peppermint tea, Suede, a phone call

today was the first day of my new work-to-death schedule. over-commitment, once again, in a final burst of money making (in preparation for a year of poverty and thesis making).

i'm surrounded by taureans: people like me. people a little bit grounded, a little bit distant, rather independent, and somewhat predictable. i can point to 6 whom i've had recent dealings with and i feel like they're keeping me a little bit focused and a little bit upright. i need that.

and tonight was the phone call to suggest a week off for some space and some time. because i need some thinking time. and so does he. i didn't enjoy the conversation but i enjoyed the feeling afterwards. my week has freed itself up for more work, more time with friends, and finding some of that taurean ground that seems to be missing.

and i'm trying not to think too much about one of those taureans. i'm trying not to fuck up friendships. i'm aiming for chastity. so it's a fine time to put my head down and work.

weekend drama

all relationships are hard work. relationships that define themselves as 'not-relationships' are particularly hard. the experiment exists beyond a model, so when things go askew there's no fallback position. there's no default setting. there's just me and him having awkward conversations in the dark. there's misunderstandings. there's the surfacing of words said that i'd forgotten. words that resonated for him. words heard differently. and so we twist them around and pass them back and forth, endlessly.

after dinner, when we're alone, the temperature drops. he's making the bed. he's showering. he's busying himself. i'm laying on the bed, unable to find words to disrupt this awkward drama.

lights are out. his voice is unsteady. there's anger there. there's a slow undressing of all our insecurities, hesitations, dilemmas. i fall asleep and wake in an empty flat. disorientation. it's impossible not to feel alone when you're alone in this flat. he's never not here. his phone is there, his wallet too, but no him.

a few hours later (or minutes), there's me and him and more words. there's me staring at those curtains - cream with brown lines - moving in the breeze. and i think this is the last time i'll look at these curtains from this bed. this is my last time here; with that thought, i drink it in. mostly i stare at the curtains that dance freely in the breeze. the only movement, as we lay still amongst our words.

hours (or minutes) pass until we're holding each other again. i lay on top of him and kiss his lips. he says 'it's about time'. we take to each other like starving animals. few words now, just other sounds as we travel in and out of each other. the curtains probably still dance, but who cares. i'm no longer planning my exit. i'm somewhere else and it's not a place i can describe easily. except to say it's nice. and i stay there for the rest of this day, even now, at home, alone (but so not alone).

before we leave his flat i try to push him into the hallway in his underwear. he says i'm mean. i say 'if you love me you'll walk into the hallway naked'. he says 'but i don't love you.' exactly. and this is what it feels like to not be alone.

for all we know

This song occupies that lovely space before kissing, or maybe after kissing, but either way, the space of departing from the one you love and not knowing if you’ll see them again. “A kiss that is never tasted, forever and ever is wasted”. Indeed. But this space is cause for shyness, and often I don’t lean in for that kiss when I probably should, and this leads to many open-ended dates, conversations, and looks of uncertainty. Once I like you, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to risk the chance of never seeing you again. So I make plans that include you. I schedule a friendship that is nice, lovely even, but it precludes us from tasting kisses. And I’m not as positive as Billie Holiday. I rarely have her casual attitude to love. She knows that there’ll be other loves and a future of many kisses. I need to take a page from her book. I need to step back and imagine tomorrow’s kisses; those tasted and wasted, real or fantastic. And of course there'll be more lingering on the streets, on train platforms, and after final words drop. “We won’t say goodnight until the last minute”. Indeed. There we are in the Métro, talking quietly and letting trains pass. Like clockwork they slide on by. I say I’ll take the next one, the next one... okay, the last one. And of course, I want your lips on mine, but they brush each side of my face. It almost feels right. And I slip away from you wondering if that was the last kiss. It’s always the last kiss. But for now I wake up in the wrong continent. “For all we know, this may be a dream”.

meeting mother

i'm meeting his mother tonight. not sure why i thought this would be a good idea. i guess i want to impress him. i guess i want to see how it feels. i guess i wonder what she's like, and what she might think of me. though i don't suppose she knows much about me. and her partner will be there too. and we're going to that place where we often eat. (but things will feel different, because it's me, him, his mother, her partner).

i'm there as a friend, i think. but who knows what their conversation will hold on the way to the restaurant. i guess she'll connect some dots at dinner. and i'm confused by what it will feel like and how i'm to behave. (do i kiss him on the lips?).

