Meanwhile
Okay, so my essay on the intractable double bind of the gay culture of totay is totally in progress, and oh boy will you enjoy it. It will be even better than my classic essay "Scooby Doo Made Me a Musicologist." You will be totally stimulated, intrigued, or enraged. Or not. But either way, not today. (It is not, actually, in progress, either...but I've been, um, thinking about it.)
On Saturday we had a fun house event—one of my housemates made dinner, then all four of us sat in the living room and watched the broadcast of the Kylie Minogue concert, recorded live in London last week. It was fascinating, mostly because all three of my housemates knew all the words to all the songs, including songs that I'm pretty sure I have never heard in my life. It is impossibly to communicate how big Kylie is here, and instructive to consider why she hasn't (and I would argue couldn't) become a huge star in the US. My thoughts on this matter are ill-formed, but it has something to do with the fact that Kylie, while a superstar, is actually not a huge personality. In a way, she is very blank as a public figure. This is not a contradiction in the UK, as I believe it would be in the US.
(Incidentally, the concert was kind of bad... sort of cheap-looking, with attempts at grand spectacle that just fell flat. There were some good dresses, though)
We all got really drunk, and we ate a few hallucinogenic mushrooms. Have I mentioned that shrooms are legal here? You can buy them in just about any store in Camden. Seriously, like, even shoe stores sell them. This is due to some legal loophole which made dried or processed mushrooms illegal, but left fresh ones unregulated. The loophole is in the process of being closed, however, so by July (or thereabouts) shrooms will be "schedule A" along with crack and heroin. People who make drug policy are so smart!
By the way, the shrooms were really weak—I got a little giggly and confused, and felt as if the sofa had become very large, but that's about it. While I was drunk, I wrote a long-ish email to a complete stranger explaining my thoughts on the fact that my constituency, historically represented by Labour, has been taken over by the cute-as-a-button LibDems. The next morning I was surprised to discover the email in question was both coherent and mostly free from spelling errors. Wonders never cease!
I'm going to Paris on Wednesday. For no good reason at all. I can't actually afford it, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm more than a little embarrassed about this. Oh and I'm coming to New York in July. And Oxford tomorrow. And I'm reading a paper at the IHR in a week. Ah, hectic-go-go-nonstop-jet-set lifestyle!
On Saturday we had a fun house event—one of my housemates made dinner, then all four of us sat in the living room and watched the broadcast of the Kylie Minogue concert, recorded live in London last week. It was fascinating, mostly because all three of my housemates knew all the words to all the songs, including songs that I'm pretty sure I have never heard in my life. It is impossibly to communicate how big Kylie is here, and instructive to consider why she hasn't (and I would argue couldn't) become a huge star in the US. My thoughts on this matter are ill-formed, but it has something to do with the fact that Kylie, while a superstar, is actually not a huge personality. In a way, she is very blank as a public figure. This is not a contradiction in the UK, as I believe it would be in the US.
(Incidentally, the concert was kind of bad... sort of cheap-looking, with attempts at grand spectacle that just fell flat. There were some good dresses, though)
We all got really drunk, and we ate a few hallucinogenic mushrooms. Have I mentioned that shrooms are legal here? You can buy them in just about any store in Camden. Seriously, like, even shoe stores sell them. This is due to some legal loophole which made dried or processed mushrooms illegal, but left fresh ones unregulated. The loophole is in the process of being closed, however, so by July (or thereabouts) shrooms will be "schedule A" along with crack and heroin. People who make drug policy are so smart!
By the way, the shrooms were really weak—I got a little giggly and confused, and felt as if the sofa had become very large, but that's about it. While I was drunk, I wrote a long-ish email to a complete stranger explaining my thoughts on the fact that my constituency, historically represented by Labour, has been taken over by the cute-as-a-button LibDems. The next morning I was surprised to discover the email in question was both coherent and mostly free from spelling errors. Wonders never cease!
I'm going to Paris on Wednesday. For no good reason at all. I can't actually afford it, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm more than a little embarrassed about this. Oh and I'm coming to New York in July. And Oxford tomorrow. And I'm reading a paper at the IHR in a week. Ah, hectic-go-go-nonstop-jet-set lifestyle!
posted by Grrg at 10:45 PM
6 Comments:
FYI: I think there's a big Kylie following in the Tokyo-area/Japanese gay population... at least, it seems that way. And obviously she's big in Australia.
Just so you know, your site comes up under the Adult/Sex category on my work's web filter so I can't read your blog at work. Disaster! I guess your blog is too smutty and dirty! Ha!
Woah! Really? Censorship! I suppose I should change the title to "...young American H******ual Musicologist..."
But I won't.
No, just change it to "heterosexual" and it'll come through.
Hey can we get the Scooby Doo essay? That one sounds fun, too.
G
But surely there must be some pop superstars in the US who aren't terribly endowed-personality wise? Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson spring to mind...
And isn't Kylie big here partly because she was in an Australian soap for so many years that everyone heard of her, whereas Neighbours wasn't big in the States?
Interesting points. I'll give you Janet Jackson, but I must reject the notion that Whitney "I make too much money to smoke crack!" Houston is anything less that supersized, in her fashion.
The Neighbors thing, however, while it might explain why she became famous in the first place, plays a more complicated role in her current fame. In fact, a radical disjuntion between "Old Kylie" (soap-star pop princess) and "New Kylie" (haute-couture dance diva) is freqently invoked.
PS - "Neighbors" is so fucked up. I don't think I'll ever get it.
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