Marc has been reading all about doggie smells. He is considering getting on all fours to smell alongside Salvy--to experience the world as Salvy smells it. (A dog's olfactory talent is supreme, such that one cinnamon bun is like ten trillion cinnamon buns, for the nose of a dog.) Marc learned that dogs wag their tails, perhaps subconsciously, to circulate their own scent; they want to send their anal odors out into the universe. This, I guess, is like a bird singing; when you're excited or happy, you want to make your presence known. You can do that with sound. You can do that with chemical emissions. I don't know how you'd prove that that's what a dog is up to, when he is wagging his tail. But I did think about "the smell book" as Salvy wagged--and wagged and wagged--this morning.
***
On to Taylor Swift. Taylor's "Kanye West" storytelling is such a well-oiled machine, the work almost seems facile. "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" is a sequel to "Bad Blood," "All Too Well," "Dear John," "White Horse," "Trouble," "You're Not Sorry," "Fifteen," and "The Story of Us." Watch how she does it. The scene is set; all is well. "Bass be rattling the chandelier," "feeling so Gatsby for that whole year," "swimming in a champagne sea," "jump in the pool from the balcony"--the music video seems to film itself. (You could compare Taylor Swift to those super-successful novelists, e.g. John Grisham, who start to write with the adapted screenplay already in mind.)
But then: a transgression. The new lover/friend has spoken out of turn. He has "talked shit," to borrow from another Taylor item ("I Did Something Bad"). He has "said things about me." He has "broken things." Like the lecherous senior in "Fifteen," he has somehow become invasive; he has crossed a boundary. He has "stabbed me in the back while shaking my hand." And so Taylor enters a perilous Enchanted World; allies have become tricksters. Bloodied, on the floor, Taylor must rally. ("You call me up again just to break me like a promise. So casually cruel in the name of being honest." "Dear John, don't you think I was too young? The girl in the dress cried the whole way home." "I was a dreamer before you went and let me down." "Why'dya have to rain on my parade?")
In her broken state, Taylor has a few options. She can articulate her sadness, and feel buoyed, or semi-buoyed, by a reminder that at least she's good with words. ("Time won't fly; it's like I'm paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it. Plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own; now you mail back my things, and I walk home alone.") She can discover the consolations of passing time. ("In your life, you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team. I didn't know it at fifteen.") Or she can lean on others, as she does in the "Bad Blood" video, and as she does, again, in "Nice Things." Allies and mentors! "Here's to my real friends. They don't care about that he said, she said." "Here's to my baby; he ain't reading what they call me lately." "Here's to my mama; had to listen to all this drama." Having tipped her hat to this assortment of characters, Taylor can bury her enemy. "I'm shaking my head; I'm locking the gate. This is why we can't have nice things."
(I'll always love the idea of wedding Kanye West to the bratty "we can't have nice things" line. As others have noted, it's deliberately infantilizing. It conveys frustration, condescension, and a kind of verbal "sneer." It implicates *both* Taylor and Kanye in their ongoing fiasco: This is why *we* can't have nice things. It's an effortless metaphor--mother and child. With this breathlessness, have I now sacrificed all of my credibility?)
It's striking to me that Taylor apparently has not noted Billy Eichner's sharp criticism. "Glitter and Ribs" brilliantly pillories Taylor; it's the exact plot of "Nice Things"; "it was the very last summer barbecue! I was me, and you were you! You were you! You were you! You were you!" Do you hear the echoes of "champagne seas" and "feeling so Gatsby" in Eichner's early lines? "He was a boy, and I was a girl. What more do you need to know?" Eichner also laughs at the pseudo-profundity of Taylor's frequent subject/object inversions. "He was a boy; he walked through the door. He was a *door* walking through a *boy*...." ("Hold on to the memories; they will hold on to you.")
Eichner has an observation that could be applied to almost all of Taylor's storytelling, tucked away in the climax of his song: "Looking back, we were young and reckless! Looking back, the whole thing was meaningless!" It seems to me you could insert this in "Nice Things," and it would work well there, additionally. I haven't mentioned Eichner's making out with robots, his Wild West look, his allusions to ice cream, his quietly scathing references to glitter. (And, from the actual Taylor Swift, very recently: "There's glitter on the floor after the party....") If you haven't watched this video, you really must. I'm off for Thanksgiving now. See you next week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqw57Q3eNI
P.S. Note Billy Eichner's great: "He served me a fib with a side of lies!" And the faux-elegiac: "It was THE VERY LAST summer barbecue..." (suggesting the transition from summer to fall, adolescence to adulthood, innocence to experience). And the emphatic: "I've got a heart like a horse, heart like a horse, heart like a heart like a heart like a horse. Never know my heart like my heart knows my heart! Never know my heart like my heart knows...me...." Do you think of: BABY LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN BABY LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN--?
