setsuled

I've been contemplating Taylor Swift to-day. Every now and then, I feel I must make some gesture of connecting with the modern world. So I thought I'd give my attention to this new young sensation. Well, I guess her first album was almost twenty years ago now but that's new in my book.

Seriously, though, I haven't been totally ignorant of Taylor Swift all this time. I used to hear her music when I worked at JC Penney. Spending so much time at the mall did help me soak up some modern music. Dedicating some time to her works this morning, I was really more surprised by the songs I hadn't heard. I'd never heard "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "Anti-Hero", "Bad Blood", and others. I heard "Style" and "Blank Space" over and over again at JC Penney. "Blank Space" is my favourite.



She seems to have a reputation for "confessional" songs but "Blank Space" seems like the direct opposite of that. It's like a synopsis for an episode of Dynasty. It's bigger than life, pulpy, and neat as a confection. Its lyrics snap together as tidily as the frosting on a birthday cake, embellished by the sprinkle or gumdrop here and there of a clicking pen sound effect and coiling turn of vocal tone. It's fetishistic, a lot of her songs and videos are, though never really kinky. She's more Batgirl than Catwoman. It works because she's intensely pretty. Her face has the mathematical proportions of a face generated by computer from data on effectively attractive attributes.

Then there are some songs that do seem like they may be confessional, the best by far being "Anti-Hero".



I'm impressed to see she actually directed this video and did a decent job. Her shifting size recalls how Alice's changing size originally functioned in Lewis Carroll's books, as a reflection of emotional state and perceived position in society. The video stops for a funeral skit that's funny but goes on just slightly too long.

I'm still not sure if the song is truly confessional or just less pulpy. The lyrics also recall Alice in Wonderland:

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

Whether or not it's actually Swift's psyche on display, she paints an insightful, psychological picture.

She also has a number of revenge anthems of which "Shake It Off" is the best. There's one called "Bad Blood" with such a god awful music video I felt embarrassed for her despite its millions of views (and likely millions in revenue). It apes Taratino but with terrible cgi and choreography and an endless conveyor belt of cameos from celebrities who all look weirdly uncomfortable, like they're only there because they didn't know how to say no.

Mainly, though, it was a pleasant excursion into the present, watching Taylor Swift videos.

Last night I dreamt I saved Ewan McGregor from a car accident. I think I was riding in the old red Aerostar my family had when I was a kid. We were on the freeway and it was flooding with muddy water flowing from behind us. Suddenly, a white sportscar raced through it, trying to get past us but it skidded sideways into a wall and stopped. Inside, I could see Ewan McGregor unconscious. I waded across the water and somehow managed to get his door open and lift his head above the rising water. He woke and wasn't grateful at all. He managed to get the car started and sped away. Movie stars!

I used to write about dreams all the time but haven't been remembering them lately. This week, I've been snacking before bed on some dark rye bread I made on Sunday and I've been remembering dreams every night. I also had a dream about going back to San Diego and somehow completely forgetting to bring the vests I usually wear these days.

Before bed last night, I found myself on another nostalgia trip, watching music videos from the '90s. Boy, music sure was good back then.



I was also in the mood for classic rock and found The Rolling Stones now have a pretty amazing official video for "Sympathy for the Devil".



X Sonnet #1789

The evening worms were blue to walk the dog.
She knew the meaning etched in fortune's check.
The scribbled night would pay the burning log.
What lovers hear across the evening deck.
Residing back before the denim wait.
Corrections crack the shield before the doll.
In triumph turtles take the bat for bait.
A billion clowns could fill the lurid mall.
Revolving tricks are nothing new again.
If boredom blanks the mind, the mirror soothes.
Entire buildings use her single pen.
The crickets' noises never stopped her moves.
The river rose for roads and rusty cars.
A plan was made to summon dreams to Mars.