meeting mum is so counter to our relationship, which might best be called an anti-relationship. perhaps meeting mum doesn't have to be weird, in that case, because it needn't mean what we expect it to mean. (relax; there'll be wine).

i imagine i'll be asked 'what do you do?' which could be interesting, because in this time of 'hanging out' we've not really gone there. we know the basics, but these aspects are irrelevant. work is that place we go to after we crawl out of each other's beds. so many mornings of moving around each other as we shower, dress, and leave for work. and we don't need to know what we 'do' after we part on the corner, in the park, or at the top of the stairs. (i don't want to not kiss him on the lips)

technologies of the selves

so i started a new facebook account.

firstly, it was part of a cyclic purging that i observe myself doing; it's about realising that i spend too much time administrating my friendships, social connections, and related participation in semi-public dialogues. the purge is fueled by my phobia of time (there's not enough hours in the day, apparently), and thus if i limit my social/friendship/procrastination potential, i can take back some time to do things more necessary (as though things and people can be wedged apart). secondly, it was a reaction to the FB 'timeline' format which presented the last 5 years back to me as if to say 'here, we wrote your autobiography'. no! my autobiography is not linear, technologically determined, or the sum of my online performance. so the point was to self-delete and start afresh with pseudonym (one familiar to you if you read this) and clear slate. no photos, just words, and an agenda to script a new autobiography.

but then i found i couldn't self-delete. i found that i've built a web of connections with people, information, and news sources, and a culture of play that actually eases my concerns about time/production. and i've been able to bond with people, or stay looped in with faraway people, which maybe wouldn't happen otherwise. so i remain undeleted.

surveillance is a concern, of course. but this week i noted a 'come join the police force' ad in my margin, and that gave me hope. the spambots and data filters are taking my words and generating misfired messages. surely i've said 'fuck the police' in the course of my recent techno-performative networked history, and it seems the words are returned to me by mechanisms that misread. so perhaps the machine (for now) cannot know/shape/profile me at all.

plus, the machine doesn't read sarcasm, irony, or subtle and local cultures of performativity. the machine doesn't realise that what informs my words are the conversations that it is not privy to. much of my daily life evades it.

i was speaking to a friend this week who said she intentionally floods the web with her name so as to be less accountable for having a true online presence, and to exist as fragmentary, evasive, and promiscuously performative. these are my words, not hers, but this is what i take from the conversation. i have a new lover who has no concern for privacy and floods his FB page with endless raging words and drunken photos. i like his carelessness. because being careful is tedious. and maintaining privacy is something that takes much time, effort, and paranoia (all for no reward, because privacy, in any context, can never be guaranteed).

so now i have two accounts/selves, and in many ways my pseudonym is more me than me. there, like here, i am less conscious of who's watching, because maybe they don't even know who they're watching. i'm just a string of words that can be overwritten/re-written/de-written next week.

harissa

i was going to meet P tonight, for sex, but a sore throat told me not to. i suggest sunday instead. his messages are full of txt speak, so i struggle to comprehend. during the week it seemed as though he said he stabbed his boss, but he didn't.

it's friday night and i thought about going to see a film. but i lay on the couch and realise i don't need to, that i can go to bed early. that i can finish watching Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.

i made a morrocan tajine with plenty of garlic and harissa. now i'm sitting at the kitchen bench sweating through every pore. the room feels like a sauna, which is great. i flood myself with lemon water and know that this'll make me better tomorrow. i listen to this:



R sent me this link and i can't stop playing it. it makes 'heart of glass' into a whole new text; melancholic and dreamy. and i guess being here, being pleasantly alone, makes the song all the more poignant. there is nothing to disrupt the attention i give to this song and the feelings it evokes.

four more days, four more nights. before i know it i'm back, working, studying, falling into the same old stresses. as always, i think i've transcended my demons. i think that being away gives me a new outlook on what i'm doing in sydney. but life will get in the way, of course.

D stays tomorrow night, so i hope to be fit and slept and energetic in case we go out for dinner and drinks, which is likely. he'll speak to me in french and i'll not understand. i'll try to play the game only to get frustrated and give up. it's easier to bumble my way through french with strangers than people like D, because what we have to say requires a broader vocabulary. one day, with him and all the others, i hope to express things bilingually. and with two languages, more can be said.

texto

a sad parisian writes a text message.

