You know what? I have been thinking about doing this in bed BEFORE I SLEEP, and you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and do it.
That's right, I'm going to make a list of 10 (non-Hindi) female artists that I love! In no particular order, despite the numbers.
1) Janelle Monáe
2) Charlotte Hatherley
3) Jill Scott
4) Róisín Murphy
5) Bat For Lashes
6) Santigold
7) M.I.A
8) Nellie McKay
9) Amy Winehouse
10) Mariah Carey (OH YES I DID)
An honourable mention to Missy Elliott, and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting/not arsed to mention here! I strongly suspect that an utterly fangirl post will be forthcoming on Janelle Monáe at some point, I love love LOVE her.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Me and Charlotte Hatherley
I've had a bloody busy summer, as is amply evidenced by the glaring lack of posts here. At times I would have what seemed like a worthwhile idea, then either change my mind or forget what I was thinking of blogging. After the intensity of my Master's dissertation, which I submitted in late August, I kept myself busy with a plentiful supply of temporary work right up until the 25th of September. Since then, due to our lack of a kitchen and my desperate need for a break from EVERYTHING, I put job-hunting on the back-burner for a little while to rest and (this second part was not intentional, but I've found myself having little choice in the matter) face up to various personal issues that the imminent onset of Full-On Adulthood has re-woken. My deep rooted sense of insecurity and absolute worthlessness has re-emerged with a vengeance in the last few days, likely due to several factors (facing the void of the future, not getting a job I was led to believe I had a really good chance of getting, no temporary jobs and the lack of kitchen, which looks set to extend beyond the initial week to two whole weeks). Some of my closest friends have also had major emotional dramas of their own to contend with recently, which isn't particularly good; the impact of such things always reverberates across all of a person's relationships to some extent.
To summarise: EMO! I am more than a wee touch emo at the moment. As I have come to realise though, emo cannot be resolved, only managed. So how the hell to do that? What could I use to leach the figurative impurities from my system? Music was an obvious, but welcome, possibility. Yet there's something about music which many have remarked before - it really escapes our control and might not have the effect it's supposed to have, or that you want. For example, as a teenager, I was always under the impression that listening to critically-acclaimed, stereotypically-angsty music such as Radiohead, or the Smiths, or the Cure or whatever else, whilst upset, was some kind of a therapeutic process. The music would draw out one's emotions in a manner both healing and culturally elegant, surely? The fact that my ex-boyfriend really went in for critically-acclaimed music (of the above list, Radiohead in particular), made me certain that the use of miserabilist music to treat sadness was an experience that I absolutely had to try at some point.
Unfortunately, as my ex went through his lengthy periods of misery, gorging himself on Ryan Adams in particular, my theory fell apart. From what I could see, the music provided him with a sort of reflection of his depression to wallow in. There was nothing therapeutic about the experience of listening to it - and indeed, I began to wonder what listening to a record apparently rejected as 'too depressing' by Adams's record company was doing to my then-boyfriend. Was it a way of validating his unhappiness, measuring it against a greater one (apparently Adams's girlfriend had died of cancer)? Or was it only making things worse, making him feel like his wasn't a real sadness, against the artist's? Whatever the point, it was a self-indulgent experience which didn't really help my ex to overcome his issues. Being young and foolish, I was the lifebuoy, pouring all my energies into keeping him 'on the surface' as it were. I tried the misery-music route, and it only made me feel frustrated and irritated.
Just yesterday, sadness and music and how they fit together came up with a male friend who is sometimes prone to serious depression and had been feeling quasi-suicidal. Like my ex, this friend likes to wallow in what I see as depressing music rather a lot. He used to be obsessed with Elliott Smith - who committed suicide. Currently, he loves Sparklehorse - whose singer, Mark Linkous survived an OD in 1996 (while on tour with Radiohead!) only to commit suicide earlier this year. I'm sure that some of my statements so far will have got some bristling, but I'm no musical authoritarian - I never stopped my ex listening to whatever, nor my friend, and I'm perfectly aware of the incredible power of sad music. What really intrigued me was why the use of it to manage my sadness doesn't work for me - I've tried it a few times, but it just makes me feel sort of blank. Part of the answer may lie in my pragmatism - writing this has made me realise that my notion of music as a 'cure' may seem almost clinical, compared to the romantic tendencies of some. However, I realised that there may also be a gender element to things.
Now, this will involve some avowed generalisations, but nonetheless - I've noticed that a lot of miserabilist music, and the majority of its consumers, is overwhelmingly male (and white). Think about it - all the bands/artists I mentioned above, for example, are male (and white). As I considered it further, I realised that works by these and related artists have also been established as 'authentic' emotion by mostly-male, mostly-white critics. Yet none of them did anything for me when I was sad. I would often turn to Hindi music, largely sung by women; sometimes I turn to Bat For Lashes, KT Tunstall, Etta James - it varies greatly. One artist has become my go-to: Charlotte Hatherley. The release of her second album was a pleasant shock to my system, compared to her more teenage, straightforwardly pop debut. The third album, wildly inventive, and retaining much of the emotional feel of the second album, has become an obsessive favourite. In short, it seems that feminism was at work in my mind without my even realising.
How so? Well, the fact is that pretty much all the bands that I've listed, and so many others, being male and white, project an image of sadness that is actually quite unique. This isn't any sadness, this is privileged sadness. This is sadness as coming from a person who is nonetheless lucky enough to have the time/money/support to express that sadness in recorded form, and have it given out to effectively the whole world, whether for love or money. It's 'real' sadness, 'noble' sadness, the mythical sadness of the tortured artist that everyone loves to look for and believe in, especially critics. The predecessors of these men in history were also, as far as we can see, white and male (consider that the modern-day 'tortured music artist' stereotype has been lifted from the 'tortured poet/artist' one) and therefore it is almost as if there is an expectation, a God-given right that they should be whiny or mopey over the length of a whole record (or several) and praised for it, to boot. Perhaps because it's seen as relatively abnormal for men to express emotion in our culture, when they do it in record form, other men are all over it like a rash because it's a 'safe' way for them to express their own feelings, as if by proxy. The whole 'tortured sadness' thing is also (mistakenly, in my view) associated with gravitas, creating the impression that there is something honourable about men feeling sorry for themselves, which is of course great for getting the ladies... Being overwhelmingly white and male, many critics can relate to such expressions of sadness more than I can, and thus trumpet such work as important, whilst unwittingly exposing the artificiality or 'temperedness' of it by highlighting the carefully-worked, re-edited and intricate musicianship of it.
While I don't doubt that the emotions inspiring the work are genuine (especially in the case of those who committed suicide), the fact is that it doesn't chime with my experience. As an Asian woman, the world doesn't have much time for my grief. Within Indian culture, persistent ignorance about mental illness means that depression is something that is often seen as just temporary, or even laziness, and the individual is supposed to 'get over it' without expecting too much sympathy or help from relatives. As a woman, open expression of sadness is not sexy and can lead to being viewed as tragic; there is also the fear of confirming the long-standing association of women and mental illness. Perhaps part of the reason why male brooding is so praised is precisely because, deep down, men aren't really expected to be mentally ill and/or expressive, and so when they are, it comes across as somehow revolutionary. Whereas women expressing grief is almost pedestrian; hell, the media will even play up apparent mental illness as if female grief on its own isn't enough: think of Amy Winehouse, for example, or Britney Spears. Besides all this, there is the fear of reinforcing racial stereotypes of Asian women as downtrodden, abused victims - Cinderella-types. When I am upset, I know that generally only my non-white friends will really be able to understand certain things, and even if I blog my feelings or write a poem, it's not going to receive critical appreciation and be held up as The Authentic Expression of Heartbreak, or whatever (not that I want that).
As an Asian woman, I am expected to be at the disposal of family members and doing the household chores all the time; as a partner and friend, I am often relied upon whilst knowing that I cannot similarly rely on others - or at least, not as regularly. The simple inconvenience of two people having massive issues at the same time aside, I've found that often if you're in a 'senior' position to others emotionally - giving them advice and holding them together in tough times - it's often too much of a shock for them when you fall apart, for them to really help you. Almost like seeing your dad cry, or something. In our success- and work-obsessed culture, depression is an inconvenience. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of working my grief into a potentially best-selling record - I have to find a way to manage it quick whenever it pops up again, whether it's by running from it, purging myself or even a mixture of both. I find that Radiohead, etc., don't really do sadness justice. It was funny, because my male friend defended his love of downbeat music by saying that he finds sadness to be the most beautiful and complex of emotions. You wouldn't know that from a lot of acclaimed white male artists, though. They often cover subjects that women and non-white men cover too - whether in pop, hip-hop or other musical forms - such as failed relationships, existential angst and bereavement. They just do it less directly, and with more artistry and elaboration. Considering something from a distance does not necessarily render it automatically more complex.
Which brings me back to Charlotte Hatherley. Describing her music to my friend, I explained that, even though she doesn't try to churn out indie-band pointed witticisms, or create complicated narratives or 'concept' albums, there is an overriding, unmistakable mood to her last two albums which utterly envelops me (I'm going to go on to mention tracks mostly from her second and current albums, The Deep Blue and New Worlds). She is white, and yes, hers is guitar music, but otherwise I feel like she doesn't kowtow to racially-influenced expectations of music (i.e. 'urban' music must always be by black people, whilst everything guitar-based is for white people). I mean, how many white female solo artists do you know whose key instrument is a guitar?! Pitchfork, in the first review really worthy of her work that I've ever seen, called her 'refreshingly out of step with most of her contemporaries.' Discussing her current album, New Worlds, the reviewer perceptively observes:
The first thing to note about Charlotte Hatherley is that compared to, say, Radiohead, her music is distinctly poppy. This, I suspect, is partly why she's not taken as seriously as male artists of similar talent; her songs are infectious and you often enjoy them on first listen. You don't have to give her albums several spins before having an epiphany; the music approaches you on friendly terms. Secondly, her lyrics don't, as I said, tell fancy stories or try to reinvent the love-song wheel. On the single I Want You To Know, she sings: 'Oh baby, are you sad and lonely? Well, I'm just doing fine/I want you to know.' The shudders that such a line sends down assorted music snobs' backs! Yet - and this is the principal reason I love her - there is more to her than meets the ear. The term 'deceptively clever', as employed above, is spot on. Listening to songs such as Love's Young Dream again, you notice new sounds that didn't emerge before (such as the man's whisper in the chorus, slightly unnerving); the true complexity of the music starts to become more apparent. There is a remarkable consistency of quality on the albums which means that once you exhaust the pleasure of listening to each as a whole, individual songs start to assert themselves further. And that's another reason why I love her; unlike massively-hyped bands such as, say, the XX, she doesn't do hit and miss. There's generally only one or two 'dud' tracks at most, and even then, they're not necessarily even duds but just ones that might not fit your mood at a particular time. I don't find myself bored with her. I often skip 'Siberia,' for example, but there's no denying that it's a good song.
