Re: Lovehounders

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

Drukman rises from the grave:
>my advice (hard won over 9 years of love-hounds experience) is: just
>ignore those who would shout down your opinion.  or if you have a lot
>of time on your hands, shout louder.  the best way to become a
>kick-ass love-hounds shock trooper is to develop a good layer of
>callus on your opinion gland.

   Yeah, but it's better if you actually have something to say.

>i find it not entirely without amusement value that chris is now seen
>as one of the ogres, when one of his first letters way back when 
>chastised me for being too nasty to the newbies.  full circle.

   Gosh, I guess if must have really hit home if the rhino-skinned
Drukman is *still* smarting from it after all these years. Drukman
attacked people, trying to turn flaming into an art form. 

   That said, anyone who has actually read the vast majority of my posts
will find me going out of my way to avoid being mean to newbies. Why
else would I bother to answer so many of the same questions?

>it's interesting, isn't it?  the list started out as a very vitriolic,
>dangerous discussion forum for kate and all sorts of challenging
>music.  despite the fact that almost all the original posters have
>moved on to greener pastures, and kate herself has devolved from a
>challenging art-rocker to some kind of MOR pap dispenser, the
>confrontational tone still lingers.  "this house is full of m-m-m-my
>mess."  indeed.  a real "Shining" kind of thing going on here.

   Drukman has never grasped one of the central mysteries of Kate.
Kate, for the majority of her career, has actually been attempting
to create *pop music*. TKI, LH, NFE, TSW and TRS are mainly pop
records (in the non-perjoritive UK sense.) _The Dreaming_ and
_The Ninth Wave_ not principally pop, but Kate was still trying to
make pop. The confusion she confessed to in the Paul Gambichini
interview about why _There Goes A Tenner_ wasn't a hit is evidence.

   She didn't seem to understand that her idea of pop wasn't
the same as anyone else's. 

>: For instance, I for one thought the film of "The Line..." was,
>: well....artistically speaking....aside from the backing music and the pretty
>: colours and the ever-lovely aspect of Ms. Bush....pretty embarrassingly
>: awful.  I bought it..., true...but not for the right reasons.
>
>i think a lot of people here want to put kate on a pedestal so high
>that they can look up her dress (apologies to steve martin).

   Bite me, Jon. The film (especially in 35mm) is a wonderfully
directed, the only part that Kate was really interested in. She
said that if it had been possible to do so, she would not have
starred in the film. As she did want to actually make a film, and
she did the only economically feasible thing, a set of videos
linked by a plot. As that, it's very successful.

  Yes, she not a very good actress (she's the third most skilled
actress in the film, after Miranda and Lily.) Yes, the dialog is
a bit over-blown and fruity (exactly the same as it's inspiration
_The Red Shoes_.) Yes, the plot appears to be an attempt to string
a bunch of unrelated songs together (of course...it *was* exactly
that.)

  With all that (and this may be damming with faint praise) _The Line,
The Cross and The Curve_ is, without a doubt, *the single best* rock
star directed film ever! (imagine a "smiley" here for the humor
impaired.) Towering over "Human Highway", "Renaldo and Clara" and
"Give My Regards to Broad Street."


                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)