Kate-echism XXIII.8.v: no more gooDIE two-shoes...

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Kate-echism XXIII.8.v: no more gooDIE two-shoes...

 >Just wanted to say first of all, that if I recall, the soundtrack to Blade
 >Runner by Vangelis was referred to in the closing credits as "harp of the
 >ancient temples" or some such name.

     No. That particular track is credited to someone else at the end
of _Blade_Runner_. Not the entire soundtrack, which, with the exception
of that little bit of music, is all by Vangelis.

 >I would see two-record sets of Kate Bush containing most of the same stuff
 >but always with different names and covers. They piqued my interest because
 >of the photography on the record covers (one of them was a NUDE portfolio
 >of Kate Bush!!! Of the quality of spreads in Playboy! seriously!!). I had
 >no idea they were bootlegs but everything fits now... I would have been
 >very surprised if it was actually the case that KT willingly put 10 pictures
 >of herself nude on the record jacket of one of HER releases.....
 >And now, another editorial comment: The SENSUAL world??? Gag, Barf, Ack!!!
 >(this is in agreement)..............
 >
 > --  S. Alan Ezust    depeche@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca

     IED is not surprised that someone who actually thought
those sleazy Guccione snaps were of Kate Bush would also fail to appreciate
a _totally_brilliant_, elegant, subtly multivalent title like _The_Sensual_
_World_.

 >>  Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU:
 >> Really-From: Andy Hynes <ahynes@axion.british-telecom.co.uk>
 >>they are in fact "Your SON'S coming out". This would imply, to me, that
 >>childbirth is commencing. What child ? Who's child ?
 >
 >Organon's, perhaps? Isn't the daughter ``remembering Organon'' in the song?
 >Incest, eh? The same thing occurs in the song ``The Kick Inside'' why not in
 >a `popular' song.
 >Ho, hum... what do I know? I just listen to the words.
 >
 >-- nicK

     Yeah, well you sure haven't been listening very carefully.
There _is_ no daughter in _Cloudbusting_. In fact, there's no female
character at all in the song.
     And Organon (actually Orgonon) is the name of Reich's estate, not
of a person!
     Sorry for being so testy, but this has got to be the fortieth
time IED has explained such rudimentary and obvious facts before in L-Hs.

 >   Don't judge an album by the title!  I remember how corny 'Hounds of Love'
 >sounded out of context.  Wait and see.
 >
 >-- Scott Lindsey

     I agree with your advice, Scott, of course. But I don't think
_Hounds_of_Love_ ever sounded corny. I always thought it was an
appropriately weird and mysterious title, and _The_Sensual_World_
is equally so.

 > No, no.  It's not Kate's feeding her cats fishy wishy that's
 > hypocrititical...

     Then why did you ask her? And why have you mentioned this
issue more than once since then with clear indications that you
thought it was significant? Just curious.

 >     Regarding The Island Ear interview that was posted a while back, I
 >remember it very well.  The interviewer for The Island Ear was a very
 >pretty lass that interviewed Kate immediately before I did.  We both
 >waited in fear and trepedation together (well, maybe only I was in
 >fear and trepedation) for our turns to come up.

     IED believes this is the same Long Island female-journalist Kate-fan
who was introduced to IED in NYC by Vickie Mapes early in '85. She was
nice enough, but unfortunately she liked Kate Bush slightly _less_ than
she liked...(gulp)..."Stevie Nicks".

> [IED:] Maybe so, but not because you managed to find a bunch of L-Hs
 >> to agree with you. "Consent by group discussion" has no value when
 >> it is reached without a rational study of the facts, and in the face
 >> of direct denials of their validity by Kate Bush herself.

 >     For about the 10,000th time you have made this same lame argument,
 >Andy. The theories I and some others had about mules in "Get Out of
 >My House" were not ever (after Kate told us about her intentions) said
 >by anyone to be what Kate intended. The only claim was that our
 >interpretation "makes sense". Whether or not an interpretation makes
 >sense, has absolutely nothing to do with what the artist intended.

     If you take time to notice what IED said, you'll see no contention
that your opinion about mules "made no sense". IED pointed out that
it _has_no_validity_. Not because it is illogical in its own (rather
warped) way, but _because_it_is_irrelevant_. This is clear and
unequivocal. KATE BUSH SAID IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SONG.
IED doesn't object to your having had such a notion about mules
_before_ the interview. What he objects to is your repeated defense
of the idea _even_afterward_. Since Kate has discredited the theory,
it should long ago have been quietly forgotten and done with.
     Now. Whether you feel that it still "makes sense" is of no
concern to IED one way or another. But simply because it "makes
sense" doesn't give it any validity in a discussion of the meaning
of Kate's work. If Kate thinks it's irrelevant, then _WHO_BLOODY_WELL_
_CARES_ whether they're mules or donkeys?

 >If I were to write a one line poem "My mother eats cars for
 >breakfast", and you were to say that an interpretation that makes
 >sense is "Doug's female parent consumes small passenger vehicles for
 >nutrition shortly after she wakes up," then you would be right.  That
 >would be an interpretation of my poem that makes sense.  However, it
 >might not be at all what I intended.

     IED can see how the above interpretation might be a logical one
to make, and one would have every point of logic in one's favour for
so interpreting the sentence.
     What you don't seem to be able to understand is that, _once_ you
have explained that this is _not_ the interpretation which you intended,
any arguments to the contrary would become _academic_ and _irrelevant_.
     There is a qualification IED would like to make to this position.
It should be understood here that we are considering the sentence
(as we consider Kate's lines about the mule) as works of art, not
as simple factual prose statements. IED looks at your sentence out
of context, and he interprets it as a straightforward piece of prose.
You explain that you meant it to have a quite different meaning,
attaching to the sentence's words the meanings of a specific, narrow
genre of jargon. This changes the situation entirely, and IED _must_
withdraw his original interpretation, _not_ as "wrong" but as _irrelevant_.
     And that's even if it's only _your_ sentence, |>oug! You can imagine
how much more true this is if it's the word of the one true living God!

 >"right"?  My intended interpretation, or your infered interpretation.
 >Well this question makes no sense.  Neither interpretation is any more
 >"right" than the other.

     In the most narrow sense of the word "right", you may have a point.
But this is of no significance in the face of the fact that the
creator of the artwork (in this case your sample sentence) has
_denied_ the validity of the alternate interpretation. Just because
one has "logic" on one's side doesn't make one's interpretation of
a work of _art_ _valid_, unless it jibes with, or at least doesn't
directly fly in the face of, the meaning intended by the creator of
the work.
     In the case of the mules business, you presented a highly
overwrought interpretation of a passage in Kate's work which she
clearly had no intention to suggest, and which in fact she actually
stated outright was wrong. In such a situation the question of
your fussy theories about donkeys' genitalia become totally
irrelevant--whether they have a logical basis or not.

-- Andrew Marvick