***
On to Taylor Swift. Taylor's "Kanye West" storytelling is such a well-oiled machine, the work almost seems facile. "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" is a sequel to "Bad Blood," "All Too Well," "Dear John," "White Horse," "Trouble," "You're Not Sorry," "Fifteen," and "The Story of Us." Watch how she does it. The scene is set; all is well. "Bass be rattling the chandelier," "feeling so Gatsby for that whole year," "swimming in a champagne sea," "jump in the pool from the balcony"--the music video seems to film itself. (You could compare Taylor Swift to those super-successful novelists, e.g. John Grisham, who start to write with the adapted screenplay already in mind.)
But then: a transgression. The new lover/friend has spoken out of turn. He has "talked shit," to borrow from another Taylor item ("I Did Something Bad"). He has "said things about me." He has "broken things." Like the lecherous senior in "Fifteen," he has somehow become invasive; he has crossed a boundary. He has "stabbed me in the back while shaking my hand." And so Taylor enters a perilous Enchanted World; allies have become tricksters. Bloodied, on the floor, Taylor must rally. ("You call me up again just to break me like a promise. So casually cruel in the name of being honest." "Dear John, don't you think I was too young? The girl in the dress cried the whole way home." "I was a dreamer before you went and let me down." "Why'dya have to rain on my parade?")
In her broken state, Taylor has a few options. She can articulate her sadness, and feel buoyed, or semi-buoyed, by a reminder that at least she's good with words. ("Time won't fly; it's like I'm paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it. Plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own; now you mail back my things, and I walk home alone.") She can discover the consolations of passing time. ("In your life, you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team. I didn't know it at fifteen.") Or she can lean on others, as she does in the "Bad Blood" video, and as she does, again, in "Nice Things." Allies and mentors! "Here's to my real friends. They don't care about that he said, she said." "Here's to my baby; he ain't reading what they call me lately." "Here's to my mama; had to listen to all this drama." Having tipped her hat to this assortment of characters, Taylor can bury her enemy. "I'm shaking my head; I'm locking the gate. This is why we can't have nice things."
(I'll always love the idea of wedding Kanye West to the bratty "we can't have nice things" line. As others have noted, it's deliberately infantilizing. It conveys frustration, condescension, and a kind of verbal "sneer." It implicates *both* Taylor and Kanye in their ongoing fiasco: This is why *we* can't have nice things. It's an effortless metaphor--mother and child. With this breathlessness, have I now sacrificed all of my credibility?)
It's striking to me that Taylor apparently has not noted Billy Eichner's sharp criticism. "Glitter and Ribs" brilliantly pillories Taylor; it's the exact plot of "Nice Things"; "it was the very last summer barbecue! I was me, and you were you! You were you! You were you! You were you!" Do you hear the echoes of "champagne seas" and "feeling so Gatsby" in Eichner's early lines? "He was a boy, and I was a girl. What more do you need to know?" Eichner also laughs at the pseudo-profundity of Taylor's frequent subject/object inversions. "He was a boy; he walked through the door. He was a *door* walking through a *boy*...." ("Hold on to the memories; they will hold on to you.")
Eichner has an observation that could be applied to almost all of Taylor's storytelling, tucked away in the climax of his song: "Looking back, we were young and reckless! Looking back, the whole thing was meaningless!" It seems to me you could insert this in "Nice Things," and it would work well there, additionally. I haven't mentioned Eichner's making out with robots, his Wild West look, his allusions to ice cream, his quietly scathing references to glitter. (And, from the actual Taylor Swift, very recently: "There's glitter on the floor after the party....") If you haven't watched this video, you really must. I'm off for Thanksgiving now. See you next week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqw57Q3eNI
P.S. Note Billy Eichner's great: "He served me a fib with a side of lies!" And the faux-elegiac: "It was THE VERY LAST summer barbecue..." (suggesting the transition from summer to fall, adolescence to adulthood, innocence to experience). And the emphatic: "I've got a heart like a horse, heart like a horse, heart like a heart like a heart like a horse. Never know my heart like my heart knows my heart! Never know my heart like my heart knows...me...." Do you think of: BABY LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN BABY LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN LET THE GAMES BEGIN--?
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