December 14, 2007

"It's a privilege to sit in the front row. I reserve those seats for people who appreciate music. Get the f--- out!"

Watch Tori Amos kick two girls out of her show. And they deserve it. I love the way the way they hunch over as they experience The Expulsion.

It's so:

31 comments:

Revenant said...

Hooray for Tori. :)

Mortimer Brezny said...

I used to like Tori Amos until I realized every song she wrote was about rape.

Mortimer Brezny said...

Like as a musician.

rhhardin said...

Concerts are much too long anyway.

MadisonMan said...

Mortimer: I am LOL. You mean you didn't used to date her?

That was mean. I apologize.

I'm just picturing you realizing what your first comment said before the qualifier. I'm not sure why this strikes me as funny.

ricpic said...

Adam and Eve when expelled from Eden
Paid bitterly for their sin.
Ejected from her chaos by a dreck musician?
Reprieve from din.

Simon said...

I used to love Tori Amos back when I was a teenager, and I still love those first three records, but her output since BFP - her last genuinely great album - has been very, very patchy and she comes across as someone who did too many drugs, too much trauma, and burned out way to fast.

Clang!Honk!Tweet! said...

Frank Zappa once threw me out of one of his concerts.

"Hey, asshole! Yes, you! Get down from there! (sotto voce to security): Get him outta here."

Well, I was shimmying on top of an air conditioning duct near the ceiling, but it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do, given my (chemically altered) state of mind.

Simon said...

Not to usurp Ruth Anne's job, but somewhere out there, there's almost certainly a bootleg of Tori Amos singing an improv about the instant predicament of one of our hostess' sons. Now there's a challenge for Althouse completists!

EdOlson said...

That's what killed Dennis Day -- contempt for the audience.

DBrooks17 said...

"I used to like Tori Amos until I realized every song she wrote was about rape."

She's just a little bit too "precious" and affected for me.

J. Cricket said...

Once again, I am so happy to acknowledge that what you do has nothing to do with what I do! Nothing. Thank God.

Trooper York said...

Now refresh my memory. Was she the one that caused all that trouble by making a sandwich with Jason Kidd and Jamal Mashburn when they were with the Mavericks? Or was that Toni Braxton? I always get them confused.

john said...

Legal Scholarship -

OK, did anyone really think you gave solo concerts and had a drug problem? You do seem to fly off the handle, so there are at least a few things in common.

Revenant said...

That was Toni Braxton. :)

hdhouse said...

Leonard Slatkin was conducting the National Symphony in Carnagie Hall about 6-7 years ago and a very irritating couple had a good conversation going in about the 3rd row. Just before the last movement of (I can't remember the piece but Beethoven I think)the symphony the woman's cell phone went off. Everyone looked at her, mad at her anyway for her talking, and she just didn't move. Finally Slatkin turned around and said "Madame if I answer that for you should I tell them you are busy talking and will call back"?

Jennifer said...

Were they talking on the phone? A lot of people like to give "concert calls" to their friends who can't make it to a show. Just to let them hear a bit of the show...

Trooper York said...

Thanks Rev. Now if you can just tell me how to tell the differance between Hillary and Azkadellia on Tin Man, I think I will have it figured out.

JohnAnnArbor said...

Must not have been Cornflake Girls...

Simon said...

Trooper York said...
"Thanks Rev. Now if you can just tell me how to tell the differance between Hillary and Azkadellia on Tin Man, I think I will have it figured out."

Oh, that's easy: Hillary's the one with more sex appeal.

Simon said...

JohnAnnArbor said...
"Must not have been Cornflake Girls..."

I've never understood how it is that so many people miss that the very first line of that song announces that Amos "never was a cornflake girl." Indeed, I'd say there's a pretty good chance Amos thought they were acting exactly like cornflake girls, and booted them out to allow some raisin girls to take their place.

Of course, the irony to that song is that Amos has suggested in interviews that raisin girls are multicultural, open-minded, tolerant (and presumably liberal) people, while cornflake girls are judgmental and self righteous. Which is funny because she also acknowledges writing the song in horrified reaction to a book about female circumcision - a reaction that only a cornflake girl could have. A raisin girl couldn't react thusly; a raisin girl would have to take the same position JohnTaylor88 does, which is to tolerate and respect this other culture instead of being judgmental about it, to be careful not to impose our own self-righteous conceptions of right and wrong on them. Only a cornflake girl could puff herself up with moral outrage and say "f*ck this other culture, this is violence against women and f*ck those who defend it." It's the raisin girls who are the enablers and defenders of leaving other cultures to themselves. So it's a glorious piece of pop music, but to engage with it seriously it to leave it in tatters, intellectually.

