Re: Kate on "gaffa"

[nessus@mit.edu (Douglas Alan)]

In article <m0rmPbH-000il5C@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu>
chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (Chris Williams) writes:
>      No tape here either. I'd claim this as a "mistakes and personal flaws"
>   explanation, or the "gaffe" explanation.

Chris, the gaffer's tape theory (that Kate herself put forward) is
completely compatible with, and indeed suggests a theory about
personal flaws.  On the other hand, the "gaffe" explanation is not.  A
gaffe is a social blunder, a faux pas, egg on your face.  This is not
a song about a social blunder.  It is not about an embarrassing
situation witnessed by many people; it is a deeply personal song about
striving for perfection, struggling against one's own limits,
transcending the ordinary.  This is done in solitude, not in public.

>   This is *Kate's* only explanation of "gaffa" as "gaffer's tape in
>   _Cloudbusting_. I don't recall seeing any others.

And Kate has only once mentioned that the mules in "Get Out of My
House" were inspired by Pinochio.  Does that make it false?

>   This interview most definitely in the "Purgatory" category, and
>   she explicitly draws a parallel between that, and being held back
>   from obtaining what one wants. Nope, no tape here either. Is
>   everyone beginning to see the pattern here?

Yes, I see a pattern of Chris being purposely dense.  I guess you've
never read Dante's Inferno.  Hell is a place where everyone is
tortured using a tool of irony taken from the flaws in their life.  A
perfect torture for a musician might be to trap her permanently in a
web of gaffa tape (a tool of her trade), while showing her a vision of
what she always strived for but could never achieve.  Hell, irony,
torture: gaffa tape.

>   Quick and dirty explanation? Tape. 

Literal meaning?  Tape.

>   Real explanation, when she is in a conversational interview? A fairly
>   involved explanation about purgatory and not being able to achieve one's
>   goals.

Metaphorical meaning?  Being stuck in an ironic pergatory.

>   Nope, no tape here either. Odd, isn't it? The "principle meaning
>   of the word" and she hasn't bothered to mention it in the vast majority
>   of the interviews? 

I guess you've never written a poem, Chris.  Because if you had, and
someone asked you what your poem meant (and you were the type of poet
who liked to talk about what your intentions were), you would be a lot
more interested in talking about the metaphorical meanings than the
literal meanings.

>       This one doesn't really count, as it's the notoriously taciturn and
>   obscure John Carder Bush speaking in 1985.

Oh, yes, any evidence that proves you wrong doesn't count.

|>oug