I wouldn't say I am Not a Dog on a Chain, Morrissey's new album, is his best though, oddly, looking over the lyrics to-day, I'm liking it better than I did listening to it. An essential part of Morrissey's music has always been a rumination on his own unattractiveness coexisting with unrequited longing. The paradox for much of his career has been that, as much as he sings about how unappealing he is, he's always had legions of fans wanting to fuck him. Now that many of his fans (though far less than certain media outlets insist) have been coaxed away by the increasingly clique-ish pressures of Internet politics, in a sense, Morrissey's message agrees with his reality for the first time. To some extent, I think the politics is the pretext for the inevitable abandonment of an aging star by its fandom, something Morrissey cannily presaged in his lyrics many times, going all the way back to The Smiths' "Rubber Ring". The final track on I am Not a Dog on a Chain, "My Hurling Days Are Done", finds its singer alone as usual only now, as he draws closer to the end of his life, he finds the additional sorrow of having no-one to share his experiences with:

But now my hurling days are done
And there is no one to tell and there's nowhere to run

I don't think Morrissey's had a really strong album since 2009's Years of Refusal largely because his expressions of need for physical love have become increasingly awkward--yet, I suspect this is a deliberate point. I'm often reminded of one of my favourite lyrics from "Seasick, Yet Still Docked", a song from his 1992 album Your Arsenal:

My love is as sharp as a needle in your eye
You must be such a fool to pass me by

In these two lines he shows how his apparent great need is exactly what makes him so repellent. So on I am Not a Dog on a Chain we have "Darling, I Hug a Pillow" with this supremely awkward chorus:

Why can't you give me some physical love?
Why can't you give me some physical love?
Everything else is in place, except physical love

Oou, la la. This is sure to woo a Cyberman. The song also involves, as the title suggests, the singer hugging a pillow in futile effort to subdue his loneliness. I wonder if Morrissey is referencing or is aware of the body pillows popular in Asian countries typically featuring prints of popular anime characters.



Otaku culture is certainly an appropriate subject for Morrissey especially as we have moved into an era where people are far less conflicted about the instinctive disdain they feel for unattractive men.

Given Morrissey's controversial political stances from the past few years, such as supporting For Britain, one would expect more pointedly political lyrics. For Britain, called "far right" by its detractors, is really more liberal given its position on civil and animal rights--the "far right" comes in only for its stance on Muslim immigrants to Britain (it's against) and general isolationism. I'm not intellectually lazy enough to say that cautioning against Islamic values entering British law is inherently Islamophobic but I don't agree with Morrissey's support of the group. Another annoying thing about modern Internet politics is the persistent need to remind people that just because I like someone's music doesn't mean I like everything about them. I've known there were things I didn't like about Morrissey as a person for decades, ever since I heard how he insulted Tori Amos back stage at a show--when she complimented his music, he'd replied saying essentially, how would you know what good music is? I'm a long time fan of Tori Amos though, it's true, her creative spark seems to have been extinguished for a very long time, it's still not a very nice thing to say to her. But, then, I like Richard Wagner, who was an anti-Semite. I like artists for their art, which is the only thing I can truly know about them. WHICH SHOULD BE FUCKING OBVIOUS.

But in terms of politics, mostly I am Not a Dog on a Chain paints with a very broad brush, with songs like "Knockabout World", which seems to be about the general pettiness of the media without taking any particular side or stance. "The Truth about Ruth" seems to be an oddly banal song about transgenderism--then as I looked at the lyrics to-day I started to think this is another one where what seemed a flaw is kind of the point. The song concludes:

Ruth is John
Ruth is John
And sooner or later
We are all calmed down.

"Ruth is John", the chorus, is a plodding chant, as though the point of this is, "We'd all hoped there'd be something more exciting about being trans."

The reason the pointed awkwardness of the lyrics is a little hard to catch is that there's nothing remotely awkward about Morrissey's voice or the music arrangement. Maybe this stuff made more sense in the 80s and 90s when The Smiths and Morrissey's early solo work deliberately paired insightful, credible lyrical portraits of youthful awkwardness with strange, experimental music and vocals. The strongest track on I am Not a Dog on a Chain is a smooth duet with Thelma Houston with enigmatic lyrics, "Bobby, Don't You Think They Know?"

The new Morrissey album, Low in High School, came out on Friday and I spent a good deal of time listening to it on Saturday. It's good, I think I like it more than World Peace is None of Your Business though the lyrics in that previous one were often more challenging and approached a greater diversity of subject matter. Gods know we need more art that challenges people to think.

