Whatever Finals Want, Finals Get: A Playlist.

My finals playlist this past semester was weird, guys. Like, really, unrelatably weird.

I mean, sure, last winter, I managed to bring together Brahms & Demi Lovato—admittedly not the world's most readily accessible duo (though I'm now honestly trying to imagine what their collaborations would sound like). But this year, for whatever reason, things just got fundamentally, pathalogically odd. I'm talking multiple-songs-from-musicals, I-admit-to-digging-a-Ke$ha-song odd. Ah, well—the heart (that is, the caffeine-zapped fizzbrain) wants what it wants, I suppose, & these are the songs that happened to echo right across my weary synapses. (Still do, for the most part, as I hack furiously away at my thesis on these icy Bostonian shores—25 pages to go...)

I mean, I really do recommend giving them all a chance, as many are tried & true favorites (see: Pixies). But, to be fair, if you find yourself simultaneously psyched & comforted (the two essentials of any good finals music) by every single one of the songs herein, call me—I think we might be soulmates. Otherwise, pick & choose as you will from this lumpy smorgasbord of a playlist.

Oh, & as to the name: it comes from a dream I had, feverish & sleepless between bouts of paper-writing, in which I was attending a hologram lecture of some famous modernist thinker (whom I'm almost positive I made up). As he was reaching the peak of his speech, I could feel myself waking up, so I did my absolute best to hold on to what he was saying, & as soon as I opened my eyes, I rolled over & scribbled it on the back of a receipt. What I managed to get down: "a scary, changing disrapture of furor."

Does it make the tiniest bit of sense? No. "Disrapture" isn't even a word, as far as I'm aware. Nonetheless, I think it sums up a lot of my general feeling as of late—about academia, about people, about the fact that the world was supposed to end a few weeks ago but then just, you know, didn't, & another year trickled on by. So, without further ado, I bring you:

12-13-12: Disrapture.
[ ^ All together. On the YouTube. Check it. ^ ]

On the Rise—Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Though not a diehard Whedonite, per se, I do have fairly unflinching reverence for several of his creations (see: Firefly, Dollhouse—both of which I watched in their entirety during the week of December 10th), so when I first heard about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I thought it only prudent to explore. I'll admit, I wasn't hooked upon first viewing—it seemed little niche, lopsided, over before it really began. But it's the kind of thing that grows on you, I suppose—if only because I found myself spontaneously humming this song as I trudged back & forth from the library, despite not having seen or thought about it in years (perhaps a subconscious grasping toward the villain anthems that so often sustain me in times of crisis).


Cockney Thug—Rusko.

I saw Rusko by accident in my freshman year of college, as the first of four openers at Proxy's first ever US show. (This was just after "Raven" had come out, hence my desire to see live electronica in the first place.) All I remember (as I was not, shall we say, in peak frame of mind at the time) is that I found his set rather boring & his hype man—whose incessant chants of "RUSKO, LET'S GO" will forever be burned into my eardrums—fundamentally annoying. So, in the years that followed, I avoided even the tracks of his recommended to me by friends, having already written him off as unremarkable. Then, a few weeks ago, I accidentally unearthed this song from the depths of my iTunes, & I fell in love. It's nice companion piece to "Biggest Monkey," which I posted back in September—somewhat more amped, but equally flush with slurred British rancor & synth-brass, & therefore rather excellent.


11:11—Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire.

An oldie but goodie—that is, in the life of me. This song haunted my high school playlists, & with good reason: its rolling, wheedling orchestration, that blithely ominous chorus. It's perfect to curl up to—savoring the notion, at once comforting & damning, that the end's coming soon.


Wild World—Me First & the Gimme Gimmes (Cat Stevens cover).

Everything sounds better sped up & punked out, says I—& Cat Stevens is no exception. I mean, sure, the original is threaded through with lovely chords, but I've always found it bit lagging, energy-wise. However, with help from my beloved MF&GG, it becomes the perfect anthem for thrashing away frustration at how hard it is to get by just upon a smile.


