RDT Right Now #1953

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Really Deep Thoughts Right Now			Volume 05 : Issue #1953

              .
                    o - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - o
         .       o                                     o     .
               o                                         o
              O         "Thoughts right now...            O
              o        What will become of me,            o
              o       Become of her, become of we?"       o
          .    o                                         o     .
                 O                                     O
                    O - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - O
                             o                           .
                               o
                                  o
                                      o
                                         Tori Amos, "Thoughts"
In this issue:
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  village voice interview               [ wojizzle forizzle <woj@smoe.org> ]
  In defense of Tom Cruise...           [ "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.co ]
  Taking Tiger Mountain (by blog)       [ "John Bragazzi" <utown@worldnet.att ]
  pickin' and grinnin'                  [ "John Bragazzi" <utown@worldnet.att ]



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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:11:22 -0400
From: wojizzle forizzle <woj@smoe.org>
To: torinews@smoe.org, fiercest clams <precious-things@smoe.org>,
	rdtrn@torithoughts.org
Subject: village voice interview

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/riffraff/archives/2005/08/riff_raff_inter.php

Riff Raff Interviews Tori Amos

Y'ALL BEEN WARNED

I'm not a bees-nessman, I'm a bees-ness, mannnn

Riff Raff Interviews TORI AMOS--Believe it!

This past February singer-songwriter Tori Amos released The Beekeeper, her
eighth studio album and most apicultural effort to date. Bees this, bees
that--except it's not really about bees. In conjunction with the record,
Amos's autobiography Piece by Piece hit shelves around the same time. The
book was co-written by ex-Village Voice music editor Ann Powers, who helped
Amos explore the intricacies of her songwriting process. Only some of the
book is about bees, but enough that it warrants mention.

Amos performs Wednesday August 17 at Jones Beach and Friday August 19 at
the PNC Center, but you know Riff Raff--we gets the pre-concert scoop.
Exclusive.

You worked with Ann Powers on your book--she used to edit the music section
here.

I approached Ann, and we began to decide, wow, a conversation between two
women that have very different perspectives in the music business--[that]
could give people a backstage pass into this world which would cover
creativity, being a mom, the issues that women have to face when they're
working and then want to be moms, and then when you become a mom, the
responsibility and still trying to be 100% committed to your creativity,
and then how do you survive the music business. She came out and hung out
on the road with me for about three weeks, on Scarlet's Walk, and this is
where we'd sit in the bus and talk.

Did Ann ever get sorta annoying?

Well the thing about Ann is that she's vicious but fair. And when I say
that, when I say vicious, I mean with her pen. There is an elegance and a
grace also with Ann that you also must have in the same statement, if
you're gonna say 'vicious but fair.'

Right.

I wanted somebody who I felt could be tough and yet coming from the
compassionate heart. Ann says to me, "Listen, you're writing this work,
this album"--I hadn't entitled it yet--"How poignant if we could document
the creative process to see an inception of a project and see the different
stages and levels that it goes through to finally become what it will become."

Did Ann write any of the songs on your record?

Oh no, of course not. Oh no no no no no. As a songwriter, I'm sort of a
seahorse. Don't they mate with themselves?

No I think they kill their mates.

Seahorses don't kill their mates! Do they? The men have babies.

The men have the babies, but the women always kill the men.

The men don't kill--the women don't kill the men!

I'm sorry, you're right. I get all these animals mixed up anymore.

Wait a minute. Seahorses I don't think--

It's a praying mantis.

It's a praying mantis. I'm a minister's daughter. I'm staying away from
praying. As a songwriter, I join with the creative force. But I'm the sole
songwriter.

Have you thought of doing a record called The Praying Mantis-keeper?

It's scary, because as a woman, number one, I don't see myself killing my
mate, or chopping his head off after sex. You follow me?

I think so. You're basically saying you would never really kill anyone
unless you sorta had to, as a songwriter.

As a lioness force. As a lioness who's protecting her cubs.

I'm glad we cleared that up.

But bees, we have to be clear. The drones do get pushed out of the hive.
But it is a matriarchal society. But The Beekeeper wasn't about us being
like bees in every aspect. It is about that the bee represented in the
ancient feminine mysteries sacred sexuality. Because the worker bee, which
is female, goes and joins with the organ of the flower, then of course
takes the nectar, pollinates, goes back to the hive, they create honey by
regurgitating.