But Low in High School might be challenging for some in that it features two unabashedly pro-Israel songs, including one called "Israel" and another very nice one called "The Girl from Tel Aviv Who Wouldn't Kneel", apparently in part a reference to Etty Hillesum, a woman who was killed in Auschwitz. I learned this from this article from which I also learned that Morrissey was presented with a key to the city of Tel Aviv.

A lot of the songs on the album have verses that end with lines leading into the next, something matched by beats that build momentum nicely.

The girl from Tel-Aviv who wouldn't kneel
The girl from Tel-Aviv who wouldn't kneel
Nor for husband, dictator, tyrant or king
Humble homes with mottoes on the walls

Symbols and signs in framed designed
Sure to keep the poor poor
In fear of a god who hadn't saved them after all

And all of my friends are in trouble
They're sorry, they're sick and they know
All of my friends are in trouble
There's no need to go into that now

Morrissey's past few albums have had a harder rock quality to them but Low in High School has a lot more melodic piano, almost resembling cabaret and the last line in the verse "There's no need to go into that now" is tossed off with a biting flippancy to highlight the position of people who live in dangerous places and situations but who are ignored or pushed aside.

The first half of the album is more focused on the personal romantic issues Morrissey's music is more famous for, the song "Home is a Question Mark" has an effective melancholy broken up with the surprisingly odd, visceral image of his imagined lover wrapping his or her legs around his face. But there's plenty of politics mixed into the first half as well--and romance in the second. He describes an opposition between those who seek love (as in "All the Young People Must Fall in Love") and those who pursue careers that make them into oppressors like the soldier in "I Bury the Living" who ends the song by pointing out that he hasn't died doing the job he loved because getting a bullet to the head "wasn't the job I loved."

Though according to an interview that's going around to-day, Morrissey describes himself as generally "apolitical, but I'm a human being that exists in the world today. Everything we do has to do with politics. But as I said, I've never voted for any party in my life." Though that's not the part of the interview--a bad translation from the German magazine Der Spiegel--that's circulating in online tabloids to-day as a fuel for outrage. He's being called stupid or insensitive for his comments on the wave of sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood despite the fact that in general I find his words the sanest said on the subject in public discourse so far:

SPIEGEL: Since we're here in Hollywood, have you followed the debates on Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and #MeToo?

Morrissey: Up to a point, yes but then it became a play. All at once all owe. Anyone who has ever said to someone else, "I like you," is suddenly being charged with sexual harassment. You have to put these things into the right relations. If I can not tell anyone that I like him, how would he ever know? Of course, there are extreme cases, rape is disgusting, any physical attack is repugnant. But we have to see it in proportion. Otherwise, every person on this planet is guilty. We can not decide permanently from above, what to do and what not. Because then we are all in the trap. Some people are already awkward when it comes to romance. They do not know what to do and then their behaviour is aggressive.

SPIEGEL: What do you think of Spacey, one of the main characters in a movie, replacing her with the launch date?

Morrissey: I think that's ridiculous. As far as I know, he was in a bedroom with a 14-year-old. Kevin Spacey was 26, boy 14. One wonders where the boy's parents were. One wonders if the boy did not know what would happen. I do not know about you but in my youth I have never been in situations like this. Never. I was always aware of what could happen. When you are in somebody's bedroom, you have to be aware of where that can lead to. That's why it does not sound very credible to me. It seems to me that Spacey has been unnecessarily attacked.

SPIEGEL: Is this also supposed to apply to the actresses who went to the hotel room with Weinstein?

Morrissey: People know exactly what's going on. And they play along. Afterwards, they feel embarrassed or disliked. And then they turn it around and say: I was attacked, I was surprised, I was shattered into the room. But if everything went well, and if it had given them a great career, they would not talk about it. I hate rape. I hate attacks. I hate sexual situations that are forced on someone. But in many cases one looks at the circumstances and thinks that the person who is considered a victim is merely disappointed. Throughout the history of music and rock 'n' roll there have been musicians who slept with their groupies. If you go through history, almost everyone is guilty of sleeping with minors. Why not throw everyone in jail at the same time?

