Re: Is she is or is she ain't?

[nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)]

> From: barger@ARISTOTLE.ILS.NWU.EDU (Jorn Barger)
> 
> Okay, folks... here's the skinny on Kate and Gurdjieff, from a friend of a
> friend who seems to know (and who is not entirely comfortable with our
> prying):
> 
> > Kate, they tell me, is less deeply involved with the ideas and I
> > even got the impression that she asked her brother to lay off
> >"evangelizing" to her (if you've heard "Them Heavy People", it
> > bears this out).
> 
> I thought THP was an expression of reluctant gratitude...?

I think so, but I think it's gratitude for opening her mind up to the
possibilities, not selling her on any particular philosophy.  We went
through a similar debate around last fall.  Vickie objected to the
tendency of people to assume that Kate is "into" everything she
mentions in her music, Gurdjieff and Moon Cheese worship were
mentioned specifically, in caps with exclamation marks.  Some folks
objected to this while I agreed with everything but the Moon Cheese 
part and provided some interview quotes that I felt supported that 
position.  Finally, Vickie produced what I feel the to be a fairly 
definitive quote on Kate's feelings about Gurdjieff.  Vickie
wrote: 

|  She's indicated in many interviews that she was never really a
| serious student of his. I have one radio interview made the day 
| TD was released.  Kate took live phone calls and she was asked 
| about Gurdjieff.  She says: "Gurdjieff was an influence in that 
| I read some of his books, really no more than that. I found a lot 
| of what he said interesting and that's really as far as it goes" 
| The interviewer asks Kate to elaborate about who G is. Kate says 
| "Yes, well, Gurdjieff was, um, well he was considered a leader of 
| a religious movement I think, but as far as I know he just had a 
| lot of ideas about creating a way that would make people stronger 
| and more together. And it's just a different way of doing it.  And 
| it was also trying to go for a more Western way of doing it, but I
| do know very little about it so I really wouldn't like to say very
| much because it's a subject that I feel, if I'm going to speak about, 
| I should know what I'm talking about." The interviewer asks the caller 
| about his interest in G and he says that he was curious about Kate's 
| mentioning him in a few of her songs. The interviewer says "well,, 
| the influence was minimal by the sound of it" and Kate says "yes, 
| yes it was" and laughs.
| 
| I have this on audio, not transcript. To hear Kate actually saying the
| above is enough for me to believe that she did not "follow" Gurdjieff.
| 
| Kate wrote "Sat In Your Lap" and it's at least partially autobiograph-
| ical.  She loves to learn about lots of different things and incorpor-
| ates bits and pieces of knowledge into her songs. My Kateness, just 
| take a good, long and hard look at the cover of NFE. That's what it's 
| all about!
 
So if your friend means that she "is less deeply involved with
the ideas" than her brothers, yes, there's no question about that.  
If your friend has some reason to believe that Kate was actually
irritated about her brother's "evangelizing" beyond his own
impression of _Them Heavy People_ I'd be fascinated to hear 
about it.


"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
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