OK, I have to say some things about Taylor Swift now. For a while, I dismissed "Gorgeous." I dismissed it because it didn't have emotional oomph. Also, the NYTimes said it "starts promising but runs out of ideas." I think I haven't given it its due. Just a few things to notice. As usual, it's a song about ambivalence. The boys in the song are less important than the idea of a Divided Self; this is TS's bread and butter; like Chekhov, TS recognizes that ambivalence is the universal human condition. So: TS is "so happy, it turns back to sad"; TS notes there's nothing she hates more than "what I can't have." ("Wondering if I just dodged a bullet or just lost the love of my life." "And I wish I could run to you; and every time I don't, I almost do.")
To me, the nicest moments are classic Taylor-the-Student-of-Human-Behavior snippets. So, the young lady is so disturbed by her surge of feelings, she notes, "I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk." (And you should "take it as a compliment.") Also: Take it as a compliment that "I'm talking to everyone here but you." How the surface can suggest something different from what's actually happening: You see that also when Taylor is in her room, "it's a typical Tuesday night," but really she's "dreaming about the day when you'll wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time."
I'm also fond of: "He's in the club doing I don't know what." Details reveal character: The speaker's lack of knowledge speaks volumes. And that's deliberate. And the bemused, lovelorn Taylor interrupting herself: "I can't say anything to your face -- cuz look at your face!" (Form underlines content: Taylor, at war with herself, cuts herself off; she veers toward face-adoration a moment after willing herself away from said face.) And? If Taylor doesn't bed the stranger, she'll go home to her "cats"--a thought that provokes an audible shudder from her. It's all we need to know about her current relationship. (And this bit of self-mockery is immensely charming, at least for one listener, in a late-career John Wayne style; it's like TS enlisting a chorus of friends to ask, "Ugh, who's Taylor Swift, anyway?")
The song builds to a smart climax: TS propositions her new gentleman friend. And we're left to wonder what happens. Is this Shakespeare? No. But there's some braininess here. Lest we forget.
***
Here’s the start of Lorrie Moore’s “Dance in America”--
I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. I tell them it’s the body’s reaching, bringing air to itself. I tell them that that it’s the heart’s triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It’s life flipping death the bird.
I make this stuff up. But then I feel the stray voltage of my rented charisma, hear the jerry-rigged authority in my voice, and I, too, believe. I’m convinced. The troupe dismantled, the choreography commissions dwindling, my body harder to make limber, to make go, I have come here for two weeks--to Pennsylvania Dutch country, as a “Dancer in the Schools.” I visit classes, at colleges and elementary schools, spreading Dance’s holy word. My head fills with my own yack. What interior life has accrued in me is depleted fast, emptied out my mouth, as I stand before audiences, answering their fearful, forbidding GERMAN questions about art and my “whorish dances” (the thrusted hip, the sudden bump and grind before an ATTITUDE). They ask why everything I make seems so “feministic.”
'I think the word is “feministical,”' I say. I’ve grown tired. I’ve burned down my life for a few good pieces, and now this.
Lorrie Moore likes poking fun at pretentious language, and “feministic” does seem to be an adjective you might hear in a hostile school environment. (Moore is also obsessed with the adverb in the question, “Where are you from--originally?”) She’s writing about dance here, but really she’s writing about writing. Writing grows out of the intersection of boredom and hurt. Moore doesn’t put a great deal of weight on the virtues of hard, hard work; she might not do well in front of an American high school classroom. Moore believes stories come from talent and inspiration.
This is a journey story, and part of the fun is the weirdness of the journey. It’s not a hero slaying dragons, or Boy Meets Girl. It’s a jaded unhappy dance instructor going off to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, trying to promote dance among the Amish. The main tension is between the speaker’s jadedness and the speaker’s genuine belief in something transcendent, some great potential in art. In one breath, she’s describing “life flipping death the bird” (an important phrase, memorable later on when the speaker begins to tell about the death of a child); at a later moment, the speaker is tired of her own “yack.” Elsewhere, Moore writes about a certain outfit: “It was both spectacular and tacky, like so many other things made by humans.” This is Moore’s own special view of the world.