SPIEGEL: David Bowie has deflowered a 15-year-old, according to the person concerned.

Morrissey: That was absolutely normal back then ...

SPIEGEL: Have you ever been in such a situation?

Morrissey: No.

SPIEGEL: Neither on one side or the other?

Morrissey: No. Never, never, never.

Personally, I think Weinstein probably is a scumbag, I'm less sure on Spacey, but one thing's for sure it creeps me the hell out that people's lives are being ruined without any criminal convictions. People get accused and there seems to be a general assumption that they're guilty. The most egregious cases so far, in my opinion, have been Richard Dreyfuss and George Takei. Dreyfuss, not long after expressing pride in his son for coming forward with a claim of being abused by Kevin Spacey, was hit with allegations himself by his friend and former collaborator Jessica Teich. In addition to claiming Dreyfuss showed her his penis (which Dreyfuss denies), Teich describes years of additional harassment. And yet she also adds, "Richard would be very surprised if 30-odd years later he heard that I felt completely coerced and disenfranchised. I think he’d be like, ‘Oh no, I thought you really liked me.’ I don’t think he had any idea." So basically she says that she believed he thought what was going on was reciprocal but instead of going to him directly to address the matter she went public with it. She didn't go through mutual acquaintances, nothing. Raising awareness about the proper time and place for sexual advances is good but the fact that she decided to publicly shame someone she believed was entirely ignorant of his own crime is weird to say the least.

Meanwhile, George Takei has been accused of misconduct by a man who went home with him in 1981, allegedly Takei attempted to remove his underwear when the man was asleep. Takei denies the allegation and at this point no-one has brought forth any evidence. In fact, this man has apparently been making this claim about Takei for years and has even expressed surprise himself that he's suddenly being paid attention to.

The fact that Takei's name is suddenly deemed worth dragging through the mud because of a single unsubstantiated allegation is weird enough. What's even weirder is there's suddenly outrage about quotes from The Howard Stern Show where Takei describes grabbing men's penises and he's had to explain he was joking.

He's had to explain he was joking about grabbing penises. On The Howard Stern Show.

You know, once upon a time, George Takei was known as Sulu from Star Trek. Then he found a new claim to fame when he came out of the closet and began indulging in racy banter with Stern, audible to Stern's audience of millions for almost twenty years. This led eventually to his Facebook page with over a million likes . . . and now, it's the people who follow his Facebook who are suddenly aghast at the very kind of talk, enjoyed by millions, that put Takei into his new celebrity role in the first place. Maybe these hypocrites think they don't have to feel so bad about the retconned sick humour they used to laugh at if they can find a scapegoat to take the fall.

Another thing I think people are losing sight of here, as far as Kevin Spacey and George Takei are concerned, is the fact that these are both older gay men who led much of their adult lives closeted in a world where being gay was regarded as sick by mainstream morality. Another thing you might hear if you go back and listen to Takei on The Howard Stern Show is him talking about secretive one night stands he engaged in even long after the success of Star Trek. I really hate the fact that "empathy" has become a buzzword because it's exactly what the young editors and writers who are trashing him need to exercise in order to put themselves in the shoes of someone conscious that their fundamental physical urges are seen as sick by the respectable world. Can you imagine for a moment how that might fuck up your barometer when it comes to flirting?

Mind you, I'm not saying Spacey or Takei are innocent. I'm saying we don't know if they're guilty. Our legal system is founded on the premise of presumed innocent until proven guilty for a reason. You end up with mob rule otherwise. I've always said Roman Polanski should go to jail despite the fact that I love Chinatown and Repulsion. Even if his victim has forgiven him now--giving him a pass would be a very bad precedent, it would open the door to all kinds of coercion of victims. But I believe Polanski should go to jail because there was a trial and there was evidence presented and he fled the country--not because of some tacky headline on A.V. Club.

Now we're at the point where if someone even suggests for a moment that maybe among this sudden avalanche of accusations some of them just might be opportunists he's considered completely out of line no matter how vigorously he expresses the disgust he feels for sexual assault. This is madness.