On to the main reason why I love her so fricking much, though: she does sadness justice. If male artists make sadness boring, one-dimensional and self-indulgent, she brings it to life. Sadness in her music is multifaceted. She expresses certain elements of sadness - nostalgia, wistfulness and fear - which seem to me to be under-explored by a lot of straightforwardly miserable music and does so with subtlety that makes it feel stunningly genuine. Crucial to this is the interplay of lyrics and music - my harping on about her obviously can't do that justice. On Dawn Treader, for example, she juxtaposes fear about the future with grief for her lost childhood; the song expresses her fears about her relationship, but this is done with reference to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series:
One of the most painful and traumatic experiences of our lives is saying goodbye to childhood and forcing ourselves to grow up. This is pretty neatly demonstrated by much of the reaction (critical and public) to Toy Story 3. The past often hurts, and Charlotte Hatherley acknowledges this repeatedly in her work. She - and we think - that the Dawn Treader will come and save us, like the heroic fantasies of our childhood. However, in a Freudian twist, it is the familiar become unfamiliar - actually a 'bad ship' and a harbinger of doom. This revives the pain of lost childhood; as adults, no fantasy figures are going to come and rescue us, yet we often don't feel much more in control than we did as children. The song thus subtly but effectively communicates those pre-emptive feelings of terrible fear and loss we get when we don't know where a relationship is going, but suspect it might end badly.
Yet acknowledging the pain of the loss of childhood does not necessarily mean that CH wallows in sentimentality. In Love's Young Dream, she asks her mother frankly about the relationship between her parents before she was born:
etc.
This song gets me excited as I've realised that it is actually quite feminist - instead of trying to whitewash her parents' relationship for the sake of her own peace of mind, Hatherley tries to engage with and imagine her mother beyond her role as her mother, as a person in her own right.
I've just realised that the sense of loss in her songs is often extremely apparent, which is why I find them so visceral. Wrong Notes, the final track of New Worlds, is in some ways similar to Dawn Treader in linking the loss of the past with the uncertainty of the future. I think it is about her desire to be loved for who she is, 'warts and all' and simultaneously, her acceptance of herself as a flawed and full being:
I cried to this song without fully understanding why. The distinct mix of defiance and fear palpable even in the lyrics cited above, and notable in a lot of her music, is part of it, I think. As a woman, I relate to the overriding sense of hope greatly - many women have to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as that famous self-help book is called; we don't have the option of shutting down with sadness as men often do, because women do most of the crucial but unpaid/underpaid and undervalued work in the world, like caring for elderly relatives! There's a bit which repeats and extends the lyrics of the second verse, which made me bawl even harder:
The images here are so strongly evocative of childhood, it's unbelievable. I never went to the seaside as a child, but even just from reading stuff like Enid Blyton, I hear the mentions of plum brandy and the sea and bright colours and think of childhood. When she talks of being held up to the light, I think of that idyllic happiness when you're a very young child, and you remember being held, talked to, loved... my stomach is getting tight even now! The song seems weird because, if you pay attention all the way through, it seems like she could be simultaneously addressing a lover and a parent, but what she's actually doing is capturing the bittersweetness of the past and the future. She hopes, as an adult, that her lover will love her honestly and fully, unconditionally as that past parent who held her on the beach as a child. (Or so I think). She asserts, almost with pride, that the wrong notes 'are part of me' and then asks, uncertainly, 'will you stay by my side?' Rather than answer this question, the song segues into an invitation: 'I'd like you to come with me -' before effectively fading to flashback, and then ends abruptly. We never know what happened next, and that only hooks me in deeper.
No version of Wrong Notes that I've found ends any differently. It's a mystery, and I would say that that neatly sums up Charlotte Hatherley's music - conveniently reflecting some well-known stereotypes of women, it seems mysterious and enigmatic/childlike and instinctive/poppy and superficial (delete as appropriate), but as in The Yellow Wallpaper (written by her namesake, a considerably more famous Charlotte!), seek and ye shall find. I certainly feel that beneath all the music, you can discern the traces of a real woman - frightened, hopeful, defiant, anxious, sexual, childlike, courageous, cautious and imaginative. It resounds with shapes and colours, she talks about a firebird, a komodo dragon, a ship, a garden... I don't know if she's a self-professed feminist, but she's said this:
How awesome is that? Instead of engaging in 'exceptional woman syndrome'-type behaviour, after having been the only woman in an otherwise all-male band for about 10 years, she's actually supporting other women. 'Exceptional woman syndrome' is where women think that they don't need other women because (in the words of Shakesville), they buy into the contradictory BS that 'it’s a meritocracy, that the quality of our work will carry us to success. Because we are different. Better.' EWS leads to women who have made it through seriously toxic environments - whether the workplace or the family - attributing it to their own super-specialness and refusing to acknowledge their debt to their female predecessors, and/or, all too often, screwing over other women who follow in their footsteps. It's the basis of marriage in India even to this day (not just India), allowing mothers-in-law to make life hell for their daughters-in-law in the guise of teaching them how to behave. In its most toxic form, EWS provides the basis for 'exceptional' women to serve as patriarchal patsies, delighting sexist men and decrying egalitarian measures by effectively going 'Sexism? What sexism? I never experienced any in _______ (insert male-dominated field)' thus making life harder for women who have experienced sexism and are seeking some female solidarity. Sarah Palin's a good example of an Exceptional Woman, but you find them everywhere - the worst kinds of hypocrites.
While the press has no right to hound women like Amy Winehouse and Britney as it does (and I'm NOT implying that they deserve it in any way), CH is on the whole very un-celeb as she generally keeps attention off herself and entirely on the music, which I love. It's way more interesting. I have to say that AW's behaviour does annoy me a bit - I want her to start channelling her talent back into music, but unfortunately given that her music and it would seem, her sense of self revolves a great deal around her relationships with men, that's not likely to happen any time soon. By contrast, CH provides several examples of strong womanhood - in the video for I Want You To Know, she's a boxer and in Behave, a space pilot, whilst she's penned an ode to Kim Wilde and the song Paragon is about idolising a dynamic girl called Caroline. Grey Will Fade, the title track of the first album, is about GIRL LOVE - her comforting her beloved friend Fay - I mean, maybe she is supposed to be singing with a male voice, but from the tone of the lyrics, I don't see any evidence of it. Turns out she also said this:
Do you love her yet? I'm falling in love all over again.
To summarise: EMO! I am more than a wee touch emo at the moment. As I have come to realise though, emo cannot be resolved, only managed. So how the hell to do that? What could I use to leach the figurative impurities from my system? Music was an obvious, but welcome, possibility. Yet there's something about music which many have remarked before - it really escapes our control and might not have the effect it's supposed to have, or that you want. For example, as a teenager, I was always under the impression that listening to critically-acclaimed, stereotypically-angsty music such as Radiohead, or the Smiths, or the Cure or whatever else, whilst upset, was some kind of a therapeutic process. The music would draw out one's emotions in a manner both healing and culturally elegant, surely? The fact that my ex-boyfriend really went in for critically-acclaimed music (of the above list, Radiohead in particular), made me certain that the use of miserabilist music to treat sadness was an experience that I absolutely had to try at some point.
Unfortunately, as my ex went through his lengthy periods of misery, gorging himself on Ryan Adams in particular, my theory fell apart. From what I could see, the music provided him with a sort of reflection of his depression to wallow in. There was nothing therapeutic about the experience of listening to it - and indeed, I began to wonder what listening to a record apparently rejected as 'too depressing' by Adams's record company was doing to my then-boyfriend. Was it a way of validating his unhappiness, measuring it against a greater one (apparently Adams's girlfriend had died of cancer)? Or was it only making things worse, making him feel like his wasn't a real sadness, against the artist's? Whatever the point, it was a self-indulgent experience which didn't really help my ex to overcome his issues. Being young and foolish, I was the lifebuoy, pouring all my energies into keeping him 'on the surface' as it were. I tried the misery-music route, and it only made me feel frustrated and irritated.
Just yesterday, sadness and music and how they fit together came up with a male friend who is sometimes prone to serious depression and had been feeling quasi-suicidal. Like my ex, this friend likes to wallow in what I see as depressing music rather a lot. He used to be obsessed with Elliott Smith - who committed suicide. Currently, he loves Sparklehorse - whose singer, Mark Linkous survived an OD in 1996 (while on tour with Radiohead!) only to commit suicide earlier this year. I'm sure that some of my statements so far will have got some bristling, but I'm no musical authoritarian - I never stopped my ex listening to whatever, nor my friend, and I'm perfectly aware of the incredible power of sad music. What really intrigued me was why the use of it to manage my sadness doesn't work for me - I've tried it a few times, but it just makes me feel sort of blank. Part of the answer may lie in my pragmatism - writing this has made me realise that my notion of music as a 'cure' may seem almost clinical, compared to the romantic tendencies of some. However, I realised that there may also be a gender element to things.
Now, this will involve some avowed generalisations, but nonetheless - I've noticed that a lot of miserabilist music, and the majority of its consumers, is overwhelmingly male (and white). Think about it - all the bands/artists I mentioned above, for example, are male (and white). As I considered it further, I realised that works by these and related artists have also been established as 'authentic' emotion by mostly-male, mostly-white critics. Yet none of them did anything for me when I was sad. I would often turn to Hindi music, largely sung by women; sometimes I turn to Bat For Lashes, KT Tunstall, Etta James - it varies greatly. One artist has become my go-to: Charlotte Hatherley. The release of her second album was a pleasant shock to my system, compared to her more teenage, straightforwardly pop debut. The third album, wildly inventive, and retaining much of the emotional feel of the second album, has become an obsessive favourite. In short, it seems that feminism was at work in my mind without my even realising.
How so? Well, the fact is that pretty much all the bands that I've listed, and so many others, being male and white, project an image of sadness that is actually quite unique. This isn't any sadness, this is privileged sadness. This is sadness as coming from a person who is nonetheless lucky enough to have the time/money/support to express that sadness in recorded form, and have it given out to effectively the whole world, whether for love or money. It's 'real' sadness, 'noble' sadness, the mythical sadness of the tortured artist that everyone loves to look for and believe in, especially critics. The predecessors of these men in history were also, as far as we can see, white and male (consider that the modern-day 'tortured music artist' stereotype has been lifted from the 'tortured poet/artist' one) and therefore it is almost as if there is an expectation, a God-given right that they should be whiny or mopey over the length of a whole record (or several) and praised for it, to boot. Perhaps because it's seen as relatively abnormal for men to express emotion in our culture, when they do it in record form, other men are all over it like a rash because it's a 'safe' way for them to express their own feelings, as if by proxy. The whole 'tortured sadness' thing is also (mistakenly, in my view) associated with gravitas, creating the impression that there is something honourable about men feeling sorry for themselves, which is of course great for getting the ladies... Being overwhelmingly white and male, many critics can relate to such expressions of sadness more than I can, and thus trumpet such work as important, whilst unwittingly exposing the artificiality or 'temperedness' of it by highlighting the carefully-worked, re-edited and intricate musicianship of it.
While I don't doubt that the emotions inspiring the work are genuine (especially in the case of those who committed suicide), the fact is that it doesn't chime with my experience. As an Asian woman, the world doesn't have much time for my grief. Within Indian culture, persistent ignorance about mental illness means that depression is something that is often seen as just temporary, or even laziness, and the individual is supposed to 'get over it' without expecting too much sympathy or help from relatives. As a woman, open expression of sadness is not sexy and can lead to being viewed as tragic; there is also the fear of confirming the long-standing association of women and mental illness. Perhaps part of the reason why male brooding is so praised is precisely because, deep down, men aren't really expected to be mentally ill and/or expressive, and so when they are, it comes across as somehow revolutionary. Whereas women expressing grief is almost pedestrian; hell, the media will even play up apparent mental illness as if female grief on its own isn't enough: think of Amy Winehouse, for example, or Britney Spears. Besides all this, there is the fear of reinforcing racial stereotypes of Asian women as downtrodden, abused victims - Cinderella-types. When I am upset, I know that generally only my non-white friends will really be able to understand certain things, and even if I blog my feelings or write a poem, it's not going to receive critical appreciation and be held up as The Authentic Expression of Heartbreak, or whatever (not that I want that).