"You seem to be what we call in french quelqu'un de bien. I wish you a very sweet night."

a sad non-parisian finds comfort in the words of a stranger. yet again.

the last three paragraphs

[...]

Last night we’re jumping between French and English. It seems we now have rules. If one says something in French, the other will respond in French, and this will continue until we hit a wall and have to explain something in English. You’re a brilliant teacher, patient and proud. This is another reason you’ll be missed.

I’ll learn French for you. One day we can talk differently and I’ll not have to say ‘quoi?’

You told me what to say when I go to the phone shop, and how to ask for credit. I have little recollection of these words, but I must go there this morning. You offered to come with me, but I know you’re busy, and I know it’s best for me to do these things alone. But my head is still throbbing, so I think I’ll wait a little longer. I just can’t text M back, I suppose, but that’s okay. I don’t even know if I want to see him. I don’t know much about anything, right now. I know I’m hungry and in need of coffee. I know I’d like croissants, but that would require me leaving the apartment. I know that this won’t happen. Stale brioche will have to suffice.

university makes me wild

yesterday was restless and resentful. after reading about the sad state of universities, i once again wondered why i still want to be part of the machine. once again, i look around for something that suits me better, but i see nothing that will pay me a wage. and so maybe i have to be in the machine, and stay satisfied through a commitment to its disruption.

this morning i wonder about the possibilities of being 'wild' in a system that expects compliance and productivity. Certeau says:

"the name 'wild' both creates and defines what the scriptural economy situates outside of itself. It is moreover immediately given its essential predicate; the wild is transitory; it marks itself (by smudges, lapses, etc.) but it does not write itself. It alters a place (it disturbs), but it does not establish a place" (Practice of Everyday Life, p155).

by 'the scriptural economy' certeau refers to a world that likes to order and classify (through science, history-making, research, etc.) by a process of transcription. all knowledge must be scriptural (despite the fact that transcription alters voices, bodies, and lived practices). transcription both tames what is considered wild, but also names things 'wild' so as to distance these from the person/organisation who holds the pen. but... at the same time, that which is wild continues to obfuscate, disrupt, and challenge such systems. 'wildness' cannot be extracted from society, because it does not inhabit a proper place. by never establishing a place (a system of its own), 'wildness' continues to flourish and disrupt, to mark and smudge the institutions that seek to diminish it, or the language that seeks to contain it (by pinning it down and writing it away). but it can never do this, because 'wildness' operates beyond a scriptural economy. thus, there's a continual opening for untamed, wild practices, and a continued ability to fuck with systems.

i've been listening to shakespears sister lately, and suddenly it makes more sense. just like this video.



i guess, when faced with challenges in the world of academia, i just need to ask myself 'what would catwoman do?'

returning again

i'm adjusting to the time and space of what i call home. the best thing ever is my bed. (i'm laying on it now). it's here that i slept for about 13 hours last night. the best sleep ever. a sleeping pill assisted, but still... best sleep ever.

strange to have all this familar space around me. rooms of furniture and crockery and shelves holding all this stuff which is often my stuff. stuff that i guess i don't need, because i spent time away from it and forgot that it existed. there's always too much stuff. and it always returns with a quick intensity. and in days from now i'll forget that this refamiliarising ever took place. i'll be distracted by less material things, like plans for a future and questions of 'what next?'. but today (and yesterday) is about the present moment. i don't feel guilty for doing nothing, which is also a great space to be. sadly, it won't last.

today D and i went to the market for a walk, a coffee, and a long talk under a big tree. we sit under a good climbing tree and before long kids are circling us, cutting between us, and climbing us to get into the tree. one kid asks for some help in getting up and i say it's a big tree and he might fall. he says he's 5 so it's okay. i say i think you have to be 7 to climb this one. he ignores me, of course, and climbs it without my help.

i speak to D about 'time in Morocco' and how things aren't so scheduled or planned there. risk is of less importance. lives aren't so intensely focused on futures, and these are the things i envied and wanted. i want to live life on the streets, i want my self (my goals, my career, my image, my etc.) to be less important than the communities i'm part of. i want less restrictions caused by a very western notion of time. but of course, i don't want the poverty (and thus, the limited mobility) that goes with this. which makes me that annoying tourist who is fascinated by 'others', and by my inability to ever appropriate their ways. though i guess this is better than being repulsed by others.

