Mailbag: Kate-echism XXVIII.11.xiii

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

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Mailbag: Kate-echism XXVIII.11.xiii

   Some considerable mess has been caused by a lot of sloppy thinking
on various Love-Hounds' parts during the last two days. Here's an
attempt to straighten things out once again.

 >From: Jon Drukman <jsd@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>
 >Well, here's the poop on the enigmatic giggle at the end of "Love and
 >Anger."
 >Fact 3: It ain't in the video
 >Fact 4: It ain't on the promo CD single

     Unless Drukman has seen this video elsewhere than on MTV, he
does not know whether the laugh is in the video or not. Even the
most complete airing of the video on MTV to date cuts off Kate's film
before the laugh would be heard, if it were included. IED continues
naively to hope that Drukman will one day learn not to state his
poorly supported _opinions_ as "Facts".

 >       Doug is also irritated that I like the song so much:
 >> A mighty song???  You mean that lousy song that might have been
 >> really good if Kate hadn't totally botched it with a wretched
 >> Journey-esque arrangement?
 >
 >Here I do not repent.


     To your great credit! Doug's judgement is patently foolish,
and shows no appreciation of the myriad qualities of this recording's
production which make any comparison of it with "Journey" completely
absurd. His opinion shows once again merely that Doug (like his ilk
Drukman) is unable, in most cases, to appreciate the distinction of KT
from the generic genres of pop, the crude and obvious characteristics of
which it is just barely within their limited abilities to identify.
As a result they blindly insist that _The_Dreaming_ is Kate's "greatest"
album, simply because they are able dimly to recognize in it sounds which
they can recognize as belonging to an aesthetically "correct"--because
suitably "experimental"--camp. Whereas of course the truth is that
_The_Dreaming_ is neither greater nor less great than _Not_This_Time_,
because both contain the essence of Kate's genius in equal measure, and
because the true quality or worth of either is to be appreciated not by
a gauge of its associations with any particular genre--whether suitably
"progressive" or "experimental" (as in _The_Dreaming_) or inappropriately
"mainstream" or "commercial" (as in the "Journey"-like sound which is
all Doug is capable of perceiving in _Not_This_Time_)--but, instead, by
its inherent identity as the work of KATE BUSH, the One True Living God.

 >(It should also be noted that I think all the people who insist the
 >line "It keeps me going and it keeps the ship away" is really "...it
 >keeps the shit away" are silly - if that's what she'd said, really, she
 >would have published it.  She's a very uncompromising sort...

   As readers will see above, someone has attempted feebly to
chide IED and others for their earlier conclusion that "ship", in
the book _Kate_Bush_Complete_, is a substitute for "shit", the word
which can be heard quite plainly in the recording itself.
   The claim is made that this could not be so because "Kate" would
have written it thus. This she very probably _would_ have done--_if_
she had herself been in charge of the editing of the book _Kate_Bush_
_Complete_. She was not. Kate, in fact, quite clearly had only the
most marginal last-minute involvement in this book, which was edited
by a journalist named Cecil Bolton and which was based on research by
the excellent Kate Bushologist Peter FitzGerald-Morris. The reason we
know that Kate's involvement was minimal is because there are a number
of other errors in the texts in that book, at least some of which Kate would
certainly have noticed had she made any serious scrutiny of the galleys
before publication. It's also important to note that, for all his
erudition in re matters of Kate Bushological moment, Peter is prone
to whitewash the Kate Bush story wherever his rather prim sense of
decency dictates. So, although Kate herself would probably not have
changed "shit" to "ship", Peter almost certainly _would_ have done so--
and did. All one has to do to agree with IED is to go and listen--with
_care_, this time--to the recording. There is really no question about
it.

 >Anyone familiar with Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's "Ulysses"
 >will immediately recognize where Kate plagiarized the above lyrics.  If
 >you don't have Ulysses handy, you can hear "Ralph Spoilsport" performing
 >the soliloquy at the end of the Firesign Theater's "How Can You Be In Two
 >Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?".
 >
 >Question (I haven't seen the new album): Does Kate give Joyce credit?
 >
 >       Howard A. Landman

   This is really annoying. Mr. Landman bandies about the word
"plagiary" without so much as a moment's prior research. Let him
hope that he fares better at the hands of any future critics of
_his_ work, should he have the misfortune of writing something which
refers to earlier literature.
   Kate originally wrote this song using passages from the book
verbatim. Unfortunately she later found that she could not obtain
permission from the Joyce estate to publish the song in that form,
even though she tried very hard for over six months to get such
permission.
   Consequently, Kate made multiple _changes_ to the text, altering
not only the words but the concept of the entire story, such that
the song, in its present, published form, reflects the sensations which
Molly Bloom might experience if she were "stepping out off the page" of
Joyce's book into the real world. There is _no_ plagiarism involved
at all, Mr. Landman. You ought to be more careful with your words.
     Finally, IED would like to congratulate Mr. Manchester on his
success in pinning Kate down once and for all about the "Organon"
issue--a subject which has been the focus of nearly limitless printouts
of debate in Love-Hounds during the past four years. IED was heartened
to see, from the extract from Kate's letter to you, that the error _was_
detected by her before the album was released, and that it was
apparently a typographical error which came as a surprise to her; which
indicates that it was not made by Kate (or John), but by the typesetters.
It is finally possible for IED to excise from his (tongue-in-cheek)
1986 paper on _HoL_ the following survey of theoretical explanations:

  ...new implications arise from the re-spelling of the name Orgonon
  itself within the song. It has not been determined yet whether
  or not this re-spelling was originally a deliberate one. It is
  arguable, however, that, by the time the twelve-inch "Organon
  Mix" was released, the emphasis on this spelling reflected Kate's
  intentions. If this is so, then the word "organon" may
  be seen as a reference not only by pun to Reich's
  once-controversial sexual theories, but also directly to
  the term "organon", used by Aristotle in reference to
  several of his logical treatises, and again by Sir Francis
  Bacon in some of his philosophical writings. Suggestions
  have been made, as well, that the misspelling may be a
  reference to a character from the long-running British
  television series "Dr. Who", although this seems a remote
  possibility, since it is unlikely that Kate is certain of the
  correct spelling of that character's name.
  The most likely reference is to the British pharmaceutical
  product Organon, a common sleeping aid: such a connotation
  is not wildly arcane; nor is it unrelated to the theme of the
  song. It is not inappropriate, however,
  that the term seems also to rationalize her single known vice
  by referring to Walter Rumsey's "Organon Salutis", an obscure
  document of 1659 subtitled, "Divers New Experiments of Tobacco
  and Coffee: how Much they conduce to preserve Humane Health."

-- Andrew Marvick