The Quartet—The Secret Garden.
[ Note: The actual song starts about 42 seconds in. ]

When I was in 7th grade, my school put on "The Secret Garden" as our winter show: I played the composite choral role of a ghost, a moving piece of ivy, & a maid with one line, of which I was impossibly proud ("Beg your pardon, Doctor—it's Ms. Winthrop, sir"—a show-stopper, I assure you). Though I'm not generally a huge fan of traditional musicals—& this one in particular is a bit odd: austere, antiquated, essentially what you might expect from a faithful adaptation of a novel written in 1910—because it entered my consciousness early, every note clangs with pleasant nostalgia. Moreover, I find this song musically delightful—its four voices intertwining, disparate lyrics overlapping, backed by orchestral surges. Also, for reasons yet unknown, I tend to sing along to it repeatedly, for hours, in times of strife. Real talk. 


All the Time—Diamond Rings.

I posted about Diamond Rings recently, I know—but I simply can't get enough of him these days. His songs fall into one of the categories I deem ideal: Smart Dance Music—sounds that genuinely make you want to move paired with lyrics that don't make you feel guilty for knowing all of them. Especially after seeing him live a few weeks ago, I'm more committed than ever—caught up, as I was, in the catharsis of jiving, manic, sweating out academic toxins with every thump of bass.


Alcohol—Gogol Bordello.

Another old favorite—its Romanian strains chugging & asymmetric, Eugene's thickly accented lyrics wrought with hand-wringing (if, at times, ESL-ish) empathy.


Monkey Gone to Heaven—Pixies.

Simply put, the kind of song that makes you glad music happens—that sound waves turn into songs & guitars have the capacity to wail. Doolittle will always explain my brain best.


I Knew You Were Trouble—Taylor Swift.

Yep. T-Swift. Get into it. But really: this song was a staple during my final days in the Eye offices (yes, it's over—stray tear / monumental-sigh-of-relief-cum-fist-pump), & since then, I haven't been able to get it out of my head—nor have I necessarily wanted to. I honestly dig the change-up from quick-strumming guitar to crooked sways of dubsteppian synth, & as usual, Taylor's tale is woefully relatable. On that note, the music video (linked above) is priceless beyond measure—its de facto lesson: never get involved with a man in a porkpie hat & jean vest who spends most of his time standing on things he shouldn't & posing Jesus-like. That, or never dye your hair in a scrubby pink emo gradient. Works either way.


I—Nicola Roberts.

Roberts's more upbeat pop single, "Yo-Yo," made it on to my finals list from this past spring, but this semester, I've found myself drawn to this more subdued number—its slow, thick groove, its hypnotic battery of "I" statements (as the title would suggest). Though on some days I find her Kate-Bush-ian soprano flights somewhat grating, on most I find this oddly confessional track somewhat of an anthem—or, at the very least, a decent jam.


Chum—Earl Sweatshirt.

Tumbling piano riffs, tongue tripping over honest rhymes—everything I loved about "Luper" amplified tenfold. Because sure, there's something sinister to it, but also something kind of lovely.


He Hit Me—Hole (The Crystals cover).

This is one of those songs that you just hate to love—far guiltier than the traditional guilty pleasure, like when you catch yourself singing along to the at once impossibly sexist & impossibly catchy "Under My Thumb." In my mind, this song is even worse message-wise, with its apparent championing of domestic abuse & toxic jealousy—in the neighborhood of "Love the Way You Lie," but without even a modicum of self-awareness. Still, if any voice could do this conflicted masochism justice, it's Courtney Love's—scratchy & worn, tracing the words of an old factory hit & imbuing it with new, sinister significance.


Die Young—Ke$ha.

Say what you will—cast your stones—but it's happening. I genuinely get a kick out of this song. Maybe it's because I find the idea of dancing to death oddly romantic; maybe I lost some small chunk of my mind in this sea of caffeine & verbiage; or maybe it's just that this fucking parasitic chorus has taken root in my brainstem I've since been unable to leech it out. But for whatever reason, I find it compelling—at least enough for a despairing 3 AM lip sync (or five).

—_—_—

Then, towards the end of the chaos, for whatever reason, I started to have a hankering exclusively for women (plus a stray Michael Stipe) singing about death & ghosts. So, though they're not officially part of the list, here's these—a post mortem / Part II, if you will:

Lonely Ghosts—O+S.

