From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V8 #268 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Sunday, November 23 2003 Volume 08 : Number 268 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Tori doing Fake Plastic Trees?? [MaynardsSpiral@aol.com] Censored lyrics? ["Melissa Olges" ] Card Catalog [ChaseTornadoes@aol.com] Re: My Take on Tales [Shaman ] Re: Tori on the Sharon Osbourne Show- Help! [Shaman ] Re: Censored lyrics? [Cyndi S Crawford ] Re: Tori doing Fake Plastic Trees?? [Cyndi S Crawford ] Re: Censored lyrics? ["Johnny Endicott" ] new zealand sunday star-times toal article [ein kleines kinnemuzak Subject: Censored lyrics? Are all the TOAL booklets censored, or did I just get unlucky? (If you haven't noticed yet, take a look at "Professional Widow" and "Precious Things.") ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 03:16:09 EST From: ChaseTornadoes@aol.com Subject: Card Catalog My how stupid and pointless that was, now it has seemed to just disappeared. I agree with the others who said it was stupid from the beginning now :( ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:30:35 -0800 From: Shaman Subject: Re: My Take on Tales On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:27:34 -0800, you wrote: > >At 11:55 PM 11/20/2003, Shaman wrote: > >>P.S. - Are most people paying $14.99? That seems to be the most common price >>around. I know that amazon.com, buy.com, Circuit City, Tower Records, >>etc. were >>all pricing it at that price. > >Best Buy charged me US$11.99 for the CD+DVD. I didn't see how much they >were charging for just the CD. > >/nm Unlike with the Red Hot Chili Peppers I've seen no place selling a non-gatefolded version. I question whether one was even released. Some places are called this a Limited Edition but I have doubts about that claim as well. I couldn't help but notice that the RHCP CD+DVD was $21.99 but the CD only version was only $9.99. P.S. - Their advertisement doesn't even mention Tori's new release but Howie Day IS featured. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:59:49 -0800 From: Shaman Subject: Re: Tori on the Sharon Osbourne Show- Help! On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 03:34:19 EST, you wrote: >I don't keep up with the frickin' Osbournes... so what channel is the Sharon >Osbourne show on? Thanks a million. >Peace Out, >Amanda I think is a syndicated WB show and not a network one but it also appears on WGN which some cable operators carry. It's on in the middle of the day (5PM) here. I get one day off and I've caught it a few times. She's pretty humorous from what I saw. I'd check your local WB affiliate somewhere between 10 AM and 6 PM. You can also just use their web site but it's messed up by 1. Probably because it was done by a "web expert" who doesn't know shit about a database indexes or arrays which start at 0 instead of 1. So the West Virginia schedule appears when Washington state is selected and Virginia will bring up the Washington state schedule, etc. http://sharon.warnerbros.com/showinfo/whenitson.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 15:59:44 GMT From: Cyndi S Crawford Subject: Re: Censored lyrics? >Are all the TOAL booklets censored, or did I just get unlucky?< I got my copy at Walmart.. so I was wondering if it was just Walmart's doing or if everyone's got that problem too. it doesn't seem to be like Tori to have bloody CENSORED lyrics in the booklet.... Sincerely, Cyndi S. Crawford "I know we're dying / and there's no sign of a parachute / we scream in cathedrals / why can't it be beautiful / why does there gotta be a sacrifice?" -- Tori Amos ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 16:01:54 GMT From: Cyndi S Crawford Subject: Re: Tori doing Fake Plastic Trees?? >Someone made an email about this awhile ago...saying they heard it....come on, has anyone found this yet? ive been dreaming about ti since. well if anyone has any good word lemme know< the only instance of Tori and Fake Plastic Trees that I know of is when she appeared on a radio station segment called "what the hell is this" and she played songs of her choice--Fake Plastic Trees being one of them. that's the only one that *I* am aware of, but who knows, she coulda covered it at some point.... Sincerely, Cyndi S. Crawford "I know we're dying / and there's no sign of a parachute / we scream in cathedrals / why can't it be beautiful / why does there gotta be a sacrifice?" -- Tori Amos ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:35:24 -0500 From: fingerpuppets Subject: Re: Card Catalog one time at band camp, ChaseTornadoes@aol.com (ChaseTornadoes@aol.com) said: >My how stupid and pointless that was, now it has seemed to just disappeared. >I agree with the others who said it was stupid from the beginning now :( for what it's worth, the third card, which appeared a day or three ago, can be found at . it was, and still is, linked from the newsring. you know, if they had done something more involved and on a more consistent basis, it could have been a pretty neat idea. ah well.... woj ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 01:30:45 +0000 From: "Johnny Endicott" Subject: Re: Censored lyrics? H* Every*ne, I re*lly c*n't belie*e t*at *ori woul* l*t th*s fucking shit ha**en t* h*r lyri* b**klet. N*, it'* n*t j*st som* fucked up sh*pment t* Wa**Mart, th* sam* piece of crap book*ets, th* censored