As an Asian woman, I am expected to be at the disposal of family members and doing the household chores all the time; as a partner and friend, I am often relied upon whilst knowing that I cannot similarly rely on others - or at least, not as regularly. The simple inconvenience of two people having massive issues at the same time aside, I've found that often if you're in a 'senior' position to others emotionally - giving them advice and holding them together in tough times - it's often too much of a shock for them when you fall apart, for them to really help you. Almost like seeing your dad cry, or something. In our success- and work-obsessed culture, depression is an inconvenience. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of working my grief into a potentially best-selling record - I have to find a way to manage it quick whenever it pops up again, whether it's by running from it, purging myself or even a mixture of both. I find that Radiohead, etc., don't really do sadness justice. It was funny, because my male friend defended his love of downbeat music by saying that he finds sadness to be the most beautiful and complex of emotions. You wouldn't know that from a lot of acclaimed white male artists, though. They often cover subjects that women and non-white men cover too - whether in pop, hip-hop or other musical forms - such as failed relationships, existential angst and bereavement. They just do it less directly, and with more artistry and elaboration. Considering something from a distance does not necessarily render it automatically more complex.
Which brings me back to Charlotte Hatherley. Describing her music to my friend, I explained that, even though she doesn't try to churn out indie-band pointed witticisms, or create complicated narratives or 'concept' albums, there is an overriding, unmistakable mood to her last two albums which utterly envelops me (I'm going to go on to mention tracks mostly from her second and current albums, The Deep Blue and New Worlds). She is white, and yes, hers is guitar music, but otherwise I feel like she doesn't kowtow to racially-influenced expectations of music (i.e. 'urban' music must always be by black people, whilst everything guitar-based is for white people). I mean, how many white female solo artists do you know whose key instrument is a guitar?! Pitchfork, in the first review really worthy of her work that I've ever seen, called her 'refreshingly out of step with most of her contemporaries.' Discussing her current album, New Worlds, the reviewer perceptively observes:
Hatherley is [...] a deceptively clever guitarist [...] Rather than attempt to evoke a state of synesthesia in the listener, Hatherley articulates a synesthetic point of view in her lyrics. The tell-don't-show approach is typically a misstep, but it makes perfect sense here, as the album's most thrilling bits come when she's excitedly explaining sensations and epiphanies that don't fully translate outside the boundaries of her imaginative mind. The point is not to totally grasp her crackpot color-coded cosmology, but instead to relate to the feeling of rediscovering the world and opening up to new possibilities.
The primary tension, both musically and lyrically, on New Worlds is between disciplined focus and wild hair intuition. It's not a binary opposition, though, but instead a cycle that enables an artist to effectively communicate their ideas.
The first thing to note about Charlotte Hatherley is that compared to, say, Radiohead, her music is distinctly poppy. This, I suspect, is partly why she's not taken as seriously as male artists of similar talent; her songs are infectious and you often enjoy them on first listen. You don't have to give her albums several spins before having an epiphany; the music approaches you on friendly terms. Secondly, her lyrics don't, as I said, tell fancy stories or try to reinvent the love-song wheel. On the single I Want You To Know, she sings: 'Oh baby, are you sad and lonely? Well, I'm just doing fine/I want you to know.' The shudders that such a line sends down assorted music snobs' backs! Yet - and this is the principal reason I love her - there is more to her than meets the ear. The term 'deceptively clever', as employed above, is spot on. Listening to songs such as Love's Young Dream again, you notice new sounds that didn't emerge before (such as the man's whisper in the chorus, slightly unnerving); the true complexity of the music starts to become more apparent. There is a remarkable consistency of quality on the albums which means that once you exhaust the pleasure of listening to each as a whole, individual songs start to assert themselves further. And that's another reason why I love her; unlike massively-hyped bands such as, say, the XX, she doesn't do hit and miss. There's generally only one or two 'dud' tracks at most, and even then, they're not necessarily even duds but just ones that might not fit your mood at a particular time. I don't find myself bored with her. I often skip 'Siberia,' for example, but there's no denying that it's a good song.
On to the main reason why I love her so fricking much, though: she does sadness justice. If male artists make sadness boring, one-dimensional and self-indulgent, she brings it to life. Sadness in her music is multifaceted. She expresses certain elements of sadness - nostalgia, wistfulness and fear - which seem to me to be under-explored by a lot of straightforwardly miserable music and does so with subtlety that makes it feel stunningly genuine. Crucial to this is the interplay of lyrics and music - my harping on about her obviously can't do that justice. On Dawn Treader, for example, she juxtaposes fear about the future with grief for her lost childhood; the song expresses her fears about her relationship, but this is done with reference to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series:
(First verse)
In the night, I dream that it's over
On thin ice and tipping the balance, oh no...
Oh, not again...
From afar, the Dawn Treader has come
Here to save us, all into the shredder...
Oh, once again...
(Chorus)
Our one and only life
Put underneath the knife
Oh, what will happen to
The me and you I love?
One of the most painful and traumatic experiences of our lives is saying goodbye to childhood and forcing ourselves to grow up. This is pretty neatly demonstrated by much of the reaction (critical and public) to Toy Story 3. The past often hurts, and Charlotte Hatherley acknowledges this repeatedly in her work. She - and we think - that the Dawn Treader will come and save us, like the heroic fantasies of our childhood. However, in a Freudian twist, it is the familiar become unfamiliar - actually a 'bad ship' and a harbinger of doom. This revives the pain of lost childhood; as adults, no fantasy figures are going to come and rescue us, yet we often don't feel much more in control than we did as children. The song thus subtly but effectively communicates those pre-emptive feelings of terrible fear and loss we get when we don't know where a relationship is going, but suspect it might end badly.
Yet acknowledging the pain of the loss of childhood does not necessarily mean that CH wallows in sentimentality. In Love's Young Dream, she asks her mother frankly about the relationship between her parents before she was born:
(First verse)
When you were younger
Precious lover
What did he look like
Was he as beautiful as you?
How did it feel when you were together?
Did you surrender?
I can't imagine it at all -
And oh I wonder how you were
And I really wanna know about your love
Your love
Do you remember?
(Chorus)
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -
Do you remember?
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -
Can you understand?
(Second verse)
I don't remember a single moment
When you were happy
I can't remember it all (don't remember it at all)...
You only told me how it unfolded
All of the stories, oh many, many many, I know -
Oh, but what I really wanna know about is your love
Your love
Do you remember?
etc.
This song gets me excited as I've realised that it is actually quite feminist - instead of trying to whitewash her parents' relationship for the sake of her own peace of mind, Hatherley tries to engage with and imagine her mother beyond her role as her mother, as a person in her own right.
I've just realised that the sense of loss in her songs is often extremely apparent, which is why I find them so visceral. Wrong Notes, the final track of New Worlds, is in some ways similar to Dawn Treader in linking the loss of the past with the uncertainty of the future. I think it is about her desire to be loved for who she is, 'warts and all' and simultaneously, her acceptance of herself as a flawed and full being:
(First verse):
Running hands over keys
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -
Run your hands over me
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -
(Chorus)
But not so nice, not so nice now -
The wrong notes, are all right
And part of me, part of me, yeah
Will you stay by my side,
By my side?
I cried to this song without fully understanding why. The distinct mix of defiance and fear palpable even in the lyrics cited above, and notable in a lot of her music, is part of it, I think. As a woman, I relate to the overriding sense of hope greatly - many women have to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as that famous self-help book is called; we don't have the option of shutting down with sadness as men often do, because women do most of the crucial but unpaid/underpaid and undervalued work in the world, like caring for elderly relatives! There's a bit which repeats and extends the lyrics of the second verse, which made me bawl even harder:
Hey you, yellow and powder blue
Plum brandy by the sea
Gold, red and ruby shoes
I'd like you to come with me -
Hey you, holding me up to the light
Where all the notes are bright
And there's a part of me
My darling -
The images here are so strongly evocative of childhood, it's unbelievable. I never went to the seaside as a child, but even just from reading stuff like Enid Blyton, I hear the mentions of plum brandy and the sea and bright colours and think of childhood. When she talks of being held up to the light, I think of that idyllic happiness when you're a very young child, and you remember being held, talked to, loved... my stomach is getting tight even now! The song seems weird because, if you pay attention all the way through, it seems like she could be simultaneously addressing a lover and a parent, but what she's actually doing is capturing the bittersweetness of the past and the future. She hopes, as an adult, that her lover will love her honestly and fully, unconditionally as that past parent who held her on the beach as a child. (Or so I think). She asserts, almost with pride, that the wrong notes 'are part of me' and then asks, uncertainly, 'will you stay by my side?' Rather than answer this question, the song segues into an invitation: 'I'd like you to come with me -' before effectively fading to flashback, and then ends abruptly. We never know what happened next, and that only hooks me in deeper.
No version of Wrong Notes that I've found ends any differently. It's a mystery, and I would say that that neatly sums up Charlotte Hatherley's music - conveniently reflecting some well-known stereotypes of women, it seems mysterious and enigmatic/childlike and instinctive/poppy and superficial (delete as appropriate), but as in The Yellow Wallpaper (written by her namesake, a considerably more famous Charlotte!), seek and ye shall find. I certainly feel that beneath all the music, you can discern the traces of a real woman - frightened, hopeful, defiant, anxious, sexual, childlike, courageous, cautious and imaginative. It resounds with shapes and colours, she talks about a firebird, a komodo dragon, a ship, a garden... I don't know if she's a self-professed feminist, but she's said this:
I've got a wicked band assembled, I've got two girls in it which is good because that's one thing which I've realised - I don't have to do things I don't want to anymore, I'm never going to tour without having another girl so it's cool.
How awesome is that? Instead of engaging in 'exceptional woman syndrome'-type behaviour, after having been the only woman in an otherwise all-male band for about 10 years, she's actually supporting other women. 'Exceptional woman syndrome' is where women think that they don't need other women because (in the words of Shakesville), they buy into the contradictory BS that 'it’s a meritocracy, that the quality of our work will carry us to success. Because we are different. Better.' EWS leads to women who have made it through seriously toxic environments - whether the workplace or the family - attributing it to their own super-specialness and refusing to acknowledge their debt to their female predecessors, and/or, all too often, screwing over other women who follow in their footsteps. It's the basis of marriage in India even to this day (not just India), allowing mothers-in-law to make life hell for their daughters-in-law in the guise of teaching them how to behave. In its most toxic form, EWS provides the basis for 'exceptional' women to serve as patriarchal patsies, delighting sexist men and decrying egalitarian measures by effectively going 'Sexism? What sexism? I never experienced any in _______ (insert male-dominated field)' thus making life harder for women who have experienced sexism and are seeking some female solidarity. Sarah Palin's a good example of an Exceptional Woman, but you find them everywhere - the worst kinds of hypocrites.
