SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-The Red Shoes (1993).
The Red Shoes is something of a disappointment. While I enjoyed The Sensual World, it was definitely moving in a more adult contemporary vein. The Red Shoes proceeds even further in this direction. Since Kate is getting older, it makes sense that her music would change as well.
But there are some really fun tracks on here as well. And Kate’s initial experiments with world music (the Bulgarian Choir) has really expanded into a more global palette (the island feel of “Eat the Music,” for instance).
The first four songs of the disc are really great. They show an amazing diversity. The first single “Rubberband Girl” is quite fun and bouncey. It has a rather silly middle section where she makes rubberband-like sounds. “And So is Love” sounds like classic Kate, with some wonderful vocals. “Eat the Music” is a crazy, up beat horn fueled island track (with wonderfully suggestive lyrics). And “Moments of Pleasure” is a delightfully romantic song.
However, beginning with “Song of Salomon” with its awkward chorus of “don’t want no bullshit, just want your sexuality” the album trails off a little bit. The rest of the songs feel kind of hurried and unspecific; there’s nothing really grabby about them. They’re not bad, but they’re not all that memorable. In fact, “Constellation of the Heart” is one of those rare aspects of a Kate disc: a song that sounds really dated.
The one exception to this decline is “Top of the City,” a really nice ballad that features some classic Kate vocals.
Of the remainder, “Big Stripey Lie” has some cool sound effects and lots of weirdness floating around it (and I do quite like it) although it’s really not as substantial as her previous experimental pieces.
Probably the most controversial song on the disc is “Why Should I Love You?” a duet with Prince. While the main chorus is pretty cool (and uncannily Prince-like) the rest of the track sounds (again) very dated. The track also features the great comedian Lenny Henry on vocals. However, since Henry is responsible for what may be the worst sitcom theme song ever in the history of music (it may actually make you want to not watch the rather funny Chef, it is so awful) his inclusion isn’t really all that wonderful. The disc ends with “You’re the One” a weird (in a good way) track that features The Bulgarian Chorus again. They seem to do a great job of keeping Kate’s songs focused, so the disc ends on a high note.
This disc is pretty soundly dismissed by even diehard Kate fans. And it is definitely her least satisfying overall. But if you look deeper into the disc, there are some unfairly overlooked gems.
[READ: November 20, 2009] Symzonia
After reading Etidorhpa, I started looking around at other Hollow Earth books. And thankfully, someone has done most of the work already. So, for an absurdly long list of Hollow Earth books, check out this link. I was delighted to see that so many of them are quite short!
When I saw this book, and realized that it was about the world mentioned in “Symmes Hole” (from McSweeney‘s) and that it was very likely written by Symmes himself (there is still debate, but it is convincing that he wrote it) I decided to check it out.
Sadly, this book was considerably duller than Etidorhpa. It was 250 pages and the first 100 were details of his journey to the South Pole. Which would be fine except that since the author is a sailor he gives excruciating details about not only sailing, but even shipbuilding (including how smart he was for making the ship as strong as he did,) and the directions of the wind and speculation about longitude and all that great seafaring stuff. That’s not my thing, so I found it rather tedious.
He also talks about the detailed process of claiming the island that he lands on for the United States (the deed that he writes up and where he buries it!).
There’s even a near mutiny. When they approach the South Pole, they lose all connection to their compass. No one can figure out where they are except the captain (which actually seems like a flaw for the rest of the crew, but what do I know). As such, no one can throw the captain overboard or they will be lost at sea. Anyhow, this was probably the most exciting part of the book.
When they finally do get to the land at the South Pole, there is an opening in the earth which leads to the center world. Although I can’t exactly tell how they sail into and out of this hole. There’s a diagram at the front of the book but it’s not terribly useful.
First they make landfall and create a superb structure (the Captain is clearly a fantastic builder) that allows them to camp in a frigid tundra and to hunt seal. Well, actually half the crew hunt seal, the rest sail off to the paradise of the land inside the hole.
The ship sails on and the Captain meets the Symzonians. Unlike in Editorhpa, in Symzonia, there doesn’t appear to be a world in the core of the earth. Rather, the residents seem to live on the inside edge of the globe itself.
As in Editorhpa, the people inside are enlightened. But if you imagined that the preachiness was pretty strong there, it’s twice as bad here. The failings of people on the earth (or Externals) are pretty explicitly detailed. Chapters are devoted (in more excruciating details) to the Internals’ form of government (including the various levels of government and how they are selected or excluded). He compares it to the United States government (which has only been in existence for 50 years at this point!), and, of course, he find the U.S. version to be quite lacking.
They even have incredible energy production (vehicles that can go hundreds of miles an hour and stop on a dime), and the best tasting foods with no wasted energy, and everything else that is good and wonderful. But they are also not interested in material finery: they have unlimited access to oysters, so they have pearls everywhere. The captain asks for a handful and they give him some since the pearls have no value to them). Of course, none of the details behind these amazing technological accomplishments are given, ostensibly because the externals couldn’t handle it.
The Internals are quite distrustful of the captain, and they keep him from returning to their land until he can learn their language. So the ship stays moored until he learns their language and proves himself worthy of them. In the meantime he gives them all of the literature on the ship (the Internals are, of course, much better at learning English than he is at learning their language). And they are horrified when they read the fiction that the Captain brought, determining that Externals are basically greedy, selfish bastards bent on war and salves to their impulses. And, they are likely descendants from the bad apples that they cast out of their Internal world years ago. They deem him unworthy of staying in their land, and send him on his way.
The captain feels bad that he is not as pure and good as the Internals. But, mostly he is sad because he was hoping to make a killing on his exploration and all his information (and pearls!) and book deals and everything else. Which (doh!) goes to show that he ISN’T enlightened, just like they said.
He leaves the center of the earth to go back to the island where the other half of his crew has been hanging out for several months slaughtering seals. He’s able to load up (and I kid you not) 100,000 seal pelts. Good grief.
When he returns home he entrusts the wrong man with his massive monetary gain for the seal pelts, and he hits financial trouble, which is what inspired him to write this book. So it’s kind of meta- in an 1820’s sort of way.
I gave away a lot of the story, but there’s not a lot of story there. Further, the Table of Contents summarizes each chapter which basically gives away everything that happens. And if I didn’t mention these parts there wouldn’t be much interesting story left. Although that’s not entirely true, the plot isn’t really the point of the book. It is really an opportunity for the author to air his grievances with the fledgling U.S. and point out all of the country’s failings.
Like Etidorhpa, this book was clearly written as a kind of proof that this internal world exists. Hence all of the matter of fact (and dull) technical aspects of the story. It also explains the ToC giving everything away, almost like a textbook. The strangest thing for me though is that the author clearly had an amazing imagination to come up with this, but he seemed to lack the imagination to make the story more compelling.
A lot of this Hollow Earth work is preachy, and I hope that future stories prove more entertaining.
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