at casablanca airport a woman with an australian passport is in the queue in front of me, heading into departures. an arabic couple re-join the queue next to her, and with the approval of others (they were there earlier, but had to go fill out departure cards), they go ahead of her. she protests loudly, and says it's not fair. she looks at me and says "typical. they're always pushing in, any chance they get. maybe if we vomit on them they'll know..." and i'm quite dumbfounded and cannot respond. i stare blankly. let's pretend i'm french and can't understand this woman. and i can't understand her. i can't understand what prompted these words. why vomit? and why is she here then, in an arabic country, if her hatred is this strong? i hide my passport. i don't want to share any similarity with her. i want the group of women behind me to take me into their world and protect me from her kind. i wanted them to adopt me before the crazy woman anyway, because the whole time i queued i felt the trickling of their soft laughter. i couldn't understand their words either, but their laughter offered comfort and assurance. when i'm alone in foreign countries, smiles and laughter make everything okay.

the second time i hate an 'australian' person is on my flight to sydney, when another middle-aged white woman complains to everyone around her about some noisy twins who are probably two and half years old. they sing/whine in a language that she or i can't understand. the repetition gets tedious at times, but they're cute, so this makes it bearable (like with kittens). the woman says to me and the woman in front of me "is the mother doing anything!?" i shrug and look away. again, i don't speak your language. i'm not sure i can keep using this tactic outside airports and airplanes, but it's probably worth a try.

D states the obvious today when he says that the more 'educated' we become, the more questions we have. we're talking about the election he just voted in, the racial politics of right-wing parties scapegoating others, and why this continues to win votes. he says that politicians don't appeal to the logic of those who question everything. we're also talking about my envy of mediterranean lifestyles that are less hinged upon time, risk, and the pursuit of individuality. of course, these differences are only obvious to me through my 'educated' worldview, and it's this very worldview that places a rift between the life i have and the life i want. as always, my knowledge fractures my possibilities.

resonance

i said my goodbyes, walked through the rain, returned to this room. it's quiet. i miss it already, my favourite conference. the radio is turned on to lessen the quiet. radio 2 is playing bowie and i crunch on wasabi peas.

i have much to say: on sex, research, and sex research. too much, so i'll just see where this goes...

in last night's keynote, Katrien Jacobs spoke about the importance of writing one's own pleasure into one's research on pleasure. indeed, the merging of artist and researcher affords a more complex discussion that doesn't have to dissolve the author's body. and the author's body was appearing all through this conference. whilst i took issue with a paper on arabic-themed gay porn, i loved when the presenter paused to admire and envy the power-bottom skills of François Sagat. in her talk today, Susanna Paasonen spoke of 'somatic archives', and argued that studies of affect can only ever begin with your own experiences. she spoke about resonance and made me finally see the merit of studying affect.

i made new friends.

i imagined there'd be lovely queer men here and i was right. i found myself in many conversations with them. lovely yet awkward conversations. i noticed that we'd congregate often, the younger (myself on the cusp) queer male sect. we sniffed each other out like vampires. we'd share the same meal table. we'd talk about our research and it seemed flirtatious. or maybe i just don't know how to read this. but i catch and distribute glances. we're open to each other. we're open to each others' ideas. and that offers more erotic charge than a cute smile. yet there are cute smiles too. we bond over bad food and being stranded on a faraway campus in the middle of... somewhere.

tonight i'm having dinner with e, the only other remaining sect member. we didn't get to talk much, but he seems lovely. we were awkward. i might see e2 in london tomorrow, though he wasn't my favourite. but maybe it'll be nice to explore parts of the city with a follow stranger. in paris i'll see f and b.

i just met f last night. here there were electric currents. i liked the way he smiled this morning when we caught each other's eye. i like the way he speaks. he researches porn, and watches the favourite porn of his research participants, recording his reaction. he inserts himself into his research and into the pleasures of others. he invited me to his fan culture conference this week, but it's the day i leave paris. of course i want him.

but i'm good. and i'm thinking about the man back home. and i'm thinking about myself. and i'm thinking that a look can hold more power than an orgasm. because a look remains open. that smile stays with me.

breakfast in bed

people in england talk funny. it's funny being in a strange place and being able to understand the locals (for the most part). sometimes it feels like i'm in france, but this is probably just because that's my reference point for traveling. but this is england. and it's a strange place. not in a bad way.

yesterday i gave a paper and afterwards a man who spoke like ian curtis gave me his business card.

i think about Little Britain more than i wish too. i'm on the outskirts of london and i'm noticing class more than i would in sydney. maybe i need to visit the outskirts of sydney someday.

i'm still not sleeping. last night was 5 hours, the night before 4, and 5 before that. before that i was on planes so i got 0 hours. last night at dinner i heard myself babbling and i wondered if i was making sense. i needed to sleep. i also needed not to wake up at 4.30. and today is a full day of presentations to watch.

i'm eating chocolate for breakfast. with no sense of time, no ability to sleep, ongoing disorientation, and being upside down in the world, i figure that's okay.