While the press has no right to hound women like Amy Winehouse and Britney as it does (and I'm NOT implying that they deserve it in any way), CH is on the whole very un-celeb as she generally keeps attention off herself and entirely on the music, which I love. It's way more interesting. I have to say that AW's behaviour does annoy me a bit - I want her to start channelling her talent back into music, but unfortunately given that her music and it would seem, her sense of self revolves a great deal around her relationships with men, that's not likely to happen any time soon. By contrast, CH provides several examples of strong womanhood - in the video for I Want You To Know, she's a boxer and in Behave, a space pilot, whilst she's penned an ode to Kim Wilde and the song Paragon is about idolising a dynamic girl called Caroline. Grey Will Fade, the title track of the first album, is about GIRL LOVE - her comforting her beloved friend Fay - I mean, maybe she is supposed to be singing with a male voice, but from the tone of the lyrics, I don't see any evidence of it. Turns out she also said this:
"I want people to come to this tour and see me Jen and Charley playing guitar really fucking well and see that there are lots of girls out there who can do it. I really hope people and even girls in the audience can get inspired by that."
Do you love her yet? I'm falling in love all over again.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
At Last
Good grief, perhaps there should be a health warning against mixing your media. I've spent the whole day (more or less), and the last few weeks since the end of September, doing reading for my Master's. Today's reading has been a mixture of First World War Poetry, Mrs. Dalloway and an essay by Michèle Barratt - all on the theme of shell-shock. Just now, as I waited for my NEW LAPTOP (hurrah!) to come to life, I ceded to temptation. Having put Etta James's Best Of on my IPod, I allowed myself to play At Last (super-awesome version with clips from Funny Face on it) on my speakers...
... but what was this? As the music filtered deliciously through, I stiffened, feeling a sudden wave of frigidity shoot up my spine, and seize my nipples. My whole body was soon subsumed in this tingling cold as the lyrics soaked deep into my thoughts. Every nuance of her voice, her sentiments - the hope, the barely-restrained pleasure mingling with the violins' plaintiveness, all bound in a rough, caustic tenderness - irrigated my brain. The melancholy beneath her long wait had become my own. As the song hit me, I dimly felt a memory of The Libertarian scroll across my mind -
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you*
and I was shivering, almost rooted to the spot. As Etta lingered to the close of the song, I realised my eyes were filled with tears. The next song began, but my body was still in its heightened state of chilled distress. I put At Last back on, and freed the tears that had gathered. After that, I returned (mostly) to normal. My temperature still seems to be unstable, though, and whilst listening back to the song on Youtube (trying to pinpoint the exact effect certain phrases had on me), I wept further.
While it can be embarrassing to admit to reactions like that, I don't feel it too much. It was a uniquely transcendental experience - and ironic to boot. Earlier today, I read an interview with Bill Bailey, in which he responded to the question 'Attitude to drugs?' with:
To which I thought: 'Y'know Bill, I agree - in fact, being a drug-free AND alky-hawl-free zone too, I HEARTILY AGREE. However, why do I seem to be having so few 'life experiences' at the moment?'
Well, you get what you wish for. I couldn't help wondering if many of the Modernist writers and artists I read about had a similar reaction to Wagner - and what they would think of my reaction to Etta James. Would Theodor Adorno approve of her, I wondered. I decided that he would probably be unsure at first and then, once I described to him the implicit sense of narrowly-averted heartbreak and tragedy, the hint of a death richly merited 'at last' ('And here we are in heaven/ For you are mine/At last') and the overriding, persuasive magic of Etta's voice, he would have NO CHOICE but to agree. (For anyone who doesn't know what 'Modernism' is, or who Adorno is, or simply doesn't care - don't worry, I'm just being a saddo literary nerd).
The reasons for that sudden moment are likely to be as follows:
a) TOM has 'come around.'
b) I'm in love.
c) I was really looking forward to that song, since yesterday! I love romantic songs that are truly universal, or sung with loads of soul.
d) It's freezing.
As the song hit me, I dimly saw images of The Libertarian scroll across my mind ('Oh, yeah when you smile, you smile/Oh, and then the spell was cast'). Yesterday, I spent a whole 7 hours with The Libertarian - it was incredible. We did virtually nothing. We never do anything much of interest; it's not like my ex who shepherded me to gigs and exhibitions (and vice-versa) constantly. We do go out together, but we're very happy to sleep beside each other as well, and hug (yes, I know - stop vomiting). Given my state, there's been a suggestion of tense fractiousness whenever we debate - and a week or so ago, we narrowly avoided a smackdown over the issue of experiences of racism. This has made me especially careful to appreciate him for all that he is; a shockingly generous and tender soul who somehow manages to be sensitive, pragmatic and adorable all at once.
So, at 7 p.m. I gave up all pretence of doing my reading (the reason for going to his house) and climbed into his chair with him, to spend a whole hour hugging, kissing and talking. My family have been getting on my nerves a fair bit recently. My parents (my dad in particular) have had to do a lot of refurbishment work and as they are both pretty close to retirement age, it tires them out. I've been doing a little housework, as always, but work and a desire not to get drawn into the web that snatched my second-eldest sister makes me hold back from trying to do lots. Essentially, I haven't been hugely helpful, but I haven't been that bad either, and when my parents asked me to come and do some hoovering and cleaning, I did it without too much fuss.
However, what happens in instances like this is: my mother will complain constantly about having loads of work and 'no support.' My dad will mention (separately) every now and then about how tired he gets. My mother will step up her complaints. I arrived back from university about 8.00 p.m. last week, and because I hadn't really slept, sat on the sofa with my eyes shut briefly. My mother arrived and began angrily lambasting me for being tired, saying that she and my father were doing all that work at their age. However, being my mother, she was neither complaining of her workload, nor asserting her right to ask our help, nor saying I shouldn't be tired. No, it was a confused mess of the three, which culminated largely in an attack on me for having the nerve to be tired, with a sort of jeering undertone. I got up and went upstairs, refusing to be subject to her vindictive resentfulness and resolving not to come down again in a hurry.
Normally, in a non-premenstrual state, my mother's rage-fest would be easier to cope with. This, however, came in the wake of weeks of fear and feelings of inadequacy, laced with a sense of bitter disappointment and cynicism, at my course. I've learnt by this point not to invest too much hope, but TL assured me that I would find the people at Master's level more to my liking; more serious and mature. Throughout undergrad English, I bitched many a time about how many of the students there didn't really understand or appreciate the money that they were spending to study.
He wasn't wrong. Week 1 of the core course left me reeling in terror; everyone else seemed to be either a) obsessively knowledgeable of Modernism, or b) derangedly devoted to becoming thus, especially if they were a mature student. I was really hoping that the mature students might come through for me! Guilt set in - was I unappreciative of the course because I hadn't had to pay? At the last moment, a long-hoped-for miracle came through and I was awarded a bursary to cover the full cost of my fees. I started to feel certain that I wasn't worthy of the money, and that maybe I didn't deserve to be there, as everyone else clearly knew much more than I ever could. What was worse, I realised, was that I didn't actually like Modernism all that much from my brief encounters with it last year. It had been terrifyingly knotty, all T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, 'breakdown of language and form,' and obscurity. Did I deserve to be there?
After having a short period of emotional alienation from TL as a result of being absolutely unable to talk - for some reason, I could not talk to him at all - we fought and the release brought tears and awareness. The realisation of what each of us had nearly lost in the other propelled me back to full sanity and I gave my course a bit more opportunity to 'stick.' I chatted to some of the other women on my course; yes, they were nice enough. That week and the next brought new understanding: it wasn't because of their knowledge that the other students put me off. It was because history was repeating itself. At undergrad, there had been the deadly-serious (like myself, I guess) and the rest, with a few 'nice enoughs.' Now, the deadly-serious and the 'nice-enoughs' had come together - and I had changed substantially.
I have always been the sort of person who, by virtue of shyness and a natural tendency towards solitude, never makes friends instantly. I often find myself befriending one person, who is attached to others who are much cooler towards me, and vice versa. This happened all over again with one woman who was genuinely warm and friendly (R), but who appeared to be fast palling up with a more aloof, intelligent-yet-overly-brisk breadstick. Yet I didn't care - and why not? Was this because I'd reached that stage where I was tired of making the effort, tired of having to fight to be liked and appreciated, tired of playing the clown? Ye-es. Listening to the two chatting though, watching their camaraderie, it hit me hard and sudden what the real issue was.
They were regular students. To them, the MA was one of the most important things they were doing, or would ever do. It was to me, but I was uncomfortable about the way we were being rather unsubtly shoe-horned into PhD-prep. I loved the subject, yes, but... Even in Week 1 as two students tussled over time in Marx, I watched them under a throbbing head, aghast. What the fuck were they on about? Why the fuck were they getting so worked up? Couldn't they both be right? What was the fucking point?
During the induction day, six days previously, I had discovered that I was Best of the Web on Cif and persuaded a lecturer to let me use his Internet and check, very quickly, because I thought it was going to be taken down the next day (by which point, I wouldn't be able to see it with my own eyes as I was going to be out till 9 and then bedding down early for work the next morning). I assumed he knew about the Terence Kealey thing. He didn't; I explained. He commented that he didn't really get involved with that kind of thing (blogging etc.) because he couldn't handle the abuse (someone had left me a very unpleasant comment).
At the time, I thought nothing of it. Yet as the first three weeks sloped along, I suddenly and starkly recalled this incident, lit up against my general observations of the seminars and conversations with some of my other lecturers - and then I saw that I had been very blind and stupid. The department (and by extension, the world of English academia) was not the dry, self-contained hive it (and others) used to be - no, it had expanded, all right. It had expanded as students demanded their money's worth, to this level of curricular and extracurricular mixing, this new world of blurred boundaries that Kealey's 'satire' was meant to address...
... and there it stopped. I had always assumed that my lecturers were avidly interested in the 'real world,' that somehow they found time to follow the general thrust of current affairs beyond reviews sections and TV biographies. For some reason, I thought that they, like I, were always reflecting on what they discussed, on how to apply it to the real world, on what it all meant and mattered outside of literature and the seminar room. I was wrong.
Not only were my lecturers perfectly 'white middle-class,' I realised, but now, so too were my fellow students, most overwhelmingly. In our particular MA group, there was myself, a black student, a Japanese international student and 'Roz' who appeared to probably be of Pakistani or Bangladeshi background, but certainly wasn't trying to own it. When I mentioned this and the fact of being the only ethnic minority student in my other seminar group, TL demanded a population count and then returned the verdict that anyone else non-white and 'ethnic minorities would be overrepresented,' spectacularly missing the point.
None of them were, or even remotely seemed, particularly political. They didn't really need to be, not like I do. I recalled a conversation in which my parents had (inevitably) surfaced with a group of my peers, and the absolute gulf it created as always. R and I ended up conversing afterwards, and she tried to relate to me by discussing an ex-boyfriend of hers who was from a strict Greek background. I could not really talk about my situation properly, and the whole conversation brought to mind a half-wet beach. Something was missing. I could not understand what, or why, but something made me feel fundamentally unable to relate to these people. Not only unable, but also unwilling - alongside the general tendency of people in London to rapidly form cliques, and my own immense antipathy towards groups, something else was at work.
A 'teachable moment' with TL - the row about racism - helped me make some sense of it, as did a conversation with a long-unencountered acquaintance. TL protested that he did not like the way that I called him 'white middle-class' sometimes, but that he put it down to my being angry and TOM. I asked him why he didn't like it. He spluttered that it was because he couldn't help being that way, that I made it sound like some kind of accusation. He then went so far as to say 'it's like racism, really.' I had maintained a position of amused detachment, an ironic curiosity, while my innards broiled at his remarks. At that point, a world of rage cracked about my shoulders. I felt like Kali-Ma, towering, ready to bring about the destruction of solar systems with a hard, little smile.