on*s, w*re shipp*d t* Tow*r Reco*ds al*o. Wh*t th* fuck. You know, Tori talks a pretty big game (and many of you as well...) about how George W and the Republicans are censoring us, i.e. if we challenge the Ashcroft rhetoric or the war du jour or whatever we're being called unpatriotic, when we should be able, nay it should be our RIGHT to say whatever we want to about what's on our minds. What kind of nonsense is this, that I can't read the words "cum" or "shit" or, heaven forfend, "fuck" in a lyric booklet? The first thing that comes to mind is that Tori didn't want to ruin the beautiful cover of TOAL with that horrible PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LYRICS label. You know, the one that that well meaning would-be CENSOR Tipper Gore and her little DEMOCRAT censoring buddies got slapped all over the place like some audio version of the Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs? WARNING: LISTENING TO MUSIC WITH ADULT LYRICS MAY LEAD TO SEX, THINKING AND BLISS. So I did a little research. This is hardly scientific, because I simply don't have the time, but WEA (Warner, Electra Atlantic) was the home to Tori Amos and Prince in 1993. On Prince's 1993 The Hits / B Sides CD the PARENTAL ADVISORY is right there, larger than life. I'm actually pretty sure Prince wants that kind of symbol on his records. It gives him more "street cred" (street credibility - cool with the gangsters and high school kids...). The next year, 1994, brought us Tori's Pretty Good Year, which was fairly "clean". Suggestive, but "clean". Two years later, though, in 1996, Boys For Pele was released with no such logo or warning. As was, in 1998, From The Choirgirl Hotel. Of course Strange Little Girls didn't have printed lyrics, but the LYRICS were still there - "Oh you little sick little fucks". And no warning. Obviously Tori has the power to keep that annoying BIG BROTHER mind control logo (THE DEMOCRATS, PEOPLE, THE DEMOCRATS!!! TIPPER GORE!!!) off of her porch. But it is simply mind blowing that as a 44 year old music consumer I am still seen (BY SOMEBODY) as too young or impressionable to see the word "starfucker" printed (in microscopic typeset yet) in a lyric booklet. Especially since THE SAME COMPANY printed THE SAME LYRICS in a CD booklet seven years earlier. Even more disturbing is the fact that Tori Amos would allow the same kind of censorship that she abhors, LOUDLY, to be applied to her own girls. Trim Your Bush is real cute on a t-shirt. Trim Your Lyrics is frightening and sad. And it reminds me that no matter how loudly someone decries censorship, or lauds the 1st Amendment, selling CDs at Wal-Mart is still more important than practicing what you preach. I think they call that hypocrisy. I pray to God that Tori had no choice in this matter. I also seriously question her judgment, and legitimacy as a spokeswoman for freedom of speech, if she did. Of course the whole point is mute if the government, and we, the people (who supposedly ARE the government), start getting our priorities straight. Marilyn Manson said it best, referring to the Columbine murders, their coverage on CNN et al, censorship, adult entertainment and his music. To paraphrase: "They say that adult entertainment is killing children, when in reality the killing of children is entertaining adults". Oh, by the way, save your breath if you want to start bashing me for saying something against the Democrats. Republicans, Democrats, they both suck if you ask me. L*ve, Johnny - - In response to: >Are all the TOAL booklets censored, or did I just get unlucky?< >>I got my copy at Walmart.. so I was wondering if it was just Walmart's >>doing or if everyone's got >>that problem too. it doesn't seem to be like >>Tori to have bloody CENSORED lyrics in the booklet.... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 22:27:16 -0500 From: ein kleines kinnemuzak Subject: new zealand sunday star-times toal article Welcome to the Tori party 23 November 2003 Her lyrics are impenetrable, her conversation not much different. But there's no denying the earnest charm of Tori Amos, says Grant Smithies. He's a very strange fish, this Tori Amos. Not eccentric, not quirky, but downright weird. To talk to her is to arrive at a dinner party where everyone else is stoned. Words flow freely but they're not nearly as witty or profound as the speaker thinks they are. Cynics say the same thing about her lyrics, especially those on her less lucid recent records, but this North Carolina preacher's daughter sells her piano-driven albums in their millions so they must be making sense to someone. Or maybe not. There is something strangely attractive about the mere sound of her better songs. And she is surely brave. Amos spills her guts, bleeds on your carpet. She has written songs about her own rape, her two miscarriages, her violent relationships, a close friend's suicide, songs condemning Christianity, and songs highlighting the hypocrisy of American foreign policy during a time when so many other singers were biting their tongues. She's also covered some challenging songs by other people, most notably Eminem's "Bonnie and Clyde", a censor-baiting hip-hop ballad in which the bottle-blonde rapper drives to the wharf with his infant daughter, ranting about how he's killed her mother and is going to throw her bloodied corpse into the sea. Amos re-imagines the song from the viewpoint of the