BLURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (6)
By:
July 18, 2022
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, delivering brief remarks on mottos, mantras, speeches, slogans, and other words to live by. Series edited by Adam McGovern.
THE WEIRDNESS OF QUEEN KATE
By all accounts, Kate Bush’s fourth album, The Dreaming, marked her ascendancy from eccentric English chanteuse (“You know, the one that sounds like Minnie Mouse…”) to full-on weirdo creative genius. Where once she sang of youthful eroticism, sensuality, flowers in the garden and feminine wiles, the sounds and themes of The Dreaming veered into dark, mystical and downright spooky territory: songs inspired by Houdini, The Shining, the effects of war and colonialism in Vietnam and Australia, all shimmering with polyvocal interplay, digeridoos, donkey noises, the sounds of doors opening and shutting — the sound of psychological opening and possibly, unraveling.
There are tensions and secrets in this album that did my teenage head in. Before the internet, you were forced to do your own detective work: what does “Suspended in Gaffa” mean? Is that Hare Krishna chanting? And possibly, most intriguingly: what the hell is she singing at the end of “Leave it Open”? The fifth song on the first side of the album, this song goes vocally from lows to highs, sonically from banshee-like wails to male voices chanting, the sounds of multiple incantations whirling, to the point that the lyrics and voices seem to become liquid and dissolve into each other, ending with Kate, multitracked like a chorus of ethereal oracles singing… what? Is it even English? Maybe it’s like some Druidic tongue? Is it the language of witches? If I listen to this enough, will I get sucked under and transform into a dark faerie? It was only through the beginnings of subculturally collective knowledge and the power of the printed fanzine that I finally learned what this mantra was:
We let the weirdness in
Oh yeah. This is some next-level shit right here. I wanted this incantation all to myself, even though I knew millions of other Kate fans were thinking the same thing. In that sense, the “we” of the mantra made us all members of a gang, of a tribe, like-minded dark souls on the periphery of the social structures we were pressured to inhabit. What made us special was the secret that these five words provided us: the untangling of the ego, the key to the lock that shut up superconsciousness, the cracking open of the spirit to the wild and wonderful. Kate’s magic would permeate into our psyches with word and melody. She was our high priestess.
Well, needless to say I’m well beyond the gates of that overly precious adolescence now but Kate’s chant stays with me to this day, when we are surrounded by weirdness, most of which is of the toxic variety to be sure. But I still believe Kate meant for us to tap into something more essential, something that defies and triumphs over pandemics, autocrats, wars and bigotry. I’ve wanted these five words tattooed on me as a kind of calligraphic armor against the vagaries of this most demented of eras, a mark of our tribe. Come, Kate, take us into a new world of weirdness.
BLURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Adam McGovern | Ran Xia on BLACK CROW BELIEFS | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on LEFT-CORNER BRICK | Andrea Diaz on JOY IS RESISTANCE | Lynn Peril on TO THINE OWN SELF | Miranda Mellis on THE FUTURE IS PASSÉ | Bishakh Som on LET THE WEIRDNESS IN | Lucy Sante on FLAUBERT’S PERFECT WORD | Stefene Russell on CRYSTAL SETS | Crystal Durant on LIFE IS A BANQUET | Adam McGovern on EVERY MINUTE AN OCEAN | Josh Glenn on LUPUS LUPUM NON MORDET | Heather Quinlan on SHUT UP, HE EXPLAINED | Adrienne Crew on WATCH YOUR PENNIES | Art Wallace on COME ON AND GIVE A CHEER | Julia Lee Barclay-Morton on WILLIAM JAMES, UNADAPTED | Christopher-Rashee Stevenson on TO EACH HIS OWN | Nikhil Singh on ILLUMINATE OR DISSIPATE? | Mimi Lipson on CHEAP FOOD TASTES BETTER | Kahle Alford on NOT GONNA CRACK | Michele Carlo on YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT | Marguerite Dabaie on WALKING ON WATER | Raymond Nat Turner on TRYIN’ AND TRANEIN’ | Bob Laine on WHEN YOU GROW UP | Fran Pado on THE SMILEY EMOJI | Deborah Wassertzug on PLACING YOUR BETS. PLUS: BLURB SERIES CODA by Lisa Levy.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!