'I cannot believe you said that,' I whispered, hurrying downstairs out of earshot, 'that is fucking appalling.' I tried to explain to him that racial privilege was poisoning his brain and that the pang he felt was what ethnic minority people feel constantly once they realise that they live within a racist system. He tried again to assert that my remarks were a form of racism.
'Racism? How is this racism?' He tried to 'explain.' I cut right to the heart: 'Did I say that you were inferior because you are white?'
I'd got him there. I repeated myself, for emphasis and to get through fully to him. 'No...'
'Well, how the fuck is that racism? Is there a concerted campaign - a campaign stretching over YEARS AND YEARS to portray white people as inferior, savage, backwards or effeminate by virtue merely of being white?'
As a historian (a very fine one at that), he could not of course assert that there ever was, or had been.
'I did not mention that you were white and middle-class because I have anything against whites (I wouldn't be dating you) or middle-class people (I'm probably middle-class myself). Did I say, implicitly or explicitly, that you were inferior, because you are white middle-class? NO. I mentioned it because you ARE white middle-class; as you said, you were born that way and I was trying to show you that you are a product of that.'
'But,' he was almost supplicant now, and I could see this coming, just like I'd seen the rest coming but couldn't believe it, 'I campaign against racism. I write on it; I write about honour-based violence and things like that, you know -'
'Yes,' I said, 'but just because you are not racist and campaign against racism, it doesn't mean you know how racism feels. It does NOT mean you understand the experience of racism. That is what so many ethnic minorities wish that white liberals of all stripes would understand. Not being racist and campaigning against racism, does not mean that you fully understand the experience that we go through.'
He had the nerve to ask me how much racism I'd experienced - I responded in as dignified a manner as I could, but I was angry about that and I let him know later on. That whole thing put me in mind of how rape victims still have to demonstrate evidence of some sort of physical struggle to be taken entirely seriously.
THAT is the huge, great sinking realisation that I have so often been working towards in these last two years of my life. The discussions I've read about unconscious racism within in the feminist community and silencing behaviour on a whole range of American feminist blogs, has given me the key to a whole new kind of awareness. I saw the full, shattering rawness with which interracial relationships can be so easily soured and destroyed. I understood more than ever why so many ethnic minority parents feel less than delighted about their children entering into interracial relationships or marriages.
More importantly, I understood why anti-racist feminists (and other campaigners) despair of overcoming the final hurdles in combating racism. Those white people who are 'on our side' don't always realise the harm they do, when they appropriate our experiences by trying to empathise without fully understanding the need to STFU and LISTEN, and/or when they react childishly and thoughtlessly to the awareness of their complicity in the racist system that they've never had to face before. What with that AND the newer delusions of 'majority victimhood' perpetuated by the likes of the BNP and far too many of our daily papers (I'm looking at you, Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph and Standard... and London Lite and the Metro... and Sky News...), being able to reach full equality and acceptance seems painfully remote.
I was lucky in that I could predict my partner's responses and respond to him clearly - and lucky in that he's the type of guy who LISTENS when I need him to. (The type of guy whose love makes me cry to Etta James! Haha). I will probably post some more on this in time, but for now, my nose hurts and the memory of all this is greatly demoralising.
*Lyrics to At Last here.
... but what was this? As the music filtered deliciously through, I stiffened, feeling a sudden wave of frigidity shoot up my spine, and seize my nipples. My whole body was soon subsumed in this tingling cold as the lyrics soaked deep into my thoughts. Every nuance of her voice, her sentiments - the hope, the barely-restrained pleasure mingling with the violins' plaintiveness, all bound in a rough, caustic tenderness - irrigated my brain. The melancholy beneath her long wait had become my own. As the song hit me, I dimly felt a memory of The Libertarian scroll across my mind -
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you*
and I was shivering, almost rooted to the spot. As Etta lingered to the close of the song, I realised my eyes were filled with tears. The next song began, but my body was still in its heightened state of chilled distress. I put At Last back on, and freed the tears that had gathered. After that, I returned (mostly) to normal. My temperature still seems to be unstable, though, and whilst listening back to the song on Youtube (trying to pinpoint the exact effect certain phrases had on me), I wept further.
While it can be embarrassing to admit to reactions like that, I don't feel it too much. It was a uniquely transcendental experience - and ironic to boot. Earlier today, I read an interview with Bill Bailey, in which he responded to the question 'Attitude to drugs?' with:
People try them, and then most people realise life experiences exceed the experience drugs give you.
To which I thought: 'Y'know Bill, I agree - in fact, being a drug-free AND alky-hawl-free zone too, I HEARTILY AGREE. However, why do I seem to be having so few 'life experiences' at the moment?'
Well, you get what you wish for. I couldn't help wondering if many of the Modernist writers and artists I read about had a similar reaction to Wagner - and what they would think of my reaction to Etta James. Would Theodor Adorno approve of her, I wondered. I decided that he would probably be unsure at first and then, once I described to him the implicit sense of narrowly-averted heartbreak and tragedy, the hint of a death richly merited 'at last' ('And here we are in heaven/ For you are mine/At last') and the overriding, persuasive magic of Etta's voice, he would have NO CHOICE but to agree. (For anyone who doesn't know what 'Modernism' is, or who Adorno is, or simply doesn't care - don't worry, I'm just being a saddo literary nerd).
The reasons for that sudden moment are likely to be as follows:
a) TOM has 'come around.'
b) I'm in love.
c) I was really looking forward to that song, since yesterday! I love romantic songs that are truly universal, or sung with loads of soul.
d) It's freezing.
As the song hit me, I dimly saw images of The Libertarian scroll across my mind ('Oh, yeah when you smile, you smile/Oh, and then the spell was cast'). Yesterday, I spent a whole 7 hours with The Libertarian - it was incredible. We did virtually nothing. We never do anything much of interest; it's not like my ex who shepherded me to gigs and exhibitions (and vice-versa) constantly. We do go out together, but we're very happy to sleep beside each other as well, and hug (yes, I know - stop vomiting). Given my state, there's been a suggestion of tense fractiousness whenever we debate - and a week or so ago, we narrowly avoided a smackdown over the issue of experiences of racism. This has made me especially careful to appreciate him for all that he is; a shockingly generous and tender soul who somehow manages to be sensitive, pragmatic and adorable all at once.
So, at 7 p.m. I gave up all pretence of doing my reading (the reason for going to his house) and climbed into his chair with him, to spend a whole hour hugging, kissing and talking. My family have been getting on my nerves a fair bit recently. My parents (my dad in particular) have had to do a lot of refurbishment work and as they are both pretty close to retirement age, it tires them out. I've been doing a little housework, as always, but work and a desire not to get drawn into the web that snatched my second-eldest sister makes me hold back from trying to do lots. Essentially, I haven't been hugely helpful, but I haven't been that bad either, and when my parents asked me to come and do some hoovering and cleaning, I did it without too much fuss.
However, what happens in instances like this is: my mother will complain constantly about having loads of work and 'no support.' My dad will mention (separately) every now and then about how tired he gets. My mother will step up her complaints. I arrived back from university about 8.00 p.m. last week, and because I hadn't really slept, sat on the sofa with my eyes shut briefly. My mother arrived and began angrily lambasting me for being tired, saying that she and my father were doing all that work at their age. However, being my mother, she was neither complaining of her workload, nor asserting her right to ask our help, nor saying I shouldn't be tired. No, it was a confused mess of the three, which culminated largely in an attack on me for having the nerve to be tired, with a sort of jeering undertone. I got up and went upstairs, refusing to be subject to her vindictive resentfulness and resolving not to come down again in a hurry.
Normally, in a non-premenstrual state, my mother's rage-fest would be easier to cope with. This, however, came in the wake of weeks of fear and feelings of inadequacy, laced with a sense of bitter disappointment and cynicism, at my course. I've learnt by this point not to invest too much hope, but TL assured me that I would find the people at Master's level more to my liking; more serious and mature. Throughout undergrad English, I bitched many a time about how many of the students there didn't really understand or appreciate the money that they were spending to study.
He wasn't wrong. Week 1 of the core course left me reeling in terror; everyone else seemed to be either a) obsessively knowledgeable of Modernism, or b) derangedly devoted to becoming thus, especially if they were a mature student. I was really hoping that the mature students might come through for me! Guilt set in - was I unappreciative of the course because I hadn't had to pay? At the last moment, a long-hoped-for miracle came through and I was awarded a bursary to cover the full cost of my fees. I started to feel certain that I wasn't worthy of the money, and that maybe I didn't deserve to be there, as everyone else clearly knew much more than I ever could. What was worse, I realised, was that I didn't actually like Modernism all that much from my brief encounters with it last year. It had been terrifyingly knotty, all T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, 'breakdown of language and form,' and obscurity. Did I deserve to be there?
After having a short period of emotional alienation from TL as a result of being absolutely unable to talk - for some reason, I could not talk to him at all - we fought and the release brought tears and awareness. The realisation of what each of us had nearly lost in the other propelled me back to full sanity and I gave my course a bit more opportunity to 'stick.' I chatted to some of the other women on my course; yes, they were nice enough. That week and the next brought new understanding: it wasn't because of their knowledge that the other students put me off. It was because history was repeating itself. At undergrad, there had been the deadly-serious (like myself, I guess) and the rest, with a few 'nice enoughs.' Now, the deadly-serious and the 'nice-enoughs' had come together - and I had changed substantially.
I have always been the sort of person who, by virtue of shyness and a natural tendency towards solitude, never makes friends instantly. I often find myself befriending one person, who is attached to others who are much cooler towards me, and vice versa. This happened all over again with one woman who was genuinely warm and friendly (R), but who appeared to be fast palling up with a more aloof, intelligent-yet-overly-brisk breadstick. Yet I didn't care - and why not? Was this because I'd reached that stage where I was tired of making the effort, tired of having to fight to be liked and appreciated, tired of playing the clown? Ye-es. Listening to the two chatting though, watching their camaraderie, it hit me hard and sudden what the real issue was.
They were regular students. To them, the MA was one of the most important things they were doing, or would ever do. It was to me, but I was uncomfortable about the way we were being rather unsubtly shoe-horned into PhD-prep. I loved the subject, yes, but... Even in Week 1 as two students tussled over time in Marx, I watched them under a throbbing head, aghast. What the fuck were they on about? Why the fuck were they getting so worked up? Couldn't they both be right? What was the fucking point?
During the induction day, six days previously, I had discovered that I was Best of the Web on Cif and persuaded a lecturer to let me use his Internet and check, very quickly, because I thought it was going to be taken down the next day (by which point, I wouldn't be able to see it with my own eyes as I was going to be out till 9 and then bedding down early for work the next morning). I assumed he knew about the Terence Kealey thing. He didn't; I explained. He commented that he didn't really get involved with that kind of thing (blogging etc.) because he couldn't handle the abuse (someone had left me a very unpleasant comment).
