SOUNDTRACK: THE TEA PARTY-“Isolation” (2020).
It seems like a number of bands have been covering Joy Divison’s “Isolation” lately. It is appropriate after all.
The Tea Party are a Canadian band known for its sound, which blends classic rock and influences from many countries around the world. I like that they are referred to as “Moroccan Roll.”
Musically this songs sounds quite a lot like the original. I don’t think of The Tea Party has being especially synthy, but they get the synth sound pretty spot on. Usually The Tea Party has all kinds of middle eastern instrumentation, but there’s nothing like that here.
Jeff Martin has a deep resonant voice that often sounds like Jim Morrison. Here he gets the same tone as Ian Curtis, but his voice is much better, much more full than Curtis’. In fact, the whole song sounds bigger–a sound that befits a band that is often compared to Led Zeppelin rather than an indie British club band.
The original certainly conveys “isolation” better (I mean, it is Ian Curtis after all), but this version sound great too and it really rocks.
[READ: May 11, 2020] “The Resident Poet”
I was surprised to realize that I had never read anything by Katherine Dunn. Her novel Geek Love is one of those books that I feel is always mentioned as being notable. I always assumed it was about nerds. I just found out it is about carnies–circus geeks. My mind is blown.
If I was wrong about the entire premise of her most famous book, I clearly have no idea what the rest of her output is like.
I didn’t realize she was the author of this story (I saw the author’s name but didn’t connect her to anything). I doubt that knowing she wrote it would have made me think any differently about the story. Mostly because I don’t know what to think about the story.
Essentially this story follows a college-aged woman as she deliberately degrades herself for a poet who comes to teach at their school. But she seems empowered by her degradation, so I’m not sure how to read it.
Mr. Lucas, the resident poet, looks like Ulysses S. Grant. He insists that she hide in the footwell of his car as he picks her up and drives her away. She crouches until her ass is numb and her legs ache.
When they clear the area, she’s allowed to sit in the seat again. He puts his hand on her knee then puts her hand on his thigh
It’s true, I have always had a weakness for the delicacy of thighs. But there must be some form for the delicacy to rest on. This thigh is pudding. A pudding with a bone in it. The spoon, perhaps.
He seems to want her to give him a blow job. She doesn’t want to–she’ll be really cramped. She tell him if they hit a bump she’ll bite it off, so he relents.
They go to a motel and he commands her to take off her clothes. She is too tried to pretend anything with him.
The biggest shock is that he isn’t circumcised.
But he has a big hairy belly and droopy hairy thighs and a soft little mush of a bag instead of a prick.
Then they begin. He’s heavy on her, “I’d describe it all, but it’s just a pain.”
When he’s done, she is breathing hard from lack of oxygen. He asks whats wrong and she gives a canned answer” I guess you’re the first man I’ve been with, everyone else was just a boy. He buys it, but replies, “I thought you were experienced and were going to teach me wild things.” He’d been intimidated by her but now he will expect her to fawn and fondle–she played the wrong card.
She wonders if his pregnant wife has gone through eight years of mauling and gotten knocked up twice without ever having an orgasm.
This is the line that has me (and presumably her) so puzzled:
Even when there’s no place left to be hurt, it seems there is something that can be diminished, whittled away. It will probably be weeks before I can even brag about this.
They share a bathtub–he takes the back of the tuba and leaves me the faucets to lean against.
He spends much of the rest of the night asking if she’s been with a girl, or wanted to be with a girl, not even her roommate? She’s not exactly sure where he’s going with this until she realizes he’s talking about a three way. She knows it’s a childish fantasy so she goes along with the idea.
The next morning they drive around. As they drive past a laundromat, there’s a woman alone and he proposes that she ask the woman if she wants to be in a three way.
Is screwing two people you don’t like innately more pleasurable than screwing one person you don’t like?
She asks to go home, back to school. Who has the power by the end? Does it even matter?
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