The End of the World—Skeeter Davis.

Your Ghost—Kristin Hersh (feat. Michael Stipe).


&, last but certainly not least, a message from the man who singlehandedly got me through many a sleepless night in the final weeks of 2012—& will surely get me through many more as I barrel toward this fast-approaching January 22nd due date:

Happy New Year, y'all.

THF: Kim Deal Meets Eraserhead.

So, I know it seems like I've been slacking somewhat on my "write more" resolution, having gone AWOL over a week at this point—but, in fact, I've been writing a sickening, daunting, patently hateful amount... of e-mail. Indeed, this is the one potential downside of my otherwise lovely & exciting new position as managing editor of Columbia's (brilliant, indubitable) arts & features magazine, The Eye: the necessary parameters of the post are such that, as I've taken to describing it, were GMail rendered real, my life would resemble that scene from the first Harry Potter movie, when all the thousands of letters are pouring in through the Dursleys' fireplace—except, instead of jumping & giggling like a cracked-out Carebear, I'm huddled in the fetal position, quietly weeping, until the swamp of envelopes swallows me whole. (Or, you know, just making the face Aunt Petunia's making.)

My point is, I'm still getting used to this new influx of textual responsibility—still figuring how best to juggle many the balls unceasingly catapulted in my general direction—so, for today, it's going to have to be quick, which means some more music.

Still, I'm confident that this offering is pretty excellent—especially for movie nerds & Pixies fans. (& honestly, if you're neither, I suggest seriously examining your life choices.) In short & in sweet, welcome to Kim Deal, backed by her original band, crooning away to "In Heaven," the song sung by the Lady in the Radiator from David Lynch's Eraserhead.

Her version is softer than another I have, where Frank Black takes up lead vocals—found, if I'm not mistaken, on the band's Complete B Sides collection. Where Black grates & surges, Deal remains subdued—only slightly flubbing the lyrics, just enough to be charming. Meanwhile, the persistent thrum of her bassline entwines effortlessly with the quiet pull of the guitar, tap-tap of the cymbals—soft & lovely & only a little terrifying, much like the best of things.

A Post-Mess Mix.

Like the Count of Monte Cristo emerging triumphant from a bodybag flung out to sea, I am writing to you today from inside the cozy purple walls of Bostonia—having miraculously survived the dreaded Finals Week & thus officially graduated to Upperclassmanship. More importantly, I can now look forward to a summer of reading & sleeping & Photoshopping with young'uns—&, indeed, reviving my long-flagging Blogsmanship.

Though I have a bevy of entries fizzing at the tips of my fingers—from hardcore philosophical musings to gushing over certain actors' preeminent hotness—I feel like it's appropriate, as a smooth transition from this most brutal of sleepless paper-splosions, to post the playlist that buoyed me through this past week—which, in my humble estimation, is pretty clutch. Without further ado:

5-7-11: I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday.
[ ^ Download the whole mix! In order! Click! Oh man! ^ ]

Going Down—Gerome Ragni (Hair, 1968 cast).
Breaking Glass (Live, Montréal, 7/12/83)—David Bowie.
Get It On At Le Disko (T. Rex vs. Shiny Toy Guns)—The Illuminoids.
The Hollows—WHY?.
Your Woman—Cats On Fire (White Town cover).
Buena—Morphine.
Itty Bitty Piggy—Nicki Minaj.
Less Than Zero—Elvis Costello.
Werewolf—Cat Power (Michael Hurley cover).
Soldier Girl—The Polyphonic Spree.
Diamond Crowned Queen—Raja.
Why Do You Love Me—Garbage.
Secretly Jealous—Coyote Shivers.
Melody Day—Caribou.
Hey—The Pixies.
Rolling in the Deep (Jamie XX remix, feat. Childish Gambino)—Adele.
Between the Bars (Live at Largo)—Elliott Smith.
Never Be Lonely—The Feeling.
Baby in Two—The Pernice Brothers.
Reptile—Lisa Germano.
I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday—Morrissey.
There's Not a Step We Can Take That Does Not Bring Us Closer—Jason Webley.