I believe you.

To me, the creativity that comes out of the worker bee and the sexuality
aspect in Christianity, as you know, sexuality became associated with
Magdalene, who was thought of as the prostitute, not as a prophet, because
it was not profitable. And I've been trying to corollate those three
words--prostitute, prophet, profitable--from the early Fathers of the Church.

Have you heard about that mystery book The DaVinci Code?

Oh yeah yeah, I've read that.

When you were reading it, did you know what was going to happen at the end?

Yes.

Personally I thought the ending was quite surprising.

I'd be curious to see what Ann would have to say about this. We had a
chuckle about The DaVinci Code just because this information has been out
there for a while. And yet it seems to not be able to penetrate to the
masses. You have kinds of genealogists and historians who have been writing
about this stuff for a long time. Dan Brown was able to collect these
nuggets of information and put it into a story form that the masses could
ingest.

Which is brilliant.

You have to commend that. You have to give Dan Brown his due.

Do you think your record is better than The DaVinci Code?

Well I would never get into that. That's like saying one piece of artwork
from one artist is better than another. You're saying that a Matisse is
better than a Chagall.

Really though your record is better than The DaVinci Code, right?

But they're such different works, you know what I mean?

Well you'll at least admit that your record is better than Angels & Demons,
right?

I didn't read Angels & Demons, because I can't get into this. We should get
into shoes. That's like saying that Louboutin is better than Sergio Rossi.

That's true though.

No I like Sergio Rossi shoes! Also I have both of them.

Either way, I think it's really fascinating how all this information was
out there, and then it finally made its way into public consciousness via
The DaVinci Code, and then ultimately better via The Beekeeper.

You're being very kind about it, but he doesn't write music, and I don't
write these kinds of book narratives. I'm not a book writer, I'm a
musician. This is my form. But I will say, if people were inspired by The
DaVinci Code, they need to go read the Gnostic Gospels, they need to go
read some of this information that inspired that book.

Would you consider doing some sort of collaboration with Dan Brown?

I know you seem very focused on the Dan Brown thing, but the point is he
helped pave the way for the masses to be open to more artists that have
been singing this tune for a long time.

I'm just saying his books would be better if you helped him write his books.

I can't do--that's not my job. You know what, maybe you should collaborate
with Dan Brown.

Only under the condition that we always work while The Beekeeper, which is
superior to The DaVinci Code, play in the background.

You know, Dan Brown has sent me a very warm message. He has sent messages
through the publisher that he acknowledges and honors the music, and I
received that with a smile.

It makes sense that he would respect your work--the work of a superior.

I can't go through with this anymore.

Posted by Nick Sylvester at 04:00 PM, August 16, 2005

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:42:28 -0400
From: "Beth Coulter" <betheqt@voicenet.com>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: In defense of Tom Cruise...

Greetings!

Speaking of what Cruise had to say regarding drugs...

I wrote the following as a reaction paper to a discussion during the Bio
class I had this Summer.  Tom said the right thing all wrong for the
following reasons.
<begin>
In our pharmacological culture, where everything can be "cured" by taking a
pill, we discover that the youth of our nation are taking drugs as though it
were no big deal.  Colleges are dealing with an epidemic of "study pills",
amphetamines that are prescribed for ADD that are being passed out and sold
openly.  Administrators seem to give a wink and nod at this practice, giving
credence to unhealthy cram sessions fueled by caffeine drinks and
prescription drugs.

With this unspoken permission, kids and young adults feel free to try other
drugs, and do more of them with the cultural meme of "if one is good, more
is better."  Then administrators and government officials cry out about the
drug epidemic affecting our children, never realizing (or admitting) that it
is the cultural dependence on pharmaceuticals that is fueling the drug use.

When young children feel out of control, they are given a behavior-modifying
drug without any sort of behavior-modifying therapy.  Children learn that
drugs are the control, not themselves.  This adversely affects their
learning self-control as adolescents.   This is also the case with
depression.  Drugs are freely prescribed for children that have only been
tested on adults.  There is no real research on the long-term affects of
neuro-drugs on the developing mind.  In addition, little to no therapy is
offered to understand the roots of the depression.

Television commercials increasingly promote wellness through
pharmaceuticals, appearing during programming with a pre-teen to young adult
audience, regularly appearing on Nick-at-Nite and during feature-length
cartoons on network stations.  Even children's programming is affected, such
as an episode of "Bear in the Big Blue House", where a video segment
discussed how "medicine" helps people with their feelings.

