Re: KaTe is God... "Catherine" is not.

[jessica@athos.rutgers.edu (jessica)]

mandorallen@st1.vuw.ac.nz writes:

>...or, how I learned to stop worrying and love The Sensual World
>by Anthony Hobbs, the Bard.

>In article <9108201713.AA11645@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu>, Jorn Barger wrote a
>nice little article containing his analysis of KaTe's changes in musical style
>over the years, which the conclusion that "she is undergoing another 
>metamorphosis, into a _grown-up woman_, whom we might rename Catherine Bush."
>This, of course, implies that the Goddess - sorry, woman who wrote _The_
>Dreaming_, _Hounds_of_Love_ and _The_Ninth_Wave is soon to be no more -
>swallowed up by her older, "wiser" self. Does this remind you of anything,
>Love-Hounds? I refer, of course, to "Jig of Life", where the protagonist's
>future self demands that she stay alive that she, the future self, might be
>born. Is it, then, Jorn's feeling that KaTe is no more - that she is about
>to be this "Catherine"?
> ... [deleted]
>	What is my point, you ask? Hooray if KaTe is becoming a mature woman, I
>say. But if maturity means she loses that which elevated her to Goddess-status
>in so many eyes, then I fear I will have to say a fond farewell to this new
>"Catherine", quietly withdraw from the First Church of Love-Hounds and silently
>slip away, like Puff the Magic Dragon, and cherish my memories of KaTe. "Love-
>Hounds live for ever, but not so their Goddess" - is this the shape of things?
>Do not get me wrong. Catherine is a great songwriter. But what makes her diff-
>erent from the hordes of other Mature Female Artists? Maybe, just maybe, it 
>would have been better if Catherine had not been born.

       Well, I didn't get that feeling from Jorn's post at all! Maybe it
is because how I define "maturity" must be different from how you
define it.  You seem to think that if we say Kate has matured and
developed, changed to the point of reaching a "turning point", that
then she has "lost" somehow the things she was before! I say No! Not
at all! 
       
       To me, becoming more mature is certainly to change, but to
_retain_ what has been before, and simply _add_ to it. Or at least, to
retain the _good_ things that we have found make us happy people, and
to lose the bad stuff that we've found makes us unhappy. I'm pretty
sure you don't think the things in Kate that let her make "the ninth
wave", "the dreaming", etc.. were bad things that she'd want to lose.
I think she has simply found that there is *more* than just that in
her. From her own quotes and just from my own sense, I'd guess that
all along she has always strived to find *all* of what's inside her,
to always grow and learn about herself, and, happily for us, to
express it!

	I liked Jorn's post a lot - I have many similar thoughts. I
think much of "the sensual world" was a creation coming from the new
stuff Kate has found in herself, but at the very least "rocket's tail"
shows that she has not lost who she was to become someone different,
but has only gronw around and on top of what was, and is still, there.

			      jessica
-- 
|| jessica  || It is this that || Don't try to tell me there's no reason for ||
|| lawrence ||    brings us    || any moment in time, every memory of mine.  ||
|| koeppel  ||    together.    || Those years are lines of color on my face, ||
|| dembski  ||        --Kate   || the past is warpaint.     --Happy Rhodes   ||