Writing an Essay: Some Pointers for the Motivationally Challenged.

When faced with a cosmic fuckton of work, I am almost invariably visited by a beast I'm sure you all know well, an imp that taunts me away from responsibility with promises of guitar strumming & Facebook checking & oh I haven't seen this movie in forever & what was that great scene...—

I call him the Procrastination Gremlin, because I imagine one of those creepy water-doused creatures from the movie, like the bastard offspring of bat & gargoyle, perched immovably between my shoulder blades, whispering seductively in my ear—or sometimes even forcing my limbs, zapping my Arm Control Nerve like in that episode of Invader Zim (which was such a great show; I should probably go watch a few episodes, just quickly; they're so short...—).

Anyhow: faced now with the daunting task of fending off this demon, I'm reminded of the many ways I've learned to distract him, at least for a time—& I thought I'd share a few.

( An artistic rendering, hastily rendered. )

1) Designate a Work Song.

Now, this is a particularly tough musical needle to thread—very different, in fact, from Study Music. Study Music's less-than-ambient mellow is built to sustain pleasant rambles through readings—but in order to survive this epic wrestling match with the slippery plastic muse of Required Writing, you need an anthem, a battle cry, a balm of hurt minds separate from sleep, because you've still got so much to do before dawn: you need a Work Song.

In my experience, it should be energetic but not wild, upbeat but not quite cheerful, able to sustain both bouts of deep despair & manic 4 AM dance fits. Over the course of this night, your Work Song will be responsible for buoying you: a beacon for your sleep-drunk navigation, an oasis lurking just beyond the heat waves, the solar plexus punch necessary to eek out those next five pages. It will be played a sickening number of times in the next hours, & each time must feel like a revelation—the cut through inspiration's swollen eyelid that gets you back in the ring, to just... keep... fighting... (Adriannnnn....)

2) Pick a topic that interests—or, preferably, baffles—you.

If you're like me—meaning, you need the cold muzzle of a Time Gun pressed against your spinal column to even think about beginning work—the immediate death sentence of any impending essay is when you start to think of it as perfunctory. If you know exactly what you're going to write, how you're going to write it, all the little trills & turns of phrase to elicit sighs of teacherly appreciation—then it's as good as written, meaning all sense of threat disappears from your brain, & therefore production halts until about 20 minutes before the thing is actually due.

By then, of course, when you go to type out this perfectly-preformed gold brick of an essay, you realize it's like one of those K'nex rollercoaster sets from when you were a kid: split into complex & counter-intuitive pieces that could fit together in endless combinations—& which, despite the seemingly mentally challenged ten-year-old you saw playing with it in the commercial, apparently requires a degree in molecular biology to assemble. This leads to much frustration, a deep sense of existential panic, &, ultimately, a late or profoundly shitty (often, both) paper.

On the other hand, if your topic is inscrutable enough to baffle even you, then it's impossible to disengage without retaining the Time Gun panic—impossible to feel done before you're done. In the best cases, a written description of your own search to figure out what in the hell you could possibly be talking about will seamlessly become something worthy of submission.

3) Make a list, aloud, of all the people who will be disappointed if you don't finish this essay.

If you like & respect your teacher, you certainly have a head start—but even so, that's often not enough for us hardcore Work Avoiders. On any given night, lists may range from "my mother, because she'll be bummed if I flunk out of college," to "President Bartlett, because he called himself 'the education president,'" to "Morrissey, because there's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows." Personally, I often appeal to the fold-out LP cover of Lou Reed, who watches over the head of my bed with arms crossed decadently beneath his Fuck You snarl. "For you, Lou," I swear, in deepest solemnity, with a doff of my imaginary aviators: "For you."

( Below him: a poster my friend found on the street of Johnny Cash flipping off the photographer—which, of course, can also be emotionally useful in these situations. )

4) Have a large quantity of small, oval snack food.