At the time, I thought nothing of it. Yet as the first three weeks sloped along, I suddenly and starkly recalled this incident, lit up against my general observations of the seminars and conversations with some of my other lecturers - and then I saw that I had been very blind and stupid. The department (and by extension, the world of English academia) was not the dry, self-contained hive it (and others) used to be - no, it had expanded, all right. It had expanded as students demanded their money's worth, to this level of curricular and extracurricular mixing, this new world of blurred boundaries that Kealey's 'satire' was meant to address...
... and there it stopped. I had always assumed that my lecturers were avidly interested in the 'real world,' that somehow they found time to follow the general thrust of current affairs beyond reviews sections and TV biographies. For some reason, I thought that they, like I, were always reflecting on what they discussed, on how to apply it to the real world, on what it all meant and mattered outside of literature and the seminar room. I was wrong.
Not only were my lecturers perfectly 'white middle-class,' I realised, but now, so too were my fellow students, most overwhelmingly. In our particular MA group, there was myself, a black student, a Japanese international student and 'Roz' who appeared to probably be of Pakistani or Bangladeshi background, but certainly wasn't trying to own it. When I mentioned this and the fact of being the only ethnic minority student in my other seminar group, TL demanded a population count and then returned the verdict that anyone else non-white and 'ethnic minorities would be overrepresented,' spectacularly missing the point.
None of them were, or even remotely seemed, particularly political. They didn't really need to be, not like I do. I recalled a conversation in which my parents had (inevitably) surfaced with a group of my peers, and the absolute gulf it created as always. R and I ended up conversing afterwards, and she tried to relate to me by discussing an ex-boyfriend of hers who was from a strict Greek background. I could not really talk about my situation properly, and the whole conversation brought to mind a half-wet beach. Something was missing. I could not understand what, or why, but something made me feel fundamentally unable to relate to these people. Not only unable, but also unwilling - alongside the general tendency of people in London to rapidly form cliques, and my own immense antipathy towards groups, something else was at work.
A 'teachable moment' with TL - the row about racism - helped me make some sense of it, as did a conversation with a long-unencountered acquaintance. TL protested that he did not like the way that I called him 'white middle-class' sometimes, but that he put it down to my being angry and TOM. I asked him why he didn't like it. He spluttered that it was because he couldn't help being that way, that I made it sound like some kind of accusation. He then went so far as to say 'it's like racism, really.' I had maintained a position of amused detachment, an ironic curiosity, while my innards broiled at his remarks. At that point, a world of rage cracked about my shoulders. I felt like Kali-Ma, towering, ready to bring about the destruction of solar systems with a hard, little smile.
'I cannot believe you said that,' I whispered, hurrying downstairs out of earshot, 'that is fucking appalling.' I tried to explain to him that racial privilege was poisoning his brain and that the pang he felt was what ethnic minority people feel constantly once they realise that they live within a racist system. He tried again to assert that my remarks were a form of racism.
'Racism? How is this racism?' He tried to 'explain.' I cut right to the heart: 'Did I say that you were inferior because you are white?'
I'd got him there. I repeated myself, for emphasis and to get through fully to him. 'No...'
'Well, how the fuck is that racism? Is there a concerted campaign - a campaign stretching over YEARS AND YEARS to portray white people as inferior, savage, backwards or effeminate by virtue merely of being white?'
As a historian (a very fine one at that), he could not of course assert that there ever was, or had been.
'I did not mention that you were white and middle-class because I have anything against whites (I wouldn't be dating you) or middle-class people (I'm probably middle-class myself). Did I say, implicitly or explicitly, that you were inferior, because you are white middle-class? NO. I mentioned it because you ARE white middle-class; as you said, you were born that way and I was trying to show you that you are a product of that.'
'But,' he was almost supplicant now, and I could see this coming, just like I'd seen the rest coming but couldn't believe it, 'I campaign against racism. I write on it; I write about honour-based violence and things like that, you know -'
'Yes,' I said, 'but just because you are not racist and campaign against racism, it doesn't mean you know how racism feels. It does NOT mean you understand the experience of racism. That is what so many ethnic minorities wish that white liberals of all stripes would understand. Not being racist and campaigning against racism, does not mean that you fully understand the experience that we go through.'
He had the nerve to ask me how much racism I'd experienced - I responded in as dignified a manner as I could, but I was angry about that and I let him know later on. That whole thing put me in mind of how rape victims still have to demonstrate evidence of some sort of physical struggle to be taken entirely seriously.
THAT is the huge, great sinking realisation that I have so often been working towards in these last two years of my life. The discussions I've read about unconscious racism within in the feminist community and silencing behaviour on a whole range of American feminist blogs, has given me the key to a whole new kind of awareness. I saw the full, shattering rawness with which interracial relationships can be so easily soured and destroyed. I understood more than ever why so many ethnic minority parents feel less than delighted about their children entering into interracial relationships or marriages.
More importantly, I understood why anti-racist feminists (and other campaigners) despair of overcoming the final hurdles in combating racism. Those white people who are 'on our side' don't always realise the harm they do, when they appropriate our experiences by trying to empathise without fully understanding the need to STFU and LISTEN, and/or when they react childishly and thoughtlessly to the awareness of their complicity in the racist system that they've never had to face before. What with that AND the newer delusions of 'majority victimhood' perpetuated by the likes of the BNP and far too many of our daily papers (I'm looking at you, Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph and Standard... and London Lite and the Metro... and Sky News...), being able to reach full equality and acceptance seems painfully remote.
I was lucky in that I could predict my partner's responses and respond to him clearly - and lucky in that he's the type of guy who LISTENS when I need him to. (The type of guy whose love makes me cry to Etta James! Haha). I will probably post some more on this in time, but for now, my nose hurts and the memory of all this is greatly demoralising.
*Lyrics to At Last here.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
FUCK YOU, Florence
Feminism has been hijacked. Feminism has been hijacked to dress up certain things which are dubious and sometimes ethically sticky, and magic away any objection to them.
On the whole, I would say that ACTUAL FEMINISTS haven't to the best of my knowledge endorsed things like sex work and pole-dancing as 'feminist.' What happened was that women were told that they weren't necessarily unfeminist if they did such things, or shaved their legs, or whatever. This was conveniently manufactured into the lie that all choices women make are 'feminist.' What utter nonsense. The fact of a woman making a choice for herself is feminist. As any fule kno, the circumstances in which choices are made greatly affect how 'free' they actually are, or not.
Nonetheless, we find ourselves in the tragic paradox where some people now think that empowerment is its opposite. Feminists use this to explain why some women, who are 'collaborators' in systems that hold them back, behave this way.
When I Googled the topic of this post to see if anyone else had written about it, I got this post: Florence And The Machine – ‘Kiss With A Fist’ – Is this the new feminism? . A commentator wrote:
Food for thought. I also cannot help thinking that Florence of Florence And The Machine is mistaking exploitation and empowerment. I humbly ask you to read the post above, about the song 'Kiss With A Fist,' which isn't very long.
'Kiss With A Fist' is a very troubling song which cheerfully lists a sort of escalating 'one-upmanship' of abuse between a couple until the woman burns down the bed:
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
That's the tamest of the verses, btw. Did I mention that the full name of the song is 'Kiss With A Fist (Is Better Than None)'?!
People routinely target rap music for its misogynistic lyrics, but this is a sunny, upbeat, MAINSTREAM POP SONG by a much-hyped group. I have to say as well, that despite having listened to a fair bit of rap in my time, I've never heard anything this repellant. I'm sure Eminem has done worse, but then again, he's marked 'Parental Advisory'. No-one exactly mistakes him for child-friendly listening, unless they're stupid and/or irresponsible.
This is an indie pop group who are effectively sending out the message that not only is domestic violence normal, but that it is an expression of love. To young girls, who are probably going to be the majority of their audience. GREAT. This isn't the first time I've seen this, either; a group I quite like, called Howling Bells, had a song called 'Broken Bones' on their first album with the uber-creepy lyric: 'Broken bones may hurt/But a broken heart will never mend.'
However, again, this group wasn't hugely mainstream and that lyric isn't really comparable to the ones above, is it? The tone of that song appears to be of a woman who cannot leave her partner and who seems to be waiting for him to finish her off. Horrible, but not obvious. I only clocked that it was about domestic violence after reading a review which implied that... Also, 'Broken Bones' is a sad song; it's not cheerfully indifferent to (accepting of, even) domestic violence the way 'Kiss With A Fist Is.'
Still, 'Kiss With A Fist' isn't even their worst crime. That honour must go to the absolutely fucking appalling 'Girl With One Eye.' This song disturbed me so much when I was listening to it last night that I refused to listen to the rest of the album afterwards and couldn't sleep for a while. The tone of the singer made it worse - she sounds really fucking pleased with herself. Maybe because, judging by the lyrics, she seems to be taking a 'male role' in this song. However, what is there to be pleased about when you're singing this?!!
Florence And The Machine
Ableism, rape, violence against women... The sheer level of spite and self-centredness in this song is unbelievable. Like I said, I noticed the lyrics primarily because a) I'm used to 'listening in' and b) she sounds so GODDAMN pleased with herself, like she's LOVING being in the oppressor role.
I despair. What does anyone else think? I wish there was some way to get Florence Welch to explain publicly what on Earth made her write this kind of malevolent shit. People have made a big thing of the fact that a lot of the Mercury Music Prize nominees this year are women, but both La Roux and Florence and The Machine are utterly depressing prospects. La Roux's already put her foot in it with victim-blaming, and now this. The only one who is worth anyone's time is Bat For Lashes.
On the whole, I would say that ACTUAL FEMINISTS haven't to the best of my knowledge endorsed things like sex work and pole-dancing as 'feminist.' What happened was that women were told that they weren't necessarily unfeminist if they did such things, or shaved their legs, or whatever. This was conveniently manufactured into the lie that all choices women make are 'feminist.' What utter nonsense. The fact of a woman making a choice for herself is feminist. As any fule kno, the circumstances in which choices are made greatly affect how 'free' they actually are, or not.
Nonetheless, we find ourselves in the tragic paradox where some people now think that empowerment is its opposite. Feminists use this to explain why some women, who are 'collaborators' in systems that hold them back, behave this way.
When I Googled the topic of this post to see if anyone else had written about it, I got this post: Florence And The Machine – ‘Kiss With A Fist’ – Is this the new feminism? . A commentator wrote:
... this issue relates to how the exploitation of women has become much more normalised that some women themselves identify it as empowerment.
The progressive changes brought about by feminism and the left during the 60’s and 70’s have been adapted by some feminists to fit in with the Thatcherite principles of neo-liberalism.
Food for thought. I also cannot help thinking that Florence of Florence And The Machine is mistaking exploitation and empowerment. I humbly ask you to read the post above, about the song 'Kiss With A Fist,' which isn't very long.
'Kiss With A Fist' is a very troubling song which cheerfully lists a sort of escalating 'one-upmanship' of abuse between a couple until the woman burns down the bed:
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
That's the tamest of the verses, btw. Did I mention that the full name of the song is 'Kiss With A Fist (Is Better Than None)'?!
People routinely target rap music for its misogynistic lyrics, but this is a sunny, upbeat, MAINSTREAM POP SONG by a much-hyped group. I have to say as well, that despite having listened to a fair bit of rap in my time, I've never heard anything this repellant. I'm sure Eminem has done worse, but then again, he's marked 'Parental Advisory'. No-one exactly mistakes him for child-friendly listening, unless they're stupid and/or irresponsible.
