Mailbag

[chrisw@wwa.com (Chris Williams)]

> From: peter <pietr@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: (long) Respectable artists my <ahem>
> 
> Wfjcfjr wrote:
> > 
> > >My specific example is that of L. Frank Baum who wrote " The Wizard of
> > >Oz".
> > >A cute, children's story accepted by the masses.
> > 
> > "The Wizard of Oz" was definitely NOT a children's story. It was a satire.
> > A political one at that (The Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryan).
> > Not only is your position historically incorrect, it is pedantic and
> > self-serving. I am not condoning Baum's position, I am simply stating that
> > you have grossly misunderstood what his position and writings were about.
> > Try to show some historical accuracy as well as some knowledge of the
> > subject you are addressing before writing about it.
> 
> Yes, I know all about the political satire. I apologize for not going
> into depth about the fact that his story was turned into a film, which
> since then has been assimilated as a "mainstream family film". 

   The "Cross of Gold" theory of "The Wizard Of OZ" has been banging
around on the Net for years. It was tired when I heard it 8 years ago.

   [re the discussion of the songs on The Dreaming]

> 4. "All the Love.  Then comes the final "goodbye" sequence..."
> Yeah - Kate said that part of the inspiration for this track was when
> her answerphone screwed up one night, and she came home to hear a string
> of friends' voices just saying "goodbye" into the tape. (no idea if she
> used this actual tape for the album sequence or not)

   I believe she stated that she re-created it, because the original
tape was not good enough quality (hey, it's an answering machine!
Wadda ya want!)
 
> 5. "Houdini.  Who is the other guy, and what's the code about?"
> Houdini and his wife were both into the idea of contacting the dead.
> Through his life, Houdini exposed a lot of frauds. The song is sung by
> his wife (who passed him a key via a kiss during each performance so
> that he could unlock the padlocks). Before he died, Houdini and his wife
> agreed a code "Rosabel believe" so that she would know if a medium
> really had made contact or whether it was a fraud. Eventually, of
> course, a medium did come up with the code, which was only known to (the
> dead) Houdini and the wife.

   Actually, Houdini had so many different methods of escape that it's
a bit unfair to his amazing talent to imply that he "always" used
this one. Most of his methods depended on his legendary strength and
agility.

   As for the last...Kate has it wrong.

   A "medium" *did* produce the code. But apparently Kate was unaware
of the rest of the story. The medium bribed a former employee of the
family. Besides, it *was* merely their favorite song, one that Bess
used to sing in their act in their early days.

   Bess at first comfirmed the message, then, after the truth came out,
reputiated the medium. She continued holding seances for several years
after the code was comprimised. If proof had been obtained, it's 
doubtful that they would have continued. I have an audio recording
of the last seance that was part of a TV show about Houdini. In it,
Bess states that it appears that it is not possible to communicate
from beyond the grave.

   I don't mean to jump on anyone, but I learnt quite a bit about
the history of magic when I was a kid. My Dad was a magician and 
a collector of books on magic.

> 6. "Get Out of My House.  Never hurts to end on a bizarre note!  :) "
> Do you know the film "the Shining"? A lot of the ideas of the song are
> in here.

   Actually, Kate was specifically inspired by the book, rather than 
the film. She wrote in the Kate Bush Club newsletter:

   The Shining is the only book I've read that has frightened me. While
   reading it I swamped around in its snowy imagery and avoided visiting
   certain floors of the big, cold hotel, empty for the winter. As in
   Alien, the central characters are isolated, miles (or light years) 
   away from anyone or anything, but there is something in the place 
   with them. They're not sure what, but it isn't very nice. 

   The setting for this song continues the theme--the house which 
   is really a human being, has been shut up--locked and bolted, to 
   stop any outside forces from entering. The person has been hurt 
   and has decided to keep everybody out. They plant a "concierge" 
   at the front door to stop any determined callers from passing, but 
   the thing has got into the house upstairs. It's descending in the 
   lift, and now it approaches the door of the room that you're hiding 
   in. You're cornered, there's no way out, so you turn into a bird 
   and fly away, but the thing changes shape, too. You change, it 
   changes; you can't escape, so you turn around and face it,
   scare it away. 

   This from Gaffaweb. The URL for this is:

   http://www.gryphon.com/gaffa/garden/kate14.html#house

> 6.  December Will Be Magic Again   (Abba special, Dec. 1979?)
>        - Kate mimes to the Bongo version of the song while sitting in a
>          red chair.  
>        - Pic. quality: C-  (actually, slightly better quality than on the
>          Lovehounds Collection...at least the copy I have)

   I think I pulled the LH Collection version off our copy of this
tape! 

> I'm willing to make the "new" stuff available for a future video collection
> project (like the Lovehounds Collection or Kate-opia).  Just email me and we
> can set something up.  :-)

   We're in the process of moving at the moment, but once we get settled
again, we will be making more Love-hounds Collections. We've aquired
a digital standards converter and a non-linear editing system in the
hope of producing digital CD archives of all Kate video.

   Note: We are *always* looking for better quality copies of what
we have. The top of our list is a low-generation copy of the unedited
MTV interview.