ‘favourite’ he is, we  will not see that in the British Museum’s reconstruction of him … More One person’s favourite ‘historical figure’ is most likely to be another person’s partial or total historical misrepresentation of the same figure. The elder Michelangelo must have been awesome. According to some, whose ‘favourite’ he is, we  will not see that in the British Museum’s reconstruction of him in ‘Michelangelo: The last decades’? We see that exhibition on July 21st at 12.30.

Seeking ‘transport’ in childhood fantasy of fulfilled desire, haunted by the repulsion that comes from the memory of not being fulfilled.

June 21, 2024

Of course being ‘transported’ out of the current boundaries of own spatial and temporal location is not either addiction nor the action of a dangerous substance or even more dangerous behaviour but it verges on the same mechanisms in our non-rational experience. So let’s start with a biological explanation of being hooked on something, something … More Seeking ‘transport’ in childhood fantasy of fulfilled desire, haunted by the repulsion that comes from the memory of not being fulfilled.

This is a blog on Michael G. Cronin’s ‘Revolutionary bodies: Homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing’ (2022).

June 20, 2024

Michael G. Cronin reinstates the role of literature as a vehicle for feeling that is radically embodied but in a special sense ‘impersonal’. He uses Rachel Greenwald Smith’s terms to both reinstate the affective as the basis of literature but also to challenge a mode of writing that attributes the ‘ownership’ and regulation of affect … More This is a blog on Michael G. Cronin’s ‘Revolutionary bodies: Homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing’ (2022).

I cannot wait to see Tate Modern’s ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider’ for the whole show is curated by people who believe that The Blue Rider movement was about crossing the boundaries that define single artists, cultures, sexualities  and genders. Are they right?

June 19, 2024

I cannot wait to see Tate Modern’s Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider for the whole show, it would seem from the evidence of the catalogue, is curated, and some critics suggest it is over-curated for reasons I will explore, by people who believe that we can understand great art only by understanding great … More I cannot wait to see Tate Modern’s ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider’ for the whole show is curated by people who believe that The Blue Rider movement was about crossing the boundaries that define single artists, cultures, sexualities  and genders. Are they right?

The tumescent Mister Tumnus. A fanciful whimsy after booking to see ‘Freud’s Last Session’.

June 18, 2024

These verses were written today, my husband Geoff and I having booked to see the film, Freud’s LastSession next Wednesday at Bishop Auckland Town Hall. My verses are entirely fanciful and bear no relation to the film or history. Instead, they puzzle about the birth or death of God in sexual fantasy, in my imagined … More The tumescent Mister Tumnus. A fanciful whimsy after booking to see ‘Freud’s Last Session’.