Re: KT NEWS; mailbag

[Doug Alan <nessus@athena.mit.edu>]

>> From: timelord%TARDIS.CS.ED.AC.UK@mitvma.mit.edu
>> Subject:    gaffa

>> [Timelord:] Gaffa (or more formally, "gaffa tape") is a wide sticky
>> tape, usually black black or green...<Further description
>> deleted.)...Mystery solved?

> [IED:] In a word: no. There's a lot more to Kate's "Gaffa" than just the
> surface meaning.

It amuses me when Mr. Marvick says such things, especially since if
Kate were to be asked if there were any secret meaning to the word
"Gaffa", she would say "No, it's just a kind of sticky tape we use".

This is not to say that "gaffa", as used in the song, does not have
any symbolic meanings, because it does.  But its symbolic meanings
stem from its meaning as a sticky kind of tape that the protagonist of
the song has gotten stuck in.

> [IED on the song "Hounds of Love":] <Since Kate clearly explains
> that the steps are a symbol for the character's determination to
> _advance_and_face_ her feelings--to plunge into the danger, so to
> speak--!>oug's notion about the steps being a way to _evade_ the
> hounds <love> is obviously wrong. But since he didn't even _ask_ her
> whether his idea was correct or not, she naturally said nothing
> about it.>

Mr. Marvick is again being completely ridiculous.  The image of
running through water to avoid hounds is so completely ingrained into
American and British culture that Kate would have to be brain-dead or
a complete hermit to refer to walking through water in a song about
being chased by hounds, and not be refering to trying to shake their
trail.  Since we know that Kate is neither brain-dead, nor a complete
hermit, she *must* be (in part) refering to avoiding the hounds.
However, contrary to Mr. Marvick's myopic interpretation, shaking off
the hounds does not necessarily mean that Kate has forsaken love.  It
may very well refer to her shaking off the fear of love (the hounds),
without shaking off love itself.

In any case, if IED is so sure of himself while walking so far out on
his precarious limb, why has he yet to take me up on my bet regarding
"Nice to Swallow"?  Maybe Mr. Marvick is not as confident about his
ideas as he would have us believe.

|>oug