With this cultural influx of acceptance of all pharmaceuticals, it is little
wonder why kids turn to pill and drug taking with the ease of eating a
McDonald's Happy Meal.  This is what Tom Cruise was suggesting.  As a former
suicidal depressive, I feel I have an authority to clarify what he said.  I
did not get well with drugs.  I only became sane through intensive therapy.
Pills and drugs do not make people well.  They only make the symptoms feel
better.  They do not address the root of the ailment.  At times, because the
symptoms are masked, the root cause has a chance to flourish.  This can (and
has) lead to people killing themselves when the doctor and family only see a
great improvement.

Personally, all pills ever did was give me the clarity to attempt suicide
again, whereas in my deepest depression I did not have the capacity to do
so.  Pills and drugs do make people feel better.  They do not make them
well.  Total and complete wellness depends on the body learning to regulate
itself.  Drugs interfere with that process.  This is what Cruise tried to
say, and said quite poorly.

<end of paper>

So whatcha all think?  I know some will come out in defense of their Prozac,
of whatever the current fad is.  I'm just saying there is a level of
wellness that cannot be attained by use of drugs alone.

Two days till Tori!  I'm so afraid my back is going to kill me on the ride
down, but I'm taking the train down the day before and going from my
boyfriend's place in NE Philly on Saturday.  I'm giving her a DVD of my talk
I gave as key note speaker in Elizabethtown, PA for the conclusion of sexual
assault week.  Well, here is the press release they wrote about it.

<press release>
E-town College schedules Take Back the Night event
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - A weeklong series of sexual assault awareness events at
Elizabethtown College will conclude with a talk by incest and abuse survivor
Beth Coulter and the College's annual Take Back the Night walk. A writer
from Bucks County, Coulter will speak at 7 p.m., April 7, in the M&M Mars
Room of Leffler Chapel and Performance Center. Following her talk, audience
members are invited to participate in the College's annual Take Back the
Night walk. Both events are open to the public free of charge.
Coulter was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. She is an
incest/ritual abuse survivor who writes and speaks about help and healing,
and she promotes RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network.
"Speaking for a sexual assault week makes me think of something I've come to
realize over the course of my studies," Coulter said. "Women are victims
when they come to accept the limitations put upon them in order to avoid
rape, such as not walking alone, or not wearing 'suggestive' clothing. I'm
not saying that we should abandon our safe guards. We should abandon the
acceptance we have of it and start working toward a society where we have
less to fear. Rape occurs in a sick society. Rape is an action of violence
in reaction to internal anger/rage. To heal the society is to heal this
problem."
Take Back the Night is an international event, with marches and rallies
occurring around the world since 1976. In that year, in Belgium, women
attending the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women walked together
holding candles to protest the ways in which violence permeates the lives of
women worldwide.
At Elizabethtown College -- central Pennsylvania's premier small,
comprehensive college -- 1800 men and women enjoy personal attention,
breadth of curriculum, experiential learning and a commitment to serving
others. Elizabethtown has been ranked for 11 consecutive years by U.S. News
and World Report as one of the top comprehensive colleges in the North.

<end>
At any rate, I'm hoping I can see her at the Meet and Greet.  But I won't
get there until 3:30 so it's going to be a matter of begging Toriphiles to
let me in line.  Hell, she started me on my speaking career.  She needs to
see the results of her encouragement.
I'll stop hogging the bandwidth now.
Fairy Blessings,
Bethey
I'm OK when Everything's not OK
cause it's the Fairies Revenge they say
And I have always been a Fairy.
www.bethcoulter.com

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:18:40 -0400
From: "John Bragazzi" <utown@worldnet.att.net>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: Taking Tiger Mountain (by blog)

Now I know part of the reason so many people have blogs.  It's really
easy.  I mean, like stupid easy.  I was figuring out how to use WordPress,
and I was just starting (I thought) the install process, and suddenly I
was done and I had a blog.

I don't know if I *want* a blog.  As soon as I figure out what I'm going
to use it for, I'll post the URL, unless I decide to can the whole idea.


What have I been listening to?