Mortimer Brezny said...

I'm just picturing you realizing what your first comment said before the qualifier. I'm not sure why this strikes me as funny.

Well, it was a purposefully set-up joke, so thanks. I'm not sure why your comment would be mean; I've dated prettier redheads than Tori Amos. Though not as talented. I haven't much dated talented women, which maybe is the problem, now that I think about it.

Only a cornflake girl could puff herself up with moral outrage and say "f*ck this other culture, this is violence against women and f*ck those who defend it." It's the raisin girls who are the enablers and defenders of leaving other cultures to themselves. So it's a glorious piece of pop music, but to engage with it seriously it to leave it in tatters, intellectually.

I know you want me to step up and defend female circumscision. But I don't defend female circumscision.

I will just say that female circumscision is usually done by women to women, and when mothers try to break the cycle, daughters are kidnapped by aunts and female cousins and taken to grandmothers who perform the ritual. So it's not a patriarchal ritual; it's a matriarchal one. And it is often of more recent vintage than is claimed (i.e., it very often isn't really a long-standing tradition, but rather newfangled mumbojumbo).

Given the above, the ideal person to defend female circumscision would be a woman who willingly underwent a superficial genital cutting (leaving the clitoris intact, but slicing the clitoral hood, which inhibits sexual pleasure when too thick, anyway). I don't think any of your arguments work against her, and against her reduce to little more than xenophobic paternalism.

DaLawGiver said...

Azkadellia had flying monkey's tattooed on her chest while Hillary has a tattoo of ............


What would Hillary have a tattoo of anyway?

Trooper York said...

I think she has Chairman Mao and a Bengal Tiger. Or that could be Mike Tyson. I always mix them up. They have the same laugh.

Simon said...

Lawgiver said...
"What would Hillary have a tattoo of anyway?"

A queen bee.

Mort/John said...
"I know you want me to step up and defend female circumscision. But I don't defend female circumscision."

Then condemn it, John. I won't hold my breath on that, though, because you've previously counselled us to tolerate (and yet more offensively, respect) cultures that practice unspeakable violence against women on the basis of multiculturalist moral relativist dogma. My favorite religious-themed joke has to do with an atheist who dies, and (doubtless surprised to discover he was wrong) asks God, "why do you tolerate so much evil in the world?" God replies, "why did you?" You can pat yourself on the back at how sophisticated and open-minded this makes you, like a good raisin girl should, but as far as I'm concerned, on a moral level, if you won't condemn such violence against women, you wouldn't be much more guilty if you wielded the knife yourself. Good luck convincing St. Peter to take a different view.

"[Y]our arguments ... reduce to little more than xenophobic paternalism."

Translation: "you cornflake girl, you!" Fine by me.

Mortimer Brezny said...

Then condemn it, John. I won't hold my breath on that, though, because you've previously counselled us to tolerate (and yet more offensively, respect) cultures that practice unspeakable violence against women on the basis of multiculturalist moral relativist dogma.

Actually, I never said "One should respect cultures that practice unspeakable violence against women on the basis of multiculturalist moral relativist dogma". I do recollect calling you a paternalistic bigot for insisting a Harvard-educated Iraqi female politician was stupid for thinking polygamy might have benefit for the women of her nation, given its shortage of young men. I don't see what a woman advocating for polygamy has to do with violence against women, nor do I think polygamy necessarily is incompatible with our common-law: Uganda was a British colony and has plenty of applications of English common law to property disputes regarding polygamy. So to be as tolerant as I am, I need not be a multiculturist or relativist, either.

As for your logic, I'm not a binary thinker. There is no "condone or condemn" to the irreducibly complex argument that I made. Women carry out female circumscision, in many cases the practice is voluntary, and in some forms it isn't genital mutilation, but rather less painful and potentially harmful than a clit piercing (i.e., just slicing of the clitoral hood). I don't see what there is to condemn about a woman choosing to pierce her clit, so I certainly don't see what there is to condemn about a woman choosing to cut her clitoral hood.

If I were to do that, I imagine I would condemn every woman wearing a pair of earrings as a shameless whore whose soul has escaped her body. Which would make me a sexist, self-righteous prick.

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reader_iam said...

I have realized that this thread has gone far enough afield that my comments (in relation mostly to the post itself, and some of the earlier comments) are out of place, and could even be interpreted as really inappropriate.

Eh, no great loss, anyway.