Today I got my haircut. One of the tracks that was playing was a weird cover–by a white boy–of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” It felt very, very wrong. I shook my head (well, okay, I kept my head very, very still while the razor was at the nape of my neck, but I imagined shaking it).
But later, as I was going through the photos I took in the UK, pondering a Hild blog post, I came across this (one of those hasty snaps-of-snaps I’ve mentioned). I’m guessing I’m three or four. Clearly planning on going places…
I'm guessing that's an expression you use a lot! Very cute.
OMG.
Love this! Wow. I bet you were quite a handful at age 3. :)
ElaineB, I'll accept cute as a three year-old :)
Jennifer, you're not wrong.
Lovely pic. You look like you definitely have designs on the car. A strong woman in a small. The child is mother of the woman. As they say in Scotland 'guid gear comes in small packages'
That should read in a small 'body'
Georgi, I certainly believed in myself :)
I can tell ;)
nicola: where did hild come from? i recall aud was first a dream but what was the inspiration for hild?
kate
Uh oh! That's what I'd be thinking if I'd seen you as a 3 year old with that expression – after I'd had a chuckle… Wicked tights N, looks like you've been having a lot of fun.
Well, to answer that is whole other blog post. Stay tuned.
I had many adventures in those tights…
I just gotta ask, cause I can't figure it out. Why was the 'weird cover–by a white boy–of Tracy Chapman's “Fast Car.”' very, very wrong?
Mainly because he sings it exactly the same way Chapman does, only in a boy voice, and without any feeling behind it. And it's just empty and weird and wrong.
I'm not even trying to be rational here. That song was one of the first things I heard when I came back from the