Every time a sentence gets too frustrating & you need a moment's break, you can mull it over by reaching for a piece of your choice edible, &, because of its ideal shape, you can either savor it in several small, lengthwise bites, giving ample time to mull, or roll it contemplatively against the roof of your mouth. I prefer green grapes, but have also made due with olives, almonds, yogurt-covered raisins, & cough drops. (NOTE: Only use cough drops in dire circumstances. That much menthol turns your mouth into some kind of cold medicine-dry ice hybrid—before it goes awkwardly numb, & you spend the next three hours wondering why you have no throat.)

5) Coffee is your friend.

When all else fails, just drink a lot of it. Actually, scratch that: don't wait until all else fails. You should be revving like the Energizer Bunny on crystal meth from the moment you sit down to write this sucker. If you don't smell like the inside of an overworked espresso machine from minute one, you're probably doomed. On that note, I'd also recommend those juggernaut 2-liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew: zero calories, ungodly amounts of caffeine, yessiree. (However, if you're like me, you already have a coffee IV drip set to start concurrently with your morning alarm, rendering this point all but moot.)

&, finally, 6) Write an instructional guide, professing Pointers for the Motivationally Challenged.

Because, though this is exactly the kind of lengthy & pointless distraction your Procrastination Gremlin craves, it's secretly honing your intense sense of essay anxiety into a sniper's laser sight, boring into your Common Sense Gland like the light from some cosmic magnifying glass until it reaches a veritable boil, &— ...—

[ Epilogue: Three two-page essays on Independent Film, sprung from impossibly vague prompts, hereby finished at 1:32 PM. 28 minutes to spare, baby: I still got it. ]

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Gouge Away—Pixies.

My Work Song these past 24 hours.

The choice isn't necessarily arbitrary: I just finished the 33 1/3 Series book on "Doolittle," which—though, of course, my interest in the album never really lapsed—certainly re-intensified my love for these 15 crackling, surreal tracks. Though it's never necessarily been a favorite ("Hey" & "Monkey Gone to Heaven" always took the cake), "Gouge Away" caught my attention this time through: quite beautiful, actually—but equally rough & surging, violent. The ideal Work Song: plying the edges between melancholy & motivational, throbbing through your bones just fast enough to nudge, insistent, impossible to ignore.

(Also, I'd be lying if I said that dubstep remix of "Where Is My Mind?" didn't make an appearance or six.)

Glee Goes Gaga. (AKA, My Bowie-Warhol-Alig-splosion.)

Oh, Glee. My favorite Gay Fantasia on Adolescent Themes.

If you're a fan of the show, or were within 15 feet of one recently, you probably know that two weeks ago (yes, I'm behind, I apologize) was Gaga week—in the same vein as this season's previous Madonna week—which essentially entails actors spouting thinly-veiled hypercompliments about a single artist in exchange for the right to cover her songs. Since this Blogling began with a meditation on Gaga—& since that post was, of course, born of actual interest—I would feel remiss if I didn't say a word or two (thousand). More importantly, though, this gives me an excuse to talk about Glee—which is, in my opinion, one of the weirdest shows ever, ever, ever. (But, you know, in an incredibly pleasurable & addictive way.)

We'll begin with some quotes I lifted from the episode, entitled "Theatricality":

Tina: I refuse to dress like someone I'm not to be someone I'm not.

Kurt: Fine. You want to hit me? You want to beat me up? Go ahead. But I swear to you I will never change. I'm proud to be different. It's the best thing about me.

Rachel: I'm tired of everyone calling us freaks.

Mercedes: [laughing] Well, look at us: we are freaks.

Finn: But we're all freaks together. & we shouldn't have to hide it.

Mr. Schuester: ... But Mercedes is right. You do all look incredibly insane.

Puck: What's up with this Gaga dude? He just, like, dresses weird, right—like Bowie?

(Okay, the last one is just a personal bugaboo: Not only does the Gaga-Bowie linkage piss me off eternally—because she is incomparable to him, both technically & in talent, as I will endeavor to prove—but really, why would Puck of all people, who later in this episode gets choked up naming his daughter after a Kiss song, have any enduring knowledge of glam icons?)

As for the first three, though, I think they deserve a little background [Note: Of course, this is all entirely, 150% inconceivable as regards the realities of high school, but such is Glife.]:

This week began with a meeting between Tina, Mr. Schuester, & That Principal Who Is Exceedingly Less Comical Than They Seem To Think, who has singled out Tina because she dresses "Goth" (AKA, she has found the local Hot Topic); he is now forcing her to "change her look." This, along with a plot twist involving Vocal Adrenaline, our Glee Club's rivals, leads Mr. Schuester to announce Gaga as a "homework assignment"—which means a week of wild costumes & performances eons beyond a realistically possible production value, as well as a really oddly placed cover of "Poker Face."

Oh, & because boys can't like Lady Gaga (unless they're "an honorary girl," AKA gay like Kurt), we were also treated (...) to a few Kiss renditions. Because Kiss is Gaga's male antecedent. Clearly. Not, for instance, someone whose name you already mentioned in comparison to hers earlier this show, a mention that I oh-so recently complained about... (Yes, gentle Reader, my hopes were stoked far too high when I saw Finn wielding an eyeliner pencil—then dashed, spectacularly, when I witnessed his true intent. However, as a side note: it is entirely possible that Kiss is 800% gayer than David Bowie.)

The one truly wonderful aspect of this episode was the Kurt plotline; Kurt Hummel is, in fact, the only reason I watch this show anymore. (Well, Lord knows I love Jane Lynch, but they made her straight—& blamed her nastiness on lack of a man—so I'm far less into Sue than I should be.) Leaving aside for a moment the truly moving & so very right on speech in which Kurt's dad admonishes Finn for use of the word "faggy," Kurt's main angst in this episode revolves around two football players who harass him for wearing an outfit at which even Oscar Wilde would have whistled—complete with a stick-on bedazzle beauty mark.

Now that we've contextualized the quotes somewhat, you may begin to see my dilemma: the show presents a mildly schizophrenic message (just as, in my opinion, Gaga does herself). On the one hand, Tina opts to return to her cheesy faux-Gothitude by episode's close; on the other, Kurt defends his Little Lord Fauntleroy Tours the Galaxy ensemble to the death. Meanwhile, though Finn makes the home-run point that "we're all freaks," Mercedes & Mr. Schuester seem to knock it back by characterizing their outfits as "incredibly insane." So, which is it? Does Gagaification liberate its practitioners, à la Kurt & Finn, or does it trap them in a look that's fundamentally not their own, as Tina seems to imply?

Though I'm all about the "everyone is a freak" sentiment, I can't help feeling that both Glee characters & real-life Gaga fans are like the religious fanatics in Life of Brian: they are constantly told to think for themselves, but somehow take this to mean that they ought to ape the person saying so. "Yes, we're all individuals!" they yell in chorus. "Yes, we're all different!" [ Side note: Why are their sketches the perfect analogy for everything? ]

In case you're sick of Python, I'll share an example from my own life:

Recently, a friend & fellow Glee viewer—the one, in fact, who glared daggers into my soul when I told him I hadn't watched this episode by last Wednesday night—told me a story about a childhood friend of his. When this boy was 10 or so, he became obsessed with colonial Massachusetts, so much so that he would dress up every day, tricorner hat & all, & go to see local reenactments—so often, in fact, that he could copy the movements & was often mistaken for part of the show. My reaction to this was, of course, how fucking cool—because really, to have that much drive & passion, especially for something I consider dull as rocks, is impressive. & moreover, to follow through, despite how much flak he must have gotten, is just plain brave. & what a delightfully odd choice of fixation!

Now, here is the important part: while I recognize all of this, I have no intent to purchase a musket & britches. I think that what this boy did was great because it was his personal want. Hardcore Gaga fans, however, seem to equate dressing like Gaga with being an individual, being a prepackaged "freak" with having a personality—&, unfortunately, that's just not the case.

"But Anneliese," you clamor, "what about Bowie Boys & Girls? Isn't that essentially the same thing?" To which I will sagely shake my head—having spent way too much time thinking (& writing) on the subject—& postulate that Bowie's persona, especially in the case of Ziggy, was essentially a template set out for his fans to reenact. To put it in previously-scribed academese:

[Bowie] was, in every sense, the self-created star—a phenomenon he sings about on the album: “I could make a transformation as a rock ‘n’ roll star … So enticing to play the part." By epitomizing, in word and deed, the success of self-creation, Bowie expanded upon the existent glam tradition of theatricality in rock, giving his fans “the implicit invitation … to reinvent themselves as he had done” (Hoskyns). In the image of their idol, “Bowie-ites” donned red mullets and shiny jumpsuits as a key to “an alternative identity … an Otherness,” (Thomson and Gutman) and were thus, in the words of essayist David Buckley, “linked by an acute sense of their own individuality and a potent sense of themselves as stars."

Though I think you would be right to argue that keying into an "Otherness" is exactly what Gaga fans are going for—what Kurt means when he makes his tearful speech about being different—I would still assert that dressing up as Gaga is very different than dressing up as Bowie. In the first place: Glam derives its name from its followers' desire to achieve glamour—an Otherness that was above the unenlightened, with strong ties to Oscar Wilde & dandyism—as opposed to the more (post)modern desire to treat grotesqueness like it's glamourous for irony's sake. (Which is not to say that's not fantastic in most instances—just that they're two fundamentally different reasons for dressing up.)

Furthermore: Through imitating Bowie, fans were able to achieve sexual/gender liberation (for which they likely had few previous models), as well as experience their own potential for fame & fabulousness—in the very Warholian sense that, though glamour is an equal-opportunity game, there is a set way to be glamourous; though stardom is eminently attainable, there are set ways to attain it. By imitating Bowie, fans were playing out the necessary game, at an individual level, to realize themselves as stars.

Meanwhile, Gaga is a product of post-Club Kid New York. If you've never heard of the Club Kids (or even if you have; I reread this book monthly), I highly suggest picking up a copy of James St. James's Disco Bloodbath—now published under the name Party Monster, to correspond with the documentary & narrative films of the same name. (Those, too, are worth a look or five.) Essentially, though, for those unaware, the Club Kid takeover of Downtown nightlife—spurred on by the death of Andy Warhol (& Michael Musto's subsequent proclamation of the Death of Downtown)—created a new wave of Fabulousness, in which the wild, the defunct & obscene, became celebrated, so long as they were clever & original. As Michael Alig, former King of the Club Kids turned convict, describes in this past April's Interview (Warhol's brainchild, ironically enough):

What we were doing was very similar [to the Factory]. It was really the massification of the Warhol thing, because we were celebrating and mocking the notion of celebrity at the same time. We knew how ridiculous it was, but we wanted our share as well. ... We would rehearse before going on the talk shows to try to come across as really bored and also pretend to be these superficial celebrities. Again, we were pretending to be these caricatures of celebrities, but most people didn’t get it. Most people thought we were the superficial celebrities we were satirizing, and they hated us for it.

The agenda of the Club Kids was to topple/replace the old school, primarily by parodying it. But, as Alig recognizes—& as I previously referenced, with a nod to St. James, et. al.—there is only so long before a parody goes too far & crosses into reality, before what you mock becomes what you do:

At first we weren’t using drugs at all. We were making fun of people who used drugs, and we’d go out pretending to be high, pretending to fall down stairs—we were caricatures of drug-addicted celebrities, like the Edie Sedgwicks and Courtney Loves. We were making fun of them . . . until we became them.

Sounding familiar? Then, just to make my day, Alig does the rest of my work for me:

I love Lady Gaga. She would have fit right in at Disco 2000. A lot of people don’t understand what she’s doing, but she is a satire of a pop star. She is making fun of it, and at the same time, she’s going to go out and get everything she can by doing it.

Though I tentatively came to this conclusion before, having eschewed it as too depressing, I'm now ready to solidify it; I trust Alig in his analysis—on this matter, at least.

So: if Gaga is a caricature—at least in presentation—then those who mimic her are either duped into her unrelenting vortex of irony, or they get that she's a hyperexaggeration & have chosen to hyperexaggerate themselves in a show of ironic solidarity. Like the Bowie fans, Gaga fans have a map for recreating themselves—but in imitating Gaga, they become a neverending Pong game of stereotypes & intentionally botched convention, a symbol proudly declaring that they don't declare anything at all. I find a passage of the Alig interview particularly evocative:

At the time, we called [Club Kid style] “aesthetic sampling.” There was nothing new going on, so we were basically stealing bits and pieces from Leigh Bowery and Andy Warhol and a lot of the Pyramid people and East 
Village punks. I get a lot of flak for copying Leigh Bowery, but it wasn’t a direct ripoff. I never copied anything without putting the Club Kid spin on it. [Which is] to make it a joke. And once you say it’s a joke, you can get away with anything because it’s a joke.

Though I may be alone, let me borrow a page from Morrissey in declaring: I wish I could laugh, but that joke isn't funny anymore.

Must I lay out the ways in which a postmodern superstar is depressing? Especially a secret postmodern superstar, who is essentially mocking a vast majority of her own fans by her very existence?

& this is why Gaga is different—in fact, is opposite—from Bowie. Though Bowie was taking a self-referential look at stardom—the album's protagonist is, after all, killed by his own fans' rabid love—there is still a sense, in his portrayal, that stardom is something to be desired, to be had—is possible, at all, & he's grasping for it with both hands. Moreover, he's doing so with an (essentially) original concept—a metaphor, a gelling with the zeitgeist. Gaga, however, seems to be mocking the very fact of stardom, à la Alig, & she's standing on the collapsed shoulders of former artists to do it.

Ultimately—ultimately—what's frustrating to me about Gaga is the fact that she is so wildly popular to people who don't know Leigh Bowery (or, more accurately, Isabella Blow)—those who aren't so educated as Puck in the ways of Glam, & who therefore fail to attribute the "revolutionary" nature of this intentionally referential amalgam to her far more talented predecessors. Really, it makes my blood boil—almost as much as when people started to like the Smiths again by accident when they heard She & Him, Talk Talk because of No Doubt. (I am, of course, a rabid fiend for covers, but I'm also a firm believer in dual recognition of new & original versions; the mass-appreciation of the copy with no mention of its referent is something I find endlessly frustrating.)

But back to Glee, because this is where I think the bizarre tension comes from: that Gaga isn't even dressing like "herself"—or, rather, that her style is informed heavily by others. When you dress up as Gaga, you're really dressing up as a filtered version of 70s-90s avant garde; you're dressing like a fan of a fan of something greater, once removed from the real innovation. You're creating yourself in the image of an idol, but that idol is herself a idol-informed creation. So, though the clothes may be liberating—because, hey, Cory Monteith in that tomato-red medieval latex was quite a sight—they are also, by definition, "incredibly insane."

So, yes, there is an Otherness in the Gaga look—&, seriously, I'm all for sartorial liberation, imitated or otherwise, but I think it's hard to play this game on Gaga's terms without feeling like a copy of a copy of a copy—like being "different" requires such intentionally wild acts of wardrobe wackiness, or, perhaps, that it isn't even so different as you once thought.

The fact that it works for Kurt is perhaps fitting: though he is by far the most compelling character on the show, he is still a flaming stereotype—as are his classmates, teachers, etc. The Glee universe is made up of distilled assumptions about high school life, parodies of media representation of real teens—so, naturally, it's a place where Gaga fits right in. Even when Tina stops "dressing like someone she's not," she's still dressing like Fox's idea of what "the Goth" girl ought to wear, tiny tophat & all.

& maybe this is the positive side of the Gaga paradox: that it brings to light how all of us have self-constructed, to some degree, from those we idolize. Yes, I say, brava—with Bowie-guitar-blue on my fingernails & clunky Doc Martens on my feet—but let's please follow through with this logic & recognize those idols, not just their messenger. It's the same way I feel about Julie Taymor's Beatles homage, Across the Universe: I'm all for liking the movie, as long as, when you're done watching, you're provoked to reexamine the artists that inspired it all.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Debaser—David Bowie (Pixies cover).

Since I've blustered so extensively on the Imitation of Bowie, I thought it might be nice to end on an instance of Bowie imitating someone else: one of his (& my) very favorite bands, the Pixies. (So, so good on so many levels...)