Alternative Cure Essay

Started by SueC, July 26, 2019, 04:56:54

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SueC

Dear all

I was reading the following essay a while back:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2018/june/1527775200/anwen-crawford/cure-s-permanent-twilight

...and it grated on me for various reasons.  The weather was horrible (it's winter here), I had a stress fracture that needed to heal, and a bee in my bonnet, so I sat down with my laptop for two days trying to articulate why, and to write an alternative perspective.  Here's the link to it:

http://sue.coulstock.id.au/music-reviews-get-curiouser-and-curiouser/

I don't want to paste its 7000 words in here, and re-do all the hyperlinks etc.  Anyway, some of the weirder people on this site may enjoy it.  :angel   Although you can theoretically comment on the original site, I think this forum would be a better place to do it - way more flexible, more people with that particular musical interest etc.

Please don't read it if you are offended by graphic references to Australian public school sex education practices (they involve vegetables). Bwahaha.  But if that appeals to your sense of humour, this little read might be your thing...

Greetings

Sue


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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 26, 2019, 04:56:54Please don't read it if you are offended by graphic references to Australian public school sex education practices (they involve vegetables). Bwahaha.

Wow, that makes it sound like it's a "must-read"!  :lol:
I will do so, but not today (it's not winter and I have other fish to fry)...
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

It offends some people, you know.  I got in a bit of trouble with a nun at Marist Sisters College in Sydney because of a related thing... :)  She objected to the fact that I had repeated to the students something a friend of mine had said when she had a persistent stalker.  (It was topical because there was a stalker going around near this all-girls school, and this middle-school class of girls I had was really nervous about it.)  She finally said to this guy, "Look, if you were the last man on this earth, I'd rather date a cucumber."  It made the girls laugh, which dissipated some of their nervousness.  But I ended up in the office with a nun who was asking me if I was promoting human conjugation with vegetables... which I really wasn't... why do they have to take these things so literally?  :evil:

And some American people I know are aghast that we would run carrots-and-condoms practicals as a regular thing in high school science, at our secular schools...
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 28, 2019, 10:55:29I got in a bit of trouble with a nun at Marist Sisters College in Sydney because of a related thing... :)  She objected to the fact that I had repeated to the students something a friend of mine had said when she had a persistent stalker.  ...

Can't see why - obviously you were talkin' about that friend of yours. Plus that stalker is clearly NOT the last man on earth. Seems like a strange conclusion that nun made...  :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

ROFL...

I do sometimes wonder how nuns arrive at such conclusions.  ;)

I mean, and also that some Pope was saying nice Catholic girls shouldn't use tampons lest it lead them into temptation, when those first came on the market.  He was so talking out of his posterior orifice there.  Inserting a tampon is about as erotic as trimming your toenails.
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 29, 2019, 08:59:28I do sometimes wonder how nuns arrive at such conclusions.  ;)

An overactive imagination, I guess... :lol:

Much as I enjoy looking at old churches (etc.), I gotta say I often dislike what the Catholic church as a whole made out of themselves (like the example you mention above).
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

From my experience working in their schools, the laity is nice in general.  It's the hierarchy where the rot sets in, as usual, whether in religious or secular institutions.

I'd like to relate a little anecdote about a fellow I worked with called Brother Robert.  He's the only religious brother I've ever been on a staff with, and he was such a lovely colleague. He was kind, he was very funny, he was hard-working, and the kids loved him. He was usually in plain civilian dress, but on the feast day of his saint, he turned up in a habit and sandals and made it look cool. I had a little chat with him one day about his religious life.  I said, "I can really get what you're doing.  You're being useful, you're being kind, you don't want anyone to roll out a red carpet for you or to ride in a bulletproof vehicle or to have people kiss your hand. So my question is, how do you deal with what those people in your hierarchy are doing?"  And he sighed, and said, "I just mind my own business, and live my own life, and do what I can in my own circle of reach.  I'm not responsible for their lives, just for mine."  And then his eyes lit up impishly, and he told me that when he studied in his monastery in Melbourne, he and his colleagues had a nickname for the cardinals and bishops in their pointy hats and ornate dress: The Spice Girls.  Bwhahaha!