This is an indie pop group who are effectively sending out the message that not only is domestic violence normal, but that it is an expression of love. To young girls, who are probably going to be the majority of their audience. GREAT. This isn't the first time I've seen this, either; a group I quite like, called Howling Bells, had a song called 'Broken Bones' on their first album with the uber-creepy lyric: 'Broken bones may hurt/But a broken heart will never mend.'
However, again, this group wasn't hugely mainstream and that lyric isn't really comparable to the ones above, is it? The tone of that song appears to be of a woman who cannot leave her partner and who seems to be waiting for him to finish her off. Horrible, but not obvious. I only clocked that it was about domestic violence after reading a review which implied that... Also, 'Broken Bones' is a sad song; it's not cheerfully indifferent to (accepting of, even) domestic violence the way 'Kiss With A Fist Is.'
Still, 'Kiss With A Fist' isn't even their worst crime. That honour must go to the absolutely fucking appalling 'Girl With One Eye.' This song disturbed me so much when I was listening to it last night that I refused to listen to the rest of the album afterwards and couldn't sleep for a while. The tone of the singer made it worse - she sounds really fucking pleased with herself. Maybe because, judging by the lyrics, she seems to be taking a 'male role' in this song. However, what is there to be pleased about when you're singing this?!!
Florence And The Machine
Girl With One Eye lyrics
She told me not to step on the cracks
I told her not to fuss and relax
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks
But now she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid
I took a knife and cut out her eye
I took it home and watched it wither and die
Well, she's lucky that I didn't slip her a smile
That's why she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
I slipped my hand under her skirt
I said don't worry, it's not gonna hurt
Oh, my reputation's kinda clouded with dirt
That's why you sleep with one eye open
That's the price you paid
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
I told her not to fuss and relax
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks
But now she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid
I took a knife and cut out her eye
I took it home and watched it wither and die
Well, she's lucky that I didn't slip her a smile
That's why she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
I slipped my hand under her skirt
I said don't worry, it's not gonna hurt
Oh, my reputation's kinda clouded with dirt
That's why you sleep with one eye open
That's the price you paid
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
Ableism, rape, violence against women... The sheer level of spite and self-centredness in this song is unbelievable. Like I said, I noticed the lyrics primarily because a) I'm used to 'listening in' and b) she sounds so GODDAMN pleased with herself, like she's LOVING being in the oppressor role.
I despair. What does anyone else think? I wish there was some way to get Florence Welch to explain publicly what on Earth made her write this kind of malevolent shit. People have made a big thing of the fact that a lot of the Mercury Music Prize nominees this year are women, but both La Roux and Florence and The Machine are utterly depressing prospects. La Roux's already put her foot in it with victim-blaming, and now this. The only one who is worth anyone's time is Bat For Lashes.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
How To...
Make an article of yours run and run without ever stopping? Take notes from el presidente of Pickled Politics, the one and only Sunny Hundal - put 'anti-Muslim' in the title, and I swear it's like a Pavlovian dog to the 'intelligentsia' that frequent the site. I use quotation marks because there are (inevitably) some nuts, and I am on it too... :-P
So yeah, for all you 'lovers, haters and anticipators' (own coinage! :-P), this is the 'How-To' post. It's not your usual 'How To,' so don't expect to see me dancing about with a monkey wrench (yes, I linked to it just in case you, like me, had utterly no idea what the hell it is. Terrifying looking thing, and to top it all off, it comes from a site called 'Manic Collector'. Brilliant). Nor will I be dancing about with any monkeys, though I may well dance at an unspecified future point of this evening.
Other things I will not be telling you how to do:
- Bake a stained-glass window biscuit (though I would LOVE to do that)
- How to fix your temperamental heating (set the neighbourhood poltergeist on it?)
- Be graceful and ladylike when farting (absolutely, scientifically bloody impossible. If you do not even let a giggle slip, you are qu. clearly an android. Pity my poor man :-P).
Now that I am done with eating my apple-that-tasted-like-mushrooms and a curiously pleasantly artificial-tasting bag of mini 'Snack-a-Jacks', I will proceed to the main 'How To' of this post.
How to... reconcile Julie Bindel and Laurie Penny?
Most of y'all (except for Rumbold) will probably be wondering 'what de haile' I am talking about (sorry, I couldn't resist... The DOs & DON'Ts crack me up).
I am referring to this:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/10/25/pantomime-dames
That's right. So important is this link that I refer to that I have actually abstained from insinuating it snugly within my text, and displayed it brazen and bold. I will understand if some of the comments bore you, but verily there are quite a few of those fascinatingly bitchy Internet-car-crash moments that make you wonder why the hell everyone is taking all dis shit so SERIUSS, man, iss juss da Internet, innit?
(Sorry, I've obviously been too long without going home / being woken up by 'rudebwoi' freshers and evidently I'm hankering. OMG, maybe I miss my brother!).
What is of interest (to me, anyway) here is how the author, the lovely Laurie, presents a distance between herself and Julie Bindel (it must be said that the version of the article posted on Laurie's own blog is much more complete and better articulates her viewpoint). Cath Elliott took her to task over her attacks on JB in the article, but as somebody who views themselves as a 'feminist', I'm going to be uber-patronising and try to join the dots between the two... hence the 'reconciliation.'
Firstly, in partially echoing CE, I would say: if you, Laurie, judge JB on comments she made over a year ago and has since apparently expressed regret for, are you not as bad as her (and her ilk), who attack transfolk because they see only biologically-determined sex and refuse the mutability of gender?
Secondly, assuming that JB should be accepting of transfolk is highly naive. Many gays and lesbians have fought to define themselves beyond the frequent and narrow societal dismissals of 'effeminate' or 'butch'. Hence the term 'queer' being 'reclaimed' from its 'hetero' context and being applied to (for just one example) 'Queer Studies', which seeks to revisit history from a LGBT perspective, providing a more nuanced view of history in the process I would say. Acceptance has much more to do with personal politics (i.e. your outlook on life, whether liberal, conservative or whatever) and security in oneself - both of which are entirely subjective. I think there may be a little 'liberal assumption' occurring on Laurie's part here. 'Gay' does not mean 'open-minded' or 'liberal', even though it often seems like it should.
JB, as a renowned militant-feminist-lesbian, has obviously defined herself (and thus carved out a career!) on very specific (some might say absolute) terms. Hence, the performative element that comes with transfolk - performance of a gender - is presumably problematic for her and her ilk. I suspect they see it as inauthenticity, as betrayal. Looking at her picture, I would point out some hypocrisy - is she, in refusing to wear obvious make-up and having short hair, not simply seeking to enact the same image rebellion? The only difference with her is that she happens to be 'shored up' by biological sex.
Laurie expresses near-identical sentiments to these with more eloquence towards the end of her own blog post (as I mentioned earlier). JB and co. need to remember that transfolk 'challenge' not just their own gender identity but that of heterosexuals too. I will refer here to Isis, the ANTM hopeful. Note the snarky comment about 'packing (Hint, Hint)a few more goods than the rest of this season’s competitors' and that too from a site that I initially thought was less bitchy than most!
Why this continual reduction of transfolk to an object of amusement or ridicule? Given what I learned in QS last year (:-D), it is because they are easier to handle that way. You can brush 'em off without thinking about it. Yet even within the most blatantly satirical depictions of femininity or masculinity by drag queens and kings, is a questioning of our gender norms. That's the point of all satire, after all, isn't it? If you react badly to it, then you're missing the point. You're stuck on the corner of the bigger picture.
Referring to what drag kings and queens do as 'satire,' by the way, is not meant to be in the least detrimental. Rather, I think, unwittingly or not, there's something ingenious about the whole thing. In a world which often feels like it's getting blacker-and-whiter by the day, transfolk and their reality are a much-needed burst of grey. I personally see them as mirrors - mirrors of the fact that life is not fixed and stable as we would like it to be, but fluid and perpetually in flux. Sex and gender are a part of life and are thus equally subject to change. 'Is nothing sacred any more?' Don't think so, and why should it bloody well be, anyway? :-D Surely that is a message that would unite Laurie and Julie!
The real Q here is: on what grounds did Stonewall choose Bindel for their Journalist of The Year award? And how was she selected? Perhaps there was a shortage of sufficiently trans-friendly journalists? I'd say that rather than attacking the nominee, it might be more fruitful to turn our attention upon those who nominated her...?
(Seriously) Recommended Reading:
http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/10/incitement_to_r
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/uglies
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/the_perfect_vag
(Warning: the last one is really rather graphic).
This week, yours truly has been listening to Helicopter Girl - How To Steal The World (but only tracks 1-4 and 10!), Alphabeat - Boyfriend (oh, the cringeworthy joy of simultaneously: oddly Christmas-bell infectious music matched with utterly teenage self-indulgent lyrics, and Swedes with perfect diction innocently singing lyrics such as 'Oh yeah, we run away from private eyes / To privacy' (I think you meant 'prying eyes,' love?) and Santogold. Her whole album is good, but the pulsating religiosity of Anne has had me absolutely bewitched. There appears to be a tension between the lyrics ('My name is Anne, I got a plan / I may lack virtue / But I'm penitent' and the chorus 'J,j,jesus Pieces / Rescue me / The more I try / The more it gets too complicated') and the oddness of the backing music.
I really recommend watching the Alphabeat video (because it's really cool - it features the notion of the illustrator as God! C'mon, that's always fun!) and I recommend Anne because I'm so fucking in love with it. However, read the lyrics first! Along with Unstoppable, it's become my 'coping anthem' of late. Oooh, just realised that the HG album title also contains a 'How To' - IT'S FATE! *runs screaming and glassy-eyed into the woods*
Cheers, thanks and goodnight :-D.
A little 'hidden' How -To for anyone who is even remotely culinarily-inclined (own coinage again! o_^b ). It is both easy and fun, since I am not the most patient, even though I love food :
Catalan Bread
Bread (crusty is better, but you can use regular bog-standard white or wholemeal as long as you toast it crisp first)
A ripe tomato, halved (just-ripe isn't as good, though it does work)
A clove of garlic, cut in half
Some olive oil
Take one of your half-cloves of garlic and rub the exposed end thoroughly over the bread (it should end up smelling of garlic and may look a bit shiny in the light).
Take half your tomato and rub its innards all over your bread.
Drizzle over olive oil, and if you are anything like me, spread it with a knife to ensure even coverage (perfectionist freak!)
Enjoy.
In Barcelona, this is the standard preparation for sandwiches - you do this and then put whatever else, probably because Barça is the Catalan heartland of Spain. Fancy that!
So yeah, for all you 'lovers, haters and anticipators' (own coinage! :-P), this is the 'How-To' post. It's not your usual 'How To,' so don't expect to see me dancing about with a monkey wrench (yes, I linked to it just in case you, like me, had utterly no idea what the hell it is. Terrifying looking thing, and to top it all off, it comes from a site called 'Manic Collector'. Brilliant). Nor will I be dancing about with any monkeys, though I may well dance at an unspecified future point of this evening.
Other things I will not be telling you how to do:
- Bake a stained-glass window biscuit (though I would LOVE to do that)
- How to fix your temperamental heating (set the neighbourhood poltergeist on it?)
- Be graceful and ladylike when farting (absolutely, scientifically bloody impossible. If you do not even let a giggle slip, you are qu. clearly an android. Pity my poor man :-P).
Now that I am done with eating my apple-that-tasted-like-mushrooms and a curiously pleasantly artificial-tasting bag of mini 'Snack-a-Jacks', I will proceed to the main 'How To' of this post.
