Re: Kate's looks...

[jmitchel@david.wheaton.edu (James Ryan Mitchell)]

In article <9603050306.AA04377@rigel.cray.com>,
Bryan Dongray <btd@carina.cray.com> wrote:
>It has been written:
>> But I really wonder, what if Kate was an ugly woman, would all of
>> you still enjoy her music?
>And:
>> I have wondered about this, who knows what subconcious processes
>> go on when we decide what we like.  However I can think of a certain
>> other performer, who IMHO is rather ordinary looking, who still
>> makes music I can enjoy ;-)
>
>Well (and my asbestos suit is at the ready) I've never thought KaTe
>was particularly "beautiful", she not ugly though, maybe she's just
>does not what I see as attractive, beauty IS in the eye of the beholder.

I suppose that this is the right time to de-lurk.  

Hello to all the Chicago gaffans, particularly to those I met at Kate-mas this
summer.  Particular kudos to the gracious host of the afore-mentioned event.
On to slightly less tangentially related topics...

I remember buying my first Kate CD.  It seems now to be almost aeons ago,
though it can't have been much more than a year.   I was in some massive
place, peering about the aisles of music, hoping, against all hope, to find
something interesting.

At the time I (not to mention my family) were rather poor.  I had no money,
perhaps two cds, and a system to play them on.  Buying something was an almost
momentous decision... but how I wanted to!

I don't remember how... or why, but I saw Kate.   I was entranced (and
probably not entirely stable).  She seemed almost goddess-like, as for
instance on TSW.  For one of the few times in my life I was totally
enfatuated.  I brought home TRS (comments reserved for another day) and by
afternoon (Kate running in the background) had gone so far as to dig up gaffa,
the faq, (in which I was somewhat dismayed to read about Del) and before long
was trying to convince my friends of things like the genius of The Dreaming.
 
Bringing this to a close, while the enfatuation has long since passed, and I
would now adore anybody who could do The Dreaming/Ninth Wave, Kate's
appearance has a special place in my heart.  To tell the truth it is a central
point of her identity... for Kate really is!

Kate is more than a singer, more than a person who does interesting production
work, or writes beautiful songs.  The Kate Bush experience is each of these,
but for many I think it transcends these elements.  The Kate Bush experience,
incredible talent and an impenetrable veil of mystery about her, is an inner
recognition that she is an architype of human potential, a 'superman' in
flesh, or if it is your taste, a goddess among us.  To this end, apearance
proves an exceptional means, for we at least are mere humans and mere humans
must judge with our eyes as well as with our minds.

I have a suspicion that while she might be well loved were she to look less
than beautiful, with songs admired almost as so, and with fans nearly as rabid
as hers, Kate would never have advanced to the mythic level which she has in
many of our hearts and minds.  

					-James Mitchell
					She is!

---
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