And I don't know why this made me think of this particular song, but it did, so I'll post the song. ;)


My common ground invites you in
Or do you prefer to wait outside?
  :rofl

...great album!
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 29, 2019, 09:46:53From my experience working in their schools, the laity is nice in general.  It's the hierarchy where the rot sets in, as usual, whether in religious or secular institutions.

I do agree. And I also agree that Lou Reed's "New York" is a great album (I listened to it this year a few times, it's 30 years old now!)...
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

Ok, I tried to read your essay, but I had to stop mid-way through, might give it another try...

Liked that part:
QuoteMusically, what I chiefly enjoy about The Cure is their ability to create really evocative soundscapes. There's space in their music, and they don't tend to overcrowd their songs. I enjoy the way they use their instruments to create intricate textures and patterns, and the frequently striking tonal beauty of the guitars, reminiscent of the way people play cellos and violas.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Well, I admire your persistence.  I sort of know what it's like from making myself read The Satanic Verses. :angel  What Mr Rushdie found funny, I did not always find funny.     :-D

Did you ever read the original essay I linked to, when it came out?
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on July 30, 2019, 12:36:52Did you ever read the original essay I linked to, when it came out?

Not yet, I had to keep a kettle from over-boiling...  :unamused:
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

ROFL. Was it too full? Or were there legumes (or musicians) in the kettle?

It's an OKish piece, just a bit dreary to me, and a bit one-sided, and it seemed to me that the author of that essay hadn't actually listened to a lot of lyrics (I could have cited so many counterexamples to the charge of "coy" but left it at one song because the thing was already so long), and this gets a bee in my bonnet, as does anybody's tendency to interpret songs or general artworks or bands or situations narrowly - especially when they're getting paid for their "expert" opinions (this was The Monthly's music writer).  And I thought, "Well, that's not what music is in our own lives, why not portray that as an alternative perspective - since we're just "normal" (well...) people and don't make our money from music or from reviewing it or writing essays about it."  We sort of don't sit there slitting our wrists to music, and yet that is such a stereotype.  I'm sure that a section of the population does, but I was fed up with the portrayal of The Cure as a sort of wrist-slitting band.  If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail etc.

Now Brett is singing the opening line to One Hundred Years... :rofl   

By the way, when I first heard that, I said, "Well, this is a good start!"  Hee hee.
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SueC

Quote from: Ulrich on July 29, 2019, 10:49:43
Quote from: SueC on July 29, 2019, 09:46:53From my experience working in their schools, the laity is nice in general.  It's the hierarchy where the rot sets in, as usual, whether in religious or secular institutions.

I do agree. And I also agree that Lou Reed's "New York" is a great album (I listened to it this year a few times, it's 30 years old now!)...

That is shocking, because I clearly remember putting my cassette copy in the walkman and hopping on my bicycle and riding to university, laughing evilly over Last Great American Whale.  The clarity is as if it happened last week, and this aspect of memory can give one the bends sometimes.  30 years!

Worse is that Lou Reed and his highly acidic wit are no longer with us, and neither are David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, and a long list of other people...

On the other hand, Brett, when I asked him if he had anyone to add to that list, scratched his head and said, "The Tea Party is still alive...and Garbage...and Portishead...and Radiohead... (pah!) and The Cure, and Led Zeppelin; and The Rolling Stones are still alive because they're like cockroaches and nobody can kill them and it seems that bunch really did do a deal with the devil, unless some of them are animated corpses or android copies..."

By the way, cockroaches are amazingly resistant to being microwaved, but this resistance disappears when you flip them upside-down.  Just another science thing.
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Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on August 01, 2019, 04:18:14By the way, cockroaches are amazingly resistant to being microwaved, but this resistance disappears when you flip them upside-down.  Just another science thing.

Uh-erm, not sure I wanted to know this... :1f629:
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Well, it might (or might not) console you to know we don't do this at home. ;)  I just saw that at university. :)  And tried to figure out why...is the dorsal part of its exoskeleton somehow a good microwave reflector?  More theoretical physics needs to be applied to this problem (not more research though, we already know that bit ;)).
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