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From: Julian.West@mac.dartmouth.edu
Date: 19 Oct 89 12:28:20
Subject: A banner day for Kate scholarship
(Warning, extended intellectual climax) ------------------------------------ Congratulations to Joe Turner and kudos to Jorn Barger! Two significant contributions to Kate research in one morning... First, Joe's reading of the (forwards!) words "Don't ignore me..." is almost certainly correct. I don't even have to go back to _the_Ninth_Wave_ to be convinced that they fit. It even seems _obvious_ in retrospect. (I'll eat all the above words if I pop the CD in this afternoon and I'm wrong (and if anyone sends me a hard copy!). I'll eat them forwards _and_ backwards.) Second, Jorn has done a damned sensible thing in tracking the "original" lyrics to the _World_. I had conjectured in love-hounds a week or two ago that this would be possible but I _hadn't_gotten_ around_to_trying_yet_ ! How lazy can I get? I've even been wasting time on my thesis... What tipped me off (this was back in the days before we were sure about the difficulties with Joyce's estate) was the unusual word "Machiavellian" which is not Joycean at all but happens to fit the cadence of "Andalusian". I figured that similar substitutions had been made throughout, starting with the first line, which I had myself been able to match. I had no idea that the complete solution would be so _simple_ though! Only _two_ fragments! Incidentally, everything that Jorn says about the custodians of Joyce's estate is strongly stated, but true. It is frustrating! Are you something of a Joycean scholar, Jorn? Only one thing that Jorn says is (partially) false, however: that "we can only hear [this song] in our minds' ear". True that we can only hear _Kate_ singing it in our minds (and how sweet it is! try it!) But we can certainly hear _someone_else_ singing it. All I need is a good soprano, a recording studio, and a copy of the double-tracked single (the one with no lyrics, remember). I'll get on it this weekend. Is it _worth_ doing this? Depends on whether you are interested in Kate primarily as a singer or a composer. Is it _legal_? Probably depends on how widely it circulates; I don't know. ----------------------------- julian -----------