Gillian Rose writes somewhere about this really cool nun. In her previous life, she’d been a London fashion model, or something. Totally beautiful. But she wanted to study. She wanted to get to the bottom of the Song of Songs! Wanted to learn Hebrew read it in the original, to work out what it was about. And to think about love – agape and eros. And the relationship between agape and eros. What is the relationship between agape and eros, do you think?
So she converted. And she became a scholar-nun. She studied the ancient languages, including Hebrew. And there she was reading the Song of Songs, in the original. And pondering it, the Song of Songs. Doing all her nun things, praying and so on, and contemplating the Song of Songs. And actually living the Song of Songs.
That’s who I want to be like. A scholar nun. With my sister scholar nuns. And no distractions.
And no tropical lovers?
Of course, you’d need faith to come a nun. .
Maybe I can find some faith. I could work up some faith, if I got to study all day. It’s kinda cool now, isn’t it, having faith? Everyone’s converting. From, like, atheism to full-on Christianity. Is that still called conversion when you begin from nothing – from no faith? I actually bought an Orthodox icons calendar for my flat. That’s a start, isn’t it? It has all these cool icons on it.
Converting is such a great fuck you, isn’t it? It’d be one in the eye for all these left liberal academics .. I’d quite like to have a spiritual life.
Did Susan Taubes have a spiritual life?
She believed in God as nothing, I think. The nothingness of God: she believed in that. But you have to read the genitive in the other direction. Like, God actually is nothingness. Though ‘is’ is the wrong word.
Really? That’s confusing.
A spiritual life with the nothing at its heart.
Does all that nothing stuff mean you’re really not religious – or very very religious? It’s confusing.
I think you oscillate between the two. Her husband Jacob Taubes was dressed up like an orthodox rabbi one day and was the most outrageous libertine the next.
He was a Sabbatian Frankist, though. Those guys were nuts.
Susan Taubes was kinda lesbian. Susan Sontag was lesbian.
Did they have an affair?
They were friends. Susan Sontag identified her body. That’s your job. You’ll have to identify my body when the time comes. When they find me floating in the Tyne. Or in the North Sea. I’m not sure quite where I’m going to drown myself.
Is it more poetical – or philosophical – to drown yourself in North Shields or South Shields, I wonder? I could walk out to the end of the North pier and jump off. Or to the end of the South pier, and do the same.
You could just dive from the Priory.
You’d have to pay to get in there. Forget it.
Anyway, the last thing I want is to be rescued, after I jump in: I want you to remember that. Or even worse, resuscitated. Just when you thought you’d drowned yourself, they’d bring you back to life. How embarrassing! Coming to, coughing on the sand. Being taken off to be counselled, or whatever. Being referred to some de prevention clinic. Wouldn’t that suck? Having to talk about your suicidal ideation. All ideation is suicidal, that’s what I’d tell them.
I’m sure Susan Taubes would agree.
I’m really going to have to update my wardrobe. 50s elegance: that should be my new look. A forbidding lesbian dame of the 50s. Who takes no shit.
Shame I’m not, like, effortlessly beautiful. Shame I’m not, like effortlessly beautiful. Setting a room on fire just by walking into it. Wowing the world with total elegance and Europeanness.
Maybe I should cultivate an accent and tell everyone I’m from Hungary. I wish I was a proper exotic. Not from, like, South Shields.
You'll have to ride the Susan Taubes train out of here. Publish something cool with SUNY or whatever. Be, like, the Susan Taubes person. Unless someone beats you to it. Found the Susan Taubes Circle, or whatever. Go digging for some lost manuscripts. Make some Susan Taubes documentary.
Pretty smart move, your Susan Taubes move.
You’ll be the Susan Taubes person.
In the UK, maybe. I’ll bet there are Susan Taubes people in the states.
You’ll make your name. Curate some Susan Taubes exhibition. You’ll get some of her star power.
She’s just like some credibility trophy. You get to have her credibility by proxy. You glow in her light. Some glamorous philosophical suicide. Who actually gave up philosophy for fiction – pretty fucking cool. And then gave up her life.
Work in Progress 