How to... reconcile Julie Bindel and Laurie Penny?
Most of y'all (except for Rumbold) will probably be wondering 'what de haile' I am talking about (sorry, I couldn't resist... The DOs & DON'Ts crack me up).
I am referring to this:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/10/25/pantomime-dames
That's right. So important is this link that I refer to that I have actually abstained from insinuating it snugly within my text, and displayed it brazen and bold. I will understand if some of the comments bore you, but verily there are quite a few of those fascinatingly bitchy Internet-car-crash moments that make you wonder why the hell everyone is taking all dis shit so SERIUSS, man, iss juss da Internet, innit?
(Sorry, I've obviously been too long without going home / being woken up by 'rudebwoi' freshers and evidently I'm hankering. OMG, maybe I miss my brother!).
What is of interest (to me, anyway) here is how the author, the lovely Laurie, presents a distance between herself and Julie Bindel (it must be said that the version of the article posted on Laurie's own blog is much more complete and better articulates her viewpoint). Cath Elliott took her to task over her attacks on JB in the article, but as somebody who views themselves as a 'feminist', I'm going to be uber-patronising and try to join the dots between the two... hence the 'reconciliation.'
Firstly, in partially echoing CE, I would say: if you, Laurie, judge JB on comments she made over a year ago and has since apparently expressed regret for, are you not as bad as her (and her ilk), who attack transfolk because they see only biologically-determined sex and refuse the mutability of gender?
Secondly, assuming that JB should be accepting of transfolk is highly naive. Many gays and lesbians have fought to define themselves beyond the frequent and narrow societal dismissals of 'effeminate' or 'butch'. Hence the term 'queer' being 'reclaimed' from its 'hetero' context and being applied to (for just one example) 'Queer Studies', which seeks to revisit history from a LGBT perspective, providing a more nuanced view of history in the process I would say. Acceptance has much more to do with personal politics (i.e. your outlook on life, whether liberal, conservative or whatever) and security in oneself - both of which are entirely subjective. I think there may be a little 'liberal assumption' occurring on Laurie's part here. 'Gay' does not mean 'open-minded' or 'liberal', even though it often seems like it should.
JB, as a renowned militant-feminist-lesbian, has obviously defined herself (and thus carved out a career!) on very specific (some might say absolute) terms. Hence, the performative element that comes with transfolk - performance of a gender - is presumably problematic for her and her ilk. I suspect they see it as inauthenticity, as betrayal. Looking at her picture, I would point out some hypocrisy - is she, in refusing to wear obvious make-up and having short hair, not simply seeking to enact the same image rebellion? The only difference with her is that she happens to be 'shored up' by biological sex.
Laurie expresses near-identical sentiments to these with more eloquence towards the end of her own blog post (as I mentioned earlier). JB and co. need to remember that transfolk 'challenge' not just their own gender identity but that of heterosexuals too. I will refer here to Isis, the ANTM hopeful. Note the snarky comment about 'packing (Hint, Hint)a few more goods than the rest of this season’s competitors' and that too from a site that I initially thought was less bitchy than most!
Why this continual reduction of transfolk to an object of amusement or ridicule? Given what I learned in QS last year (:-D), it is because they are easier to handle that way. You can brush 'em off without thinking about it. Yet even within the most blatantly satirical depictions of femininity or masculinity by drag queens and kings, is a questioning of our gender norms. That's the point of all satire, after all, isn't it? If you react badly to it, then you're missing the point. You're stuck on the corner of the bigger picture.
Referring to what drag kings and queens do as 'satire,' by the way, is not meant to be in the least detrimental. Rather, I think, unwittingly or not, there's something ingenious about the whole thing. In a world which often feels like it's getting blacker-and-whiter by the day, transfolk and their reality are a much-needed burst of grey. I personally see them as mirrors - mirrors of the fact that life is not fixed and stable as we would like it to be, but fluid and perpetually in flux. Sex and gender are a part of life and are thus equally subject to change. 'Is nothing sacred any more?' Don't think so, and why should it bloody well be, anyway? :-D Surely that is a message that would unite Laurie and Julie!
The real Q here is: on what grounds did Stonewall choose Bindel for their Journalist of The Year award? And how was she selected? Perhaps there was a shortage of sufficiently trans-friendly journalists? I'd say that rather than attacking the nominee, it might be more fruitful to turn our attention upon those who nominated her...?
(Seriously) Recommended Reading:
http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/10/incitement_to_r
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/uglies
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2008/09/the_perfect_vag
(Warning: the last one is really rather graphic).
This week, yours truly has been listening to Helicopter Girl - How To Steal The World (but only tracks 1-4 and 10!), Alphabeat - Boyfriend (oh, the cringeworthy joy of simultaneously: oddly Christmas-bell infectious music matched with utterly teenage self-indulgent lyrics, and Swedes with perfect diction innocently singing lyrics such as 'Oh yeah, we run away from private eyes / To privacy' (I think you meant 'prying eyes,' love?) and Santogold. Her whole album is good, but the pulsating religiosity of Anne has had me absolutely bewitched. There appears to be a tension between the lyrics ('My name is Anne, I got a plan / I may lack virtue / But I'm penitent' and the chorus 'J,j,jesus Pieces / Rescue me / The more I try / The more it gets too complicated') and the oddness of the backing music.
I really recommend watching the Alphabeat video (because it's really cool - it features the notion of the illustrator as God! C'mon, that's always fun!) and I recommend Anne because I'm so fucking in love with it. However, read the lyrics first! Along with Unstoppable, it's become my 'coping anthem' of late. Oooh, just realised that the HG album title also contains a 'How To' - IT'S FATE! *runs screaming and glassy-eyed into the woods*
Cheers, thanks and goodnight :-D.
A little 'hidden' How -To for anyone who is even remotely culinarily-inclined (own coinage again! o_^b ). It is both easy and fun, since I am not the most patient, even though I love food :
Catalan Bread
Bread (crusty is better, but you can use regular bog-standard white or wholemeal as long as you toast it crisp first)
A ripe tomato, halved (just-ripe isn't as good, though it does work)
A clove of garlic, cut in half
Some olive oil
Take one of your half-cloves of garlic and rub the exposed end thoroughly over the bread (it should end up smelling of garlic and may look a bit shiny in the light).
Take half your tomato and rub its innards all over your bread.
Drizzle over olive oil, and if you are anything like me, spread it with a knife to ensure even coverage (perfectionist freak!)
Enjoy.
In Barcelona, this is the standard preparation for sandwiches - you do this and then put whatever else, probably because Barça is the Catalan heartland of Spain. Fancy that!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Mad About The Boy
Dinah Washington - Mad About The Boy.
This song has graced God knows how many smooth jazz compilations, which is terrible because that almost automatically implies that it's going to be 'chilled-out' or 'smooth'. The jazz backing isn't exactly the work of musical mavericks, it's true, but it's hardly dull. However, Dinah Washington's voice and style of singing are what lift the song to 'timeless' level.
The woman who inspired Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin, she was apparently known for her perfect diction, powerful voice and emotive singing. In this song, from the very start, anyone who has heard even ONE Amy Winehouse song can see how strong that influence is. Amy obviously wants to become her... Despite owning both her (Amy's) albums, I must concur that Dinah blows her away quite effortlessly with this song, though I was hoping it wouldn't be so. Apparently Noel Coward wrote this song (for a lover?), but Dinah makes it hers in a way that belies that fact and would have you believe that she had written it herself.
An air of imminent heartbreak hangs about this song; that's why I love it. How often nowadays do you get simple lyrics being infused with such a dizzying, yet carefully controlled explosion of feeling? When she sings 'I'm so ashamed of it, but must admit / The sleepless nights I've had / About the boy,' I myself feel the painful and tumultuous pangs of first love once more.
'Lord knows, I'm not a fool girl / I really shouldn't care,' has me blushing and looking around guiltily as if unsure of what I'm doing. The whole fourth verse is richly redolent of teenage crushes gone bad and broken hearts. I haven't even had much experience of that (roughly none in the latter instance) and yet she brings it home to me.
I'm mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it but must admit the sleepless nights I've had
About the boy
On the silver screen
He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
Although I'm quite aware that here and there are traces of the cad
About the boy
Lord knows I'm not a fool girl
I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school girl
In the flurry of her first affair
Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy
I'm feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I'm mad about the boy
So if I could employ
A little magic that will finally destroy
This dream that pains me and enchains me
But I can't because I'm mad...
I'm mad about the boy.
A strangely wise song about the fatalistic type of love that makes you lose your senses of reasoning and perspective. The acknowledgement and comprehension of the fact that it's a potentially unhealthy attachment ('misery,' 'insanity,' 'mad' 'pains and enchains'), that can only come with romantic experience make it more affecting, ergo its well-deserved classic status. Noel Coward is to be congratulated on his sublimely simple lyrics, and Dinah Washington for her superb rendering of it that makes the lovelorn character at the heart of it seem more pained, and less straightfowardly shameful than would appear just by reading the lyrics.
This song has graced God knows how many smooth jazz compilations, which is terrible because that almost automatically implies that it's going to be 'chilled-out' or 'smooth'. The jazz backing isn't exactly the work of musical mavericks, it's true, but it's hardly dull. However, Dinah Washington's voice and style of singing are what lift the song to 'timeless' level.
The woman who inspired Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin, she was apparently known for her perfect diction, powerful voice and emotive singing. In this song, from the very start, anyone who has heard even ONE Amy Winehouse song can see how strong that influence is. Amy obviously wants to become her... Despite owning both her (Amy's) albums, I must concur that Dinah blows her away quite effortlessly with this song, though I was hoping it wouldn't be so. Apparently Noel Coward wrote this song (for a lover?), but Dinah makes it hers in a way that belies that fact and would have you believe that she had written it herself.
An air of imminent heartbreak hangs about this song; that's why I love it. How often nowadays do you get simple lyrics being infused with such a dizzying, yet carefully controlled explosion of feeling? When she sings 'I'm so ashamed of it, but must admit / The sleepless nights I've had / About the boy,' I myself feel the painful and tumultuous pangs of first love once more.
'Lord knows, I'm not a fool girl / I really shouldn't care,' has me blushing and looking around guiltily as if unsure of what I'm doing. The whole fourth verse is richly redolent of teenage crushes gone bad and broken hearts. I haven't even had much experience of that (roughly none in the latter instance) and yet she brings it home to me.
I'm mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it but must admit the sleepless nights I've had
About the boy
On the silver screen
He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
Although I'm quite aware that here and there are traces of the cad
About the boy
Lord knows I'm not a fool girl
I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school girl
In the flurry of her first affair
Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy
I'm feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I'm mad about the boy
So if I could employ
A little magic that will finally destroy
This dream that pains me and enchains me
But I can't because I'm mad...
I'm mad about the boy.
A strangely wise song about the fatalistic type of love that makes you lose your senses of reasoning and perspective. The acknowledgement and comprehension of the fact that it's a potentially unhealthy attachment ('misery,' 'insanity,' 'mad' 'pains and enchains'), that can only come with romantic experience make it more affecting, ergo its well-deserved classic status. Noel Coward is to be congratulated on his sublimely simple lyrics, and Dinah Washington for her superb rendering of it that makes the lovelorn character at the heart of it seem more pained, and less straightfowardly shameful than would appear just by reading the lyrics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)