woman dying in the car's boot. When discussing her work she assumes you are familiar with every song, every line, but for someone so lost in herself, so completely immersed in her own work and its meaning, she is very likeable. The piano, she tells me, is like one of her limbs. She started playing soon after she could walk and won a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore at age five. There she learned classical music by day and nurtured a burgeoning infatuation with rock'n'roll by night, playing along to Led Zeppelin records when she was supposed to be practising Bach. Amos moved to Los Angeles in her late teens, made a hideous pop-metal album called Y Kant Tori Read for Atlantic in 1988 and, when it failed miserably, drastically reworked her sound, marrying the forthright melodies and (in the beginning) poetically honest lyrics of early Joni Mitchell with the ethereal vocals and impassioned prog-rock piano pummelling of Kate Bush. Next thing you know, 1992 album Little Earthquakes and its 1994 follow-up Under the Pink were on the "must buy" list of sensitive souls everywhere and Amos was on her way to becoming the multi-million selling, multi-home owning (plush home studio in Cornwall, beach house in Florida, Georgian manor in Ireland) jet-setting feminist rock star she is today. Now she's about to release her first ever "best of" album, Tales of a Librarian, rendered indispensable to completists with the inclusion of two new tracks, some "reconditioned versions" of earlier work and an additional DVD of live tracks. "It's a sonic autobiography," says Amos from the Cornwall studio, her speaking voice deep and syrupy in striking contrast to the high coo of her singing. "It came about after some friends and I were discussing how we would have loved to have had a female account of Rome's final days, from the fall of the Roman empire 2000 years ago. I'd really like to have heard what a female songwriter might have written if they'd chronicled that time, that society, those people's thoughts from a woman's point of view. "I started thinking, well, I could do that, as an American woman during a time when many feel America has passed its zenith and fallen so low that those who challenge our political leaders are being vilified as betrayers of our country. And so I chose songs that go back to her as an infant, born in the year JFK was shot, the daughter of a minister and a part-Cherokee woman, and followed her life from there." The "her" in question is, of course, Amos speaking of herself in the third person. Very disconcerting. "I took songs down from the shelves like books from a library," Amos continues. "I wanted to choose songs that would examine different periods in her life without covering the same ground as each other. Which is harder than you think, especially with songs about relationships. Even if a song concerns a different man, it's often the same ground being covered all over again." She laughs at this, a deep velvety chuckle. Before her marriage to sound engineer Mark Hawley in 1998, Amos wrote so many songs about bad relationships you could be excused for thinking she was a masochist. "Some of the men in my songs are exasperating assholes, for sure, but some of the women aren't so great either. The song OCornflake Girl' is about being betrayed by a friend, and OProfessional Widow' is about that same friend going over the edge, reaching that emotional vampire stage, becoming a predator. "I'm really interested in how the world affects women, how women who're brought up in the Christian church are forced to choose between the two Marys, the virgin or the whore." Amos once had a tour T-shirt made for her emblazoned with "Recovering Christian", copies of which have since become de rigueur for fans. "Well, religion has a huge hold on the American psyche. You can't write about America without writing about religion and the kind of mythological archetypes it has put in place for people. I write about women who have survived against that background. If you were to hear this Librarian record in 100 years you'd know this woman is a provider, she is a lioness, a hunter for the tribe. She's not dependent on a man in that way, but she is dependent in other ways. She has fantasies about them. She's deliciously attracted to them, to that dark prince archetype, or if not the dark prince then to all manner of male baby demons." Amos lifts off into deep space at this point, leaving a trail of perplexing verbiage. She lists what she calls the "predominant male archetypes" and illustrates their qualities with lines from a dozen songs. Characters hatch, mate, dissolve, morph into one another. The dark prince, it turns out, is a disguise worn by a white-suited woman who drives an icecream truck. Betcha never saw that coming. "You know, music came to me when I was very little, around two-and-a-half," she says. "It's my first language, something I tap into that has always existed and always will exist. My job is just to connect people to the songs. I'm like a bridge." * Tales of a Librarian is on sale from Friday. The Sunday Star-Times has 10 copies to give away. To enter, write your name, address and phone number on the back of an envelope and send to: Sunday Star-Times Tori Amos Giveaway, PO Box 1074 Auckland, to reach us by Thursday. ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V8 #268 *************************************