Les Bien-amés

Tonight I saw Les Bien-aimés (Beloved), the latest film by Christophe Honoré.

Once again, I think it's possible that I could be an Honoré character. These characters encircle each other, fall for each other, and relate to each other in disorderly ways. They take risks and get burned. Or they don’t take risks and get burned anyway. They seek connection with others, or seek to heighten connections already made. Often their closeness to others is overshadowed by attempts to get something more, or to find something new with someone who's not available to them. Tensions lie in the struggles between what's impossible and what's comfortable. Eruptions occur. These dramas come from small places; the simmering lava of internal crevices. And once again these characters and their dramas sneak up on me. They sing about love in the streets of Paris, which could generate the worst film ever. But no, because Honoré wields love songs in such a way that they entice and pierce. Every cliché is laced with a sour reality. Characters sing for clarity, lyrics repeat, a chorus returns again and again, and this is what we all experience. We sing ourselves into the scenarios we perform. We each have choruses to return to. We find ourselves in a song whose tensions rise and fall in familiar patterns. It's a comfortable tune, but not necessarily a happy one. I'm open to being enticed by this film because I'm terribly in love with these scenes, actors, characters, and songs. I love that it was two and half hours long. I could have sat for many more, choking back tears, holding my breath, feeling all-too-familiar sensations as I semi-consciously trawl through my own difficult relations, past and present.

In tonight’s film a father speaks to his adult daughter about courage. She says she’s never been cautious in love, and he says this is a good thing, that courage is important. He says it’s good to aim for the impossible. Doing so leads to a failure of sorts, but what's important is courageousness. This struck a chord with me. I've had some setbacks with my studies once again, and further fears of never completing. And maybe he's right. Maybe it's good to strive for things that might be impossible. Because courage matters more. Courage builds character and generates new experiences. Perhaps it also ensures that failing is never really about failure.

The friend I saw it with didn’t feel the same way about this film. He didn’t love the almost-melodrama, the tenderness, the central theme of finding and losing oneself through love. I was disappointed by this.

Earlier in the film one character sings to another that she doesn't need him to love her, but knows that she will love him forever. The song returns later and reminds me that this is what's going on here - the film is about how one's sense of self is generated through their relations to others, and this self is particularly intensified in relations of love. It's possible to have love without the other person loving you back, because while that person is there, you can still construct your self through this love. But when they're dead or gone forever, you lose your sense of self. It's pretty much what Barthes wrote about in A Lover's Discourse, about the image-repertoire as a projection that begins and ends not with the loved one, but the lover herself. Once the loved one is gone, the subject (the lover) becomes the absent one, and falls into crisis. Thus, we struggle to re-gain ourselves all the time, over and again, falling victim to a well-rehearsed chorus of loss.

a weekend of many scenes

i'm lying on a yellow and orange woven rug in the park. with the tip of his finger, Z drips a line on water drops up the length of my arm. i feel each one. his look of concentration with a sly grin.

i walk back to J from the auto-teller to find him sitting perched on a plastic cable box. he's wearing a cap, my short sleeve shirt (high buttoned), and the face of a shy school boy.

a card from M, hand delivered, expressing warm words. throughout are several spelling error corrections and arrows to change the order of vowels.

aretha franklin sings Doctor Feelgood while we're stoned on the couch. a shared moment of awe.

a dozen pastizzi's and a jug of beer at the Union hotel.

a firecracker thrown from a car window as we eat gelato. a bang. and a shop alarm that never stops ringing.

here in the dark, i could be anyone

i'm quite obsessed with Anna Calvi's album. i wake up too early, i put it on, it reminds me that everything's okay.

as much as i fall for particular music, i never play it every day as i do with Calvi. teenage once more. obsessing in my room. listening through headphones where i can play it loud. feeling like these songs are mine.

