We have a blackbird family living in our back garden. They were here last year as well, and I’ve dubbed them the Birdling family, because I have an as-yet-unexplained compulsion to anthropomorphize everything. This year’s nest location, in the sturdy branches of a large shrub, seems to be a much better choice than last year when they built their nest in the ivy on our garden wall.
The boyfriend decided to step away from his synths (yea, verily, we are a synth-lovin’ household) for a moment to play David Attenborough. This was the result!
I love the puzzled, quizzical look Mr. Birdling gives the camera: ‘Wait a minute. This wasn’t here this morning! Was it? Hmmm.’ Oh look, there I go anthropomorphizing again. Ah, nature.
On a slightly more new wave-related note, my thesis chapter on the performative nature of the self (and of new wave music’s critique of the same) is done. I’m sure my overall thesis word count is somewhere in the stratosphere now, but no matter. I’ll post an excerpt from it in the near future.
My thesis edits seem to be trundling along at a slow but steady pace. One of the main issues the graders had with my work was that they wanted more in-depth theory. With that in mind I’ve been working on a strictly theoretical chapter for the last few weeks. One of the key components of this chapter is the idea of performance.
Gender performance is a pretty well-established concept in feminist theory. Hell, it goes back to the very beginning. Gender is a social construct: you act ‘like a man’ or ‘like a lady’ because you know that if you don’t, you’ll get in trouble for it—men who aren’t masculine enough are constantly questioned about their heterosexuality. Women who don’t perform femininity well enough are questioned about, well, everything that makes them up as a person. Judith Butler is one of the main proponents of gender performance theory, and I’ve been reviewing Gender Trouble for this chapter. While I find some of it very problematic, it’s been an interesting exercise and has reframed a lot of the ways I think about constructing the ’self’ (not just the masculine or feminine self, but the self as the basic construct of ‘I am’.) Since I am, of course, deeply rooted in the Cartesian dualism that dominates Western thought, this is difficult for me to get my head around. The idea that the self doesn’t exist independently from experience, that the self is an act rather than a thing. Well. It’s something I’ve questioned literally as long as I can remember—since early childhood— but even after twenty years of questioning it’s still a difficult concept to fully wrap my head around. Maybe I’ll succeed one of these days.
On a less mind-bending level, it’s also brought up ideas of other kinds of performance. The way you perform your class, for instance, or the way you perform your place of origin. I’ll explain. At home I don’t stand out because I’m just like everyone else, an American, a Floridian (well, that’s not entirely true, a lot of people in Florida aren’t Floridians). Here, one of my main defining characteristics is my American-ness. The way I talk, the things I talk about, the way I dress, they all mark me out as different and constantly remind me that I am performing my place of origin. I don’t feel particularly ‘American’ in America–I’m performing my nationality, yes, but then, so is everyone around me, so I don’t really notice. Here, I’m acutely aware of the performance aspect.
That probably sounds negative, but it isn’t, at least not most of the time. It’s just interesting, the way performance (whether it be gender, class or place of origin performance) gets reified until it seems natural, and it’s only when you’re taken out of your normal performance space that you realize no, actually, it isn’t ‘natural’ in the sense that everyone is like that. Most people aren’t. It’s a valuable lesson, and one I’m glad to be learning.
In what can only be described as a convergence of awesomeness, I managed to find this clip on YouTube last night. MST3K + Mike impersonating Morrissey = WIN. And yes, I realize they’re giving the Moz a bit of a ribbing, but it’s obviously done with affection. I also love all the little touches in the sketch, including references to ‘Sheila Take a Bow’ (Is it wrong not to always be glad?) and the fact that the song is entitled ‘Hairdresser in a Coma’. Just watch!
Sometimes people (my long-suffering family in particular) ask me why I decided to up and move to England. There are several reasons: Mostly, England had the kind of universities that would let me do the kind of self-directed research I wanted to do at the Masters level, rather than having to wait until I got into PhD research. So there’s that.
I think secretly I really just wanted to move to England to understand the Smiths better. I always enjoyed their music and videos in college, dancing with a certain charming gracelessness in my dorm room or at the club, throwing my hands up in the air and chanting during ‘Panic’ or trying to catch a cute club-goer’s eye while singing ‘Ask’. And yes, I realize the irony of using Morrissey to try and flirt with someone.
However, it wasn’t until I’d actually gone to the UK that I started to actually get what the Moz was actually on about in all his songs. The first time I went to Manchester I felt a sort of *click*. ‘Ooohh,’ I thought,’ so this is what he’s talking about!’ It’s a level of understanding you just can’t get in the sunny, swampy swelter of central Florida, no matter how many times you dance around to The Queen is Dead in your living room. Englishness is a hard quality to define but a very easy one to recognize (I know it when I see it, if you know what I mean), and Morrissey has it— and the Smiths had it in spades. I also understand the irony of the son of Irish immigrants epitomizing this ephemeral quality of ‘Englishness’ but there we are… perhaps he’s so good at it because he’s also at a bit of a remove from it, and can look at what it means from both inside and outside, skewering the foibles and engaging in all the good traits (whatever you consider those to be—I’m guessing dry humor and a love of tailoring). I don’t know. All I know is, I love the Smiths and Morrissey. And, having lived in Northern England for close to two years, I love them even more.
I’m not sure where this video is filmed. I think that’s the point. It could be any coastal town anywhere in Britain. They all look like that, even the one near where I live (though it isn’t nearly so lively). See? That’s something I never would have understood until I actually saw it with my own eyes.
‘Everyday is Like Sunday’
‘Panic’ (One of my top 10 club tunes, I just can’t stop grinning when I hear it. Also, I dj’ed at friends’ parties from time to time, and I always liked to end with this one. Heh.)
Oh! And while I’m thinking of it, here is the song that ‘Panic’’s main riff is based on:
(T. Rex, ‘Metal Guru’)
I have been struck down by the Cold of DOOM for the past few days, so any meaningful work in the world of new wave (le monde de la nouvelle vague) has been shoved to the wayside in favor of naps, hot showers, pathetic whinging and the occasional cup of fresh ginger tea.
In a fortuitous turn of events I stumbled across this recipe for ‘Orange Ginger Spice Drink’ via trusty ol’ TasteSpotting. It’s much nicer than my usual ginger tea, which is just grated ginger in hot water. It’s a life saver when you’re struck down by a Cold of DOOM (and trust me, at some point, we will all be struck down). Unfortunately I don’t have any agave nectar, but honey does the trick just fine—and as an added bonus, honey has antimicrobial properties, too! Hooray, honey!
Now I think I’m going to whip up a batch of this, whinge pathetically for a bit, and then go to bed and hope this cold will release me from its foul clutches. More new wave action to come, I promise!
One of the unforeseen benefits of having to do thesis edits is that I have the opportunity and motivation to watch MST3K episodes on YouTube— not that I don’t have the opportunity and motivation anyway, just that watching MST3K episodes is sort of a study ritual with me that I’m glad to revive. Normally I’m annoyed at YouTube’s policy of only allowing 10 minute clips of things, but in this case it works out pretty well. Whenever I get a bit of reading or writing done I watch a 10 minute segment or two before continuing. In the course of just one B-movie I can get a surprising amount of work accomplished.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say I’m primarily a Mike fan. That’s not a dig at Joel, it’s just due to the fact that I only started watching MST3K in season 6 or 7, when Joel had left the Satellite of Love for greener pastures, where, presumably, he wasn’t forced by mad scientists to watch low-budget horror films. Because of that, Mike’s the host I’m most familiar with. I have been getting more into the Joel-era episodes (The Pod People and Mitchell being particular favorites of mine), but I still have a lot of catching up to do.
I like MST3K because it’s a constant barrage of pop culture references, some high brow, some low, but all very cleverly done. If I’m lucky I’ll get most of the references in an episode, but usually not, which means I have to go and look a lot of things up. Obviously, that’s fine by me.
Anyway, today I finished watching that Italian B-Classico, Puma Man, starring Donald ‘So Basically He’s an Old Baby’ Pleasence as a pudgy, balding supervillian clad in castoffs from a SoHo S&M dungeon. There’s an Aztec, something about alien gods and a gold mask with a microprocessor in it, and a super hero wearing khaki slacks. Randomly, at the end of the episode in a host segment, Roger Whittaker shows up. It’s actuallly Kevin Murphy (the voice of Tom Servo) doing an impression, but I was intrigued. Since I’m not much of a mellow folkster I’m not really familiar with ‘mellow folk sensation’ Roger Whittaker’s work. So I googled it and thought I’d share with you, so you could have a fuller appreciation of the Roger Whittaker MST3K sketch. You’re welcome.
The sketch starts at around 2:30 in this clip:
And for comparison, here’s the real Roger Whittaker (who has a lovely, honeyed voice I have to say) singing ‘I Don’t Believe in ‘If’ Any More’:
Dig those trumpets! And that facial hair! All in all I can’t say this will convert me entirely over to the mellow folkster side, but I have been humming this tune all day long— so maybe it will, actually. Well played, Roger Whittaker. And well played to you, too, Mike and the ‘bots.
Here are a couple of alt-country/indie gems to cleanse the palate after all that heavy mental lifting from the last post. The first is a song I’d forgotten about until recently, Trailer Bride’s spooky, smoky rendition of “Hope is a Thing with Feathers”. Yes it’s Dickinson with a drawl (and a singing saw)!
And this is one that I’ll admit I’m a bit biased over— I have to show support for the Orlando music scene!
Right. Back to the grindstone. Er, I mean, word processor.
One of the subjects I’m currently formulating for my thesis edits has to do with Thatcher and the Conservative ideas about the public/private split that she seemed to embody. Obviously this applies to business and the economy, which is the most apparent example. Her distaste for public and state-run services and her belief in the positive forces of the privatization and the free market are legendary (except, of course, for the NHS, which she largely left alone more for electoral reasons than ideological ones).
In an earlier post on this blog I mentioned my bemusement at the fact that such a staunch conservative would vote in favor of decriminalizing homosexuality and legalizing abortion, two actions I’m fairly certain that almost no American Conservative would make. To be fair, Thatcher was one of the few UK Conservatives who voted this way— including, I learned much to my surprise, Enoch Powell—but as I said in that post, for someone who represents the quintessential Conservative to many, those seem like very liberal moves to make.
However, I’m changing my view on that statement slightly. That’s not to say that these decisions on her part weren’t fairly liberal, just that it’s hardly as out of character for a conservative politician as I had first thought. The source for this seemingly-strange divide comes from the aforementioned public/private split that seems to make up a great deal of UK Conservative political thought. Namely, those two votes she cast dealt with intensely private issues, issues of personal sexuality and reproduction. Thatcher was strongly against the government interfering in people’s private affairs, saying that the government did not belong in people’s bedrooms. This is directly in line with the type of rugged individualism she endorsed throughout her political career. Whatever her personal feelings on these issues, she fundamentally disagreed with the government trying to regulate them. In this sense her decisions were perfectly in keeping with Conservative political beliefs.
On the other hand, she voted in favor of Clause 28, which outlawed the public discussion of homosexuality by local councils, particularly in schools. Again, whatever her personal feelings on the issue (she did, in fact, call the Clause ‘unnecessary’) she voted in accordance with Conservative thought. Namely, that sexual preference was a private concern and therefore should be kept private; any attempt to move the discussion to the public sphere had to be halted. Clause 28 was intended to protect the ‘decency’ and sensibilities of the general public, to keep them from being offended. ‘Do as you like in your own home,’ Thatcher’s government said ‘but keep it there.’ This desire to maintain public respectability at all costs was a hallmark of her time in office, and in many ways comes from Thatcher’s own lower-middle-class and Conservative background.
Right, you say, but what does this have to do with new wave? Well, unlike punk, whose political statements were largely aimed at public concerns, new wave artists often committed potentially highly subversive acts by voicing the intensely private, by giving voice to taboo issues and personal turmoils, by putting their personal lives on public display. Issues of sexuality and gender in particular were explored in almost unprecedented ways by new wave— not because it had never been done before, but because it had never been done by so many in such a mainstream context. New wave’s politics were not necessarily of the public even though they were for the public. By giving voice to the intensely intimate struggles of their lives, new wave artists gave a voice to the intimate struggles of a larger listening public at a time when society dictated that they should remain hidden from view. PS– The title of this post comes from Gang of Four’s ‘Contract’ from their 1979 album Entertainment!. Though most people consider them to be post punk and not new wave, I often find the distinction is blurred. They certainly embody more than almost anyone else of that period the type of public/private schizophrenia that was being played out in pop music and the world at large. I wish I had a video of the song to share, but sadly I couldn’t find one. Time to do your homework!
Depeche Mode will always be my first love, but Adam an the Ants will always hold a very special place in my heart. For me, no other artist captured the ridiculousness—no, reveled in the in ridiculousness— of pop music in the 1980s like Stuart Goddard (aka Adam Ant). A lot of bands were part of the ridiculousness, but more often than not, save for an ever-present current of irony and dark humor, they all seemed deadly serious about it. Adam Ant not only embraced the campiness of music at the time, he elevated it to an art while at the same time going “Can you believe I’m getting away with this?”. From his ‘dandy highwayman’ in ‘Stand and Deliver’ who chastises his would-be victims for their complete lack of fashion sense to his Cinderella persona in ‘Prince Charming’ who struts and poses when finally able to go to the ball, it’s evident that he relishes the excess and artifice of pop music, but it’s also evident that he understands that, really, it’s all pretty ridiculous when you stop and think about it.
But then, as the latter song says: ‘Ridicule is nothing to be scared of’! In the hyper-style-consciousness of the 80s pop scene, such a proclamation borders on revolutionary.
So without further ado, here’s a sample of some of my favorite dance dance revolutionary tracks from the dandiest of highwaymen:
‘Friend or Foe’ (Tap dancing, a midriff baring shirt, a pantomime cow and sailor suits. How can you not love it?)
Goody Two Shoes (A catchy meditation on sexual politics and scandal!)
Fun fact: One year for Halloween I wanted to dress up as Adam Ant. Unfortunately it fell through, and I went as a witch instead. Hey, look, it’s a lot harder to find Napoleonic-era rifleman’s jacket replicas in Orlando than you’d think.
I have some more videos to share with you, gentle readers (all four of you). No, they are not new wave. They’re nothing but pure unadulterated awesome.
Shake Rattle and Roll (Big Joe Turner, with the original very naughty lyrics):
St Louis Blues (Bessie Smith and her AMAZING voice, from the 1929 short film of the same name):
These two songs were staples of the summer of 2006, when the temperatures hovered around 100+ degrees every day and the daily subtropical storms that normally cool things down just wouldn’t come. It was like living in a tinder box, and I worked in a hot restaurant serving hotter food. The only bit of relief, obviously, was a bit of hot jazz and cool blues. And sweet tea. Lots of sweet tea.