Well, I have a little mp3 player (1 gig, tiny, only $80, what's not to
like? http://mymusix.com/) and here's what's on it:

Roxy Music (first four albums, Viva, Live 2001, all the songs from the
Live at the Apollo DVD)

David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust, about 20-25 other songs from early (Kooks) to
late (I'm Afraid of Americans), and most of the songs from the Reality
Tour DVD)

Eno (selections from his first three solo albums, plus 801 Live)

Tori (about half of SLG, plus four songs from the Florida DVD)

Hole (Live Through This, plus two songs from Celebrity Skin)

I'm thinking of some Alanis next.


It's interesting that Bethey talked about her therapist turning her onto
Tori, since I do find that my interest in music is more therapautic than
aesthetic these days.

I'm now far enough from my days as a musician that it doesn't bother me
any longer that I'm not au courant with "what's happening now."  To
paraphrase I Heart Huckabees, I'm in my tree with Roxy Music, and they're
making me feel better.

(I was going to say I was in my tree with Bryan Ferry and he was making me
feel better, but that just sounded really wrong.)

It was also amusing, since I know somebody else whose therapist told her
*not* to listen to Tori, since "Tori Amos is depressing," so clearly there
isn't a unified opinion in the medical industry on this question.

The Tori songs that hit me hardest right now are the incredible live "Take
to the Sky/Muhammad My Friend" on the DVD, and "Rattlesnakes" (I know she
didn't write it, don't send emails).

Part of the reason "Rattlesnakes" connects is how much it parallels a
chapter of my novel (the chapter is titled "Like Crazy Paving"), about a
girl (woman, really) who does carry guns, because of the rattlesnakes
among other reasons, whose heart is like crazy paving, and who is told
that she needs therapy.  Plus the chapter takes place in an area which has
experienced a lot of bombing, so there's a lot of (literal) crazy paving
as well.

As B/4,

John

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:27:19 -0400
From: "John Bragazzi" <utown@worldnet.att.net>
To: "RDT Right Now" <rdtrn@torithoughts.org>
Subject: pickin' and grinnin'

First off, big congrats to Kerriloo for the impending nuptuals,  Are we
all invited?  I haven't been to a wedding in ages.  I don't think I even
*own* a red pair of Pro Ked sneakers anymore.

Oh, and I completely agree with your comments to Cyndi about diet and so
on.  Our brains sit inside our bodies, after all, and are pretty
powerfully affected by how those bodies are doing.


Steve said:

> Did getting married and having a kid make Tori happier?
> Yes, I'd say it definitely did. She certainly seems more
> settled now.

Quite possibly so, but that's not quite the same as the point I was
making.  It's certainly possible that Tori is happier than she was when
she made Boys for Pele, but what makes Pele great (IMHO) is not that it's
angry or unhappy or however you categorize it, it's that it's a powerful
and inventive piece of art.  OTOH, Beekeeper doesn't strike me the same
way, which has nothing to do with happiness or settled-ness.

For example, one of my all-time favorite albums, which I listen to quite
regularly even now, is "Deliverin'" by Poco, which is almost loopily happy
and very much about the pleasures of stable relationships, playing music
with friends and so on.  Even the songs about negative people and negative
emotions are so upbeat that they come across as very positive.

So, my point is that, as I see it, Tori may or may not be happier and more
settled and so on, but she's not making compelling art (compelling to me,
anyway).

On a related point, which has been on my mind, our mass culture doesn't
contain a lot of examples of happy marriage being portrayed as exciting
and positive.  Romantic movies usually treat the wedding as the end,
whereas it's really the beginning.  In a recent review I read of the "Thin
Man" DVD box set, it said that the Thin Man movies were the first
Hollywood movies to portray marriage as something other than something you
were trying to get into, or trying to get out of.  In those movies, it was
where you wanted to be, but that's unusual.

I've been thinking about that a lot recently since (much to my surprise,
but that's another story) two of my major characters decided to get
married, and I'm really working on showing how terrific (and vexing and
contentious and surprising) it can be.

I think about recent movies about marriage, and what comes to mind is "Mr.
and Mrs. Smith."  Which probably says something about the people running
the movie industry.


> it seems she feels she could never create
> anything like Pele again.

Which is great.  She already created it once, and she's unlikely to do it
better.  I agree that it's time to move on and change and develop.  That's
never a bad idea.

Whatever my qualms about her current recordings, it would be a lot worse
to see her trying to copy things she did before.

As B/4,

John




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