What happened to just doing it?

Here is an upcoming event at McGill:

McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women
Seminar Series

Ellen Waterman
School of Fine Art and Music
University of Guelph

Naked Intimacy: Improvisation, Eroticism, and Gender

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
4:00 – 6:00 pm, Leacock 927

Eroticism is the realm of our most urgent desires that leads to the transgression of boundaries, ecstatic identification with others, and ultimately a confrontation with the self. Creative improvisation is an experimental and collaborative form of musical performance. What do these domains have in common? Both are characterized by an incessant confrontation with now that leads to the “naked intimacy” of intense communication. What are the roles of bodies, instruments and performance spaces in constructing representations of the erotic, and how are they articulated through improvisation? How do musicians negotiate representations of the erotic in their work? When and how are these representations gendered – and with what effects for musicians? Drawing on dissonant theories of eroticism by Luce Irigaray and Georges Bataille, this presentation explores a “feminist erotics of creative improvisation” through the fascinating music of violist Charlotte Hug.

I love when the topic of sex becomes completely intellectualized. It makes me think of the first cinematic collaboration between Dudley Moore and Peter Cook - the little known "Bedazzled". Here is the scene that never fails to crack me up. I think we've all been there:





I have to admit; the Dudley Moore of the swinging 60's in England seems infinitely more impressive than the slapstick comedian who would become famous in movies such as "10". I guess the Brits were a little more sophisticated, given their penchant for witty comedies. A nice take on the tale of Faust, that most people probably missed. Ignorant as I am, I can't place the Irish intellectual Moore is imitating, but I imagine it to be an amalgamation of several authors, poets and academic types. Such is life on a busy Monday after an active weekend, when I am looking to revamp the glib devil in me.