Recently, someone I know asked a third party, “If you were a book, which book would you be?” I think I would be Lorrie Moore’s “Birds of America”--and “Dance in America” is only one reason why. Life is so often undignified, and in paying exquisite attention to messiness, Moore restores some dignity to the proceedings. Her upcoming (first) book of non-fiction will be called “See What Can Be Done.” I’m so excited for it.
To me, the nicest moments are classic Taylor-the-Student-of-Human-Behavior snippets. So, the young lady is so disturbed by her surge of feelings, she notes, "I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk." (And you should "take it as a compliment.") Also: Take it as a compliment that "I'm talking to everyone here but you." How the surface can suggest something different from what's actually happening: You see that also when Taylor is in her room, "it's a typical Tuesday night," but really she's "dreaming about the day when you'll wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time."
I'm also fond of: "He's in the club doing I don't know what." Details reveal character: The speaker's lack of knowledge speaks volumes. And that's deliberate. And the bemused, lovelorn Taylor interrupting herself: "I can't say anything to your face -- cuz look at your face!" (Form underlines content: Taylor, at war with herself, cuts herself off; she veers toward face-adoration a moment after willing herself away from said face.) And? If Taylor doesn't bed the stranger, she'll go home to her "cats"--a thought that provokes an audible shudder from her. It's all we need to know about her current relationship. (And this bit of self-mockery is immensely charming, at least for one listener, in a late-career John Wayne style; it's like TS enlisting a chorus of friends to ask, "Ugh, who's Taylor Swift, anyway?")
The song builds to a smart climax: TS propositions her new gentleman friend. And we're left to wonder what happens. Is this Shakespeare? No. But there's some braininess here. Lest we forget.
***
Here’s the start of Lorrie Moore’s “Dance in America”--
I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. I tell them it’s the body’s reaching, bringing air to itself. I tell them that that it’s the heart’s triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It’s life flipping death the bird.
I make this stuff up. But then I feel the stray voltage of my rented charisma, hear the jerry-rigged authority in my voice, and I, too, believe. I’m convinced. The troupe dismantled, the choreography commissions dwindling, my body harder to make limber, to make go, I have come here for two weeks--to Pennsylvania Dutch country, as a “Dancer in the Schools.” I visit classes, at colleges and elementary schools, spreading Dance’s holy word. My head fills with my own yack. What interior life has accrued in me is depleted fast, emptied out my mouth, as I stand before audiences, answering their fearful, forbidding GERMAN questions about art and my “whorish dances” (the thrusted hip, the sudden bump and grind before an ATTITUDE). They ask why everything I make seems so “feministic.”
'I think the word is “feministical,”' I say. I’ve grown tired. I’ve burned down my life for a few good pieces, and now this.
Lorrie Moore likes poking fun at pretentious language, and “feministic” does seem to be an adjective you might hear in a hostile school environment. (Moore is also obsessed with the adverb in the question, “Where are you from--originally?”) She’s writing about dance here, but really she’s writing about writing. Writing grows out of the intersection of boredom and hurt. Moore doesn’t put a great deal of weight on the virtues of hard, hard work; she might not do well in front of an American high school classroom. Moore believes stories come from talent and inspiration.
This is a journey story, and part of the fun is the weirdness of the journey. It’s not a hero slaying dragons, or Boy Meets Girl. It’s a jaded unhappy dance instructor going off to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, trying to promote dance among the Amish. The main tension is between the speaker’s jadedness and the speaker’s genuine belief in something transcendent, some great potential in art. In one breath, she’s describing “life flipping death the bird” (an important phrase, memorable later on when the speaker begins to tell about the death of a child); at a later moment, the speaker is tired of her own “yack.” Elsewhere, Moore writes about a certain outfit: “It was both spectacular and tacky, like so many other things made by humans.” This is Moore’s own special view of the world.
Recently, someone I know asked a third party, “If you were a book, which book would you be?” I think I would be Lorrie Moore’s “Birds of America”--and “Dance in America” is only one reason why. Life is so often undignified, and in paying exquisite attention to messiness, Moore restores some dignity to the proceedings. Her upcoming (first) book of non-fiction will be called “See What Can Be Done.” I’m so excited for it.
Comments
Post a Comment