ied's belated tower report

[Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>]

IED arrived at a deserted Tower Records (Greenwich Village, 4th and Broadway,
NYC) at 6 a.m., and was almost immediately met by erstwhile leader of
the philocanine pack |>oug /\lan. Also among the very first was
Alanna (sp?), a young (to this hoary fan) Kate admirer (and Love-Hound
lurker) who had flown in from San Francisco just to be there.  In a
spirit of bonhomie we became cold together over the succeeding ten
hours in line.  By 7 a.m. there were about ten or twelve people behind us,
but when IED checked again at 6:15 p.m at least 1,500 still remained outside.
Our group received greetings from Keith DeWeese, Jason S(? -- sorry), Mike
Knight, Meredith Tarr, Jessica, Greg Bossert and at least a couple of
others whose names IED cannot, alas, recall. A pleasant atmosphere
prevailed throughout the day, and his companions kindly saved IED's
place in line when, at about 1 p.m., he left briefly to freshen the
Love-Hounds bouquet (3 dozen white roses).  We were also briefly
interviewed by a Pulse! reporter, and IED was handed the business card
of a New York Times journalist.  Inside the store later, a video crew
for Columbia told IED that they would be making footage of the event
available to MTV and CNN, among others.

Finally, IED had the honor of being the first of what certainly had to
have been something close to 500 lucky fans who actually were able to
meet Kate and have her sign something for them.  He presented the
flowers to her, and (through a fog of unreality and questionable
consciousness) heard her say, "Oh, they're beautiful!" to which IED replied
trenchantly, "...Euh...uh...unh..."

Then, getting his wits about him, he blurted that the roses
were being offered in behalf of Love-Hounds, the international
Kate Bush computer discussion group, which now numbered
many thousands of participants.  Kate diplomatically replied, "Oh,
Love-Hounds! Well, thank them all for me very much, will you?  They're
lovely!"  IED answered with devilish wit, "Umm...ur..."  Then Kate signed 
IED's item, and he wandered off to catch his breath, and to observe
(with awe and mounting jealousy) |>oug chatting with Kate for what
seemed at the very least *60* seconds! IED couldn't make out the
details, but he did hear |>oug's voice saying "Love-Hounds" and
"thousands of subscribers".  And IED heard a report later that at
least one other fan had mentioned Love-Hounds to Kate, and that at
this third reference to our group she had launched an uninterpretable
sidelong glance at Del.   

although it may prove controverSial to mentIon it, ied cannot omit to
add that kate looked -- alas! --  spectacularlY beautiful, even to this 
fan, who normalLy doesn't Like to AcknowlEdge such tRivia.  she worE all black,
with higH-heeled boots, opaque black tightS, a long black Dress aNd a
black leather biker's jacket.  her hair really is thAt long.

A few moments later IED noticed that Kate's engineer and erstwhile
bass-player Del Palmer was present (the two were still clearly very
much allied, contrary to the claims of various English journalists),
and after some strained negotiations with officious Tower Records
personnel, IED was able to speak with him.  Fortunately IED had
thought to bring along the November issue of Future Music (which
features an interview with and photograph of Del), and he very
kindly and enthusiastically signed this for IED, who then asked the only
question (of the many which he had prepared to ask before entering the
holy presence) which he could remember:  Is there or is there not a
spoken message in X4, just before the line "But that dream is your enemy"? 
The answer, after caveats about how long it had been and how memory
might not serve well, etc., was "Yes".  Del explained that during that
period they had enjoyed "playing around" with the tapes, and that in
X4 Kate had (as in parts of The Ninth Wave) spoken the line (contents
still not disclosed to lowly fan), learned how it sounded backwards,
memorized the backwards phonetics, recorded those, and finally laid
that recording down (once again backwards) into place, so that the final
words would *sound* backwards but would not actually *be* backwards.  He
said that they had then "snipped it up into bits" and put the bits
back (in what order it wasn't clear).  In sum, Del leaves us with no
better understanding of the meaning (or significance, if any) of the
line in question, but he seemed very happy to chat about it, and was
(like Kate) unfailingly polite and cheerful throughout.

IED then spent an hour or so in the sterling company of |>oug, Jason, Keith,
Alanna and others, idly discussing our respective thirty-second
experiences and observing Kate's indefatigably sweet-tempered engagement with
the endless stream of fans.  As in 1985 (the date of his first, only
slightly less brief meeting with Kate) IED came away (this time with
supporting testimony from other fans of their nearly identically
uninformative interviews) with the impression that Kate is
a.) extraordinarily kind and friendly, and b.) superbly, magnificently,
artfully *vague*.

Altogether, a wonderful time.

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
   P.S.:  Columbia's Marketing Manager was there, and on questioning
from IED she indicated that aside from the occasional semi-private
screening of TL,TC,TC there was no plan to release the film in the
U.S.  This might be explained by the question of copyright which
another Love-Hound introduced in a recent posting, coupled with the
pique which IED can imagine EMI might be feeling right now at the
efforts Kate seems willing to make at Columbia's request but not
(perhaps) at EMI's.  IED would point out, however, that in fact aside
from this single public appearance and the radio interview in Toronto
scheduled for this evening there is no real evidence that Kate has done
anything at all to promote the album for Columbia, either -- at least
in England she consented to a number of print interviews and
even performed on television (several months ago, admittedly).  The
only NYC interview which had been announced beforehand (for WHTZ) was
cancelled, IED was assured over the phone, "by Kate herself" -- could
it be that she was made aware of the grossly one-dimensional top-40
playlist of that station, and decided it wasn't the right place for
her?