i share my obsession with Z, so he's in my thoughts this morning as i play the music. i think about messaging him, but my phone is in the next room. i think about holding him and how it's been a few days now. i would really like to hold him. but for now i have Calvi, and i guess i need this more.

at the moment Z loves Suzanne and I. for me it's Blackout. in silly text messages we express our love for Calvi songs. Or sometimes it's No More Words. it's the way she says "all... my... love" again and again, with each time different. he points out how her voice almost gives way during this song, that it's quite a raw recording. now, each time i hear her voice falter, i flinch and crackle. i feel it.

i love how restrained she is. she gets loud and soars on a note or a chorus only to pull things back to a whisper. or she becomes elvis, singing down and low. and the music is often sparse. except in Blackout, because by the 7th song it feels right to quicken the pace and give a harmonious, pulsing, scream. but not too loud. again, restraint. and so i'm left wanting more. i'm always wanting more. the last song - Love Won't Be Leaving - seems too appropriate.

Z and I... like Suzanne and I, "we hold... hold... hold it down..."

why beyoncé matters for bruce and me

my housemate sent me this article by bruce la bruce many months ago - wondering why beyonce doesn't matter- and i just read it now. the conversation/moment has been and gone, of course. timeliness is everything in the land of blog. but since i'm not properly inhabiting such spaces, and because i resent such timeliness, i'm going to respond now, late in the day. today i'm writíng a letter to bruce.

dear Bruce,

firstly, thank you for making interesting films that i've enjoyed over the years. i particularly enjoyed Otto and Raspberry Reich. thank you for making films that are queer, political, and pornographic - this is most refreshing. though i'm sorry you made LA Zombie, which didn't interest me on any of these levels.

i just read your Vice article on Beyoncé which, like LA Zombie, is not your best work. the article was very negative to Beyoncé's music and fans, and i don't think that's particularly useful to feminism, hip-hop, or queer politics. your derision of her (and more so, her oeuvre) was executed through comparison to Other Black Women in music - those more deserving of attention, apparently. yet, isn't this the most simple and benign way to argue that someone doesn't matter? i could say that you don't matter because queer-boy cinema has Todd Haynes, François Ozon, and John Cameron Mitchell. but i wouldn't, because the more queer cinema the better, and the richer the conversation can be.

this comparative argument is also anti-alliance. instead of asking how beyoncé's oeuvre might gel with those of the other women you mention (and vice versa), you seek only to contrast, isolate, and negate. and what does it do to suggest that space for black, female performers is a limited and competitive one?

might it also be more useful to consider how Beyoncé's work is enjoyed, and how it incorporates feminist statements and symbols? might feminism (or pop music and its listeners) be more complex than you suggest? i'd hope so.

the politics of 'derision through comparison' that you employ here is a problem because it's about saying no (to Beyoncé, or whoever the straw woman might be today). it's the politics of negation, silencing, and enforced choice. is there only room for a few handpicked, authentic, black female performers? it seems so, because you encourage us to choose Gwen Verdon, Sheree North, Ann Millerand, early Janet Jackson, En Vogue, Roxanne Shante or Bytches with Problems over Beyoncé. your Marxist beliefs might be put to better use by refusing such choice-making that ties us to a false economy of best/greatest/#1. because choice is not so necessary and pop music need not be graded, measured and restricted. again, there is room for many expressions here (and many engagements with many such expressions). you're welcome to enjoy whatever you like, of course, but i'd rather you didn't try to put limits on what i enjoy. it would be nice, too, if you didn't presume why others enjoy such things as Beyoncé's music, and how this represents some sort of cultural decline.

and perhaps you might not presume that there are distinct, obvious, and universal values for measuring pop music (and feminism).

and lastly, citing pop lyrics as evidence that pop music is heteronormative and sexist is the oldest trick in the book. any pop music listener knows there's more going on here than words (as though the song were confined to a page). lyrics aren't simple expressions of a singer's values, politics, or ideologies; words are devices for telling stories. Beyoncé is a story-teller, as her Sasha Fierce identity suggests. her stories are not hers alone, and perhaps they are more about us. that her product is successful is not because she made it successful, it's because we did. so maybe it could be said that Beyoncé doesn't matter after all, but i don't think you're saying this. you might try to, but your argument (in which Beyoncé matters) betrays your claim (that she doesn't).

for me, i'd say that Beyoncé matters. because in walking home tonight she whispered this in my ear: