Friends-Only Post No. 23: Tender Garden

TOURING TORI

Well, it's been out for more than a day now, so I think it's safe to speculate that, if you're reading this, you've likely enjoyed the HALLOWEENEST EPISODE EVER of IDEOTVPOD, wherein Lauren Parker joined us to put some serious quantities of witchy in the mix for Tori Amos' evocative advocacy of archetype, Piece by Piece.

If you have, hail and well met. You now know what the best thing a book can do is, which is to explain semi-coherent song lyrics, at extraordinary length, and with blockquotes and footnotes. (Also you know how cool it is when a lyricist oh-so-casually drops their own lyrics into paragraphs that did not obviously need this to happen.)

If you have not yet enjoyed the current episode, please stop reading now. For I have ... an anecdote. An anecdote I would prefer you not enjoy until after the relevant episode has passed over you and through you. For real. Just ... just take a PILL, okay? It'll be here when you're ready for it.


THE ANECDOTE

For the purpose of this anecdote, please imagine two shining figures: one, your own viable Clsn; t'other, a noble Lady Noodles, glowing palely with virtue.

Clsn: [grumping lengthily re: "Corn Mother" content in Piece by Piece]
Noodles: Huh.
Clsn: [grumping intensifies]
Noodles: Man, Tori Amos talks a lot about the Corn Mother -- do you think she had a corn vibrator like my roommate from college?
Clsn: [boggles]
Noodles: She was from Vermont!
Clsn: [boggling continues]
Noodles: [rides bicycle away]
Clsn: [writes this down and STILL forgets to bring it up during the episode, because complete dipmunch]


SOUNDS FROM THE PAST

J. and I spent a LOT of time talking about what songs would be best for this episode. Obviously, the ones we settled on are absolutely perfect -- revelatory, even. But what really gave me pause was that two quite old songs seemed to sum up the book -- both the few good parts and the overwhelming quantity of pure cheese. On the good side of the ledger, a catchy and sweet song completely damaged by an essentialist view of race and gender; on the other, a not-very-catchy piece of work that continues Europe's long tradition of explaining how bad American colonialism is.

Basically I'm saying that Tori Amos is equal parts Neil Young's "Pocahantas" and Europe's "Cherokee".



THANKS

We do, as always, hope you have enjoyed this torrent of content -- this time, a veritable Tori-ent! -- and hope that this finds you well, either hip-deep in a surge of Halloween activity, or lost amidst a post-Halloween moraine of costume shards, candy fragments, and -- yes -- hangover sighs. For the record, Noodles and I collaborated on a doodle of Tori Amos that would surely please you, but my complete inability to draw made it unshareable. So please imagine a collaborative doodle of Tori Amos, and enjoy it to the extent that that's the sort of thing you can enjoy imagining / imagine enjoying.

Happy Halloween -- stay safe out there.

--Collision for IDEOTVPOD