Do You Need A Woman To Look After You?

I'm on a roll, blog production wise. In a few minutes I will head out the door to go to an international second hand bookstore in the city. I've not been there before, but this evening they have a session on the English translation of Tove Jansson's material. Now, I'm no big fan of the Moomin mythos, but it seems like an excellent way to get to know a new bookstore. I've lately been nurturing a poorly hidden, but up until now secret desire to come across some more of Sartre's works, or possibly a good-looking hardback edition of Masoch's Venus in Furs. (In the end the evening didn't really turn out like that, but somewhere out there there's a shiny, new powerpoint presentation on a memory stick!)

Last night, as I was trying my damndest to finish one more knitting project before laziness comes back to seize me, I had Tori Amos' music video collection Fade To Red playing on the tv. I am a selective fan of Tori Amos, meaning I do not believe everything she has touched to be gold, but part of her repertoire is bliss (pun intended, if you didn't get it never mind). It was the first time I watched the dvd, as all of her videos are already on my computer and I prefer to put on a record when I just want to listen. I put on the commentary audio track to see if she had any interesting trivia for me to connect with any of the songs.

A couple of pieces of interesting information I did get out of last night's hearing.
1) she's no stranger to over indulgence. Good for her!
2) the video for Spark is heavily influenced by Twin Peaks (can't believe I haven't caught that before, she practically _is_ Laura Palmer in those woods).
3) the shaving of the legs in God is meant to be understood as a ritual of cleansing. Huh.
4) Tori Amos is an off-the-charts feminist. Seriously, you should hear this commentary! If you've seen the Friends episode where the girls go on about how men steal their wind, you will get a good laugh from the Caught A Lite Sneeze video comments, where Tori (or Myra Ellen, as her real name is) goes on about how she felt a need to steal fire from the men and find her voice and oh my God, I am so not that kind of feminist and have huge difficulties relating to it!

All that said, I still love the songs I loved before, and she is so pretty I can easily forgive a bit of new age feminist empowerment mumbo jumbo. Don't get me wrong, I am _all_ for equal rights and standing up for one self, but I think it can be done using a language all women can relate to without wanting to chop mens' private parts off with rusty knives.

Now, a little trivia she did not embroider in her commentary, to my vast disappointment:
a) her friendship with Neil Gaiman (there's shitloads of stuff on her friendship with various hairdressers and make-up artists, however).
b) the fact that Reznor contributes with backing vocals on Past The Mission was not even mentioned, she only ranted on about how the women on the set recognized the deep, inner strength her mother possesses.
c) in general her issues with Reznor. She's been quoted to say that what Trent really needs is a blanky and hot chocolate with marshmallows, which I find hilarious. She has also done a cover of Hurt where she goes on about how he's this little boy who hurt himself to get attention. (My friend Vidar in Oslo will no doubt agree with her on that, he pretty much thinks Trent's a whining bitch.) She put the phrase "made my own pretty hate machine" (reference to a NiN album) into the lyrics of the above mentioned Caught a Lite Sneeze.

Ok, that's it for now.
Man, my geekiness is really getting the best of me these days. I guess I should have taken the philosophy class I was planning on this spring, as it seems I have more than enough time to ponder various connections on my free time :)

"God, sometimes you just don't come through."
Tori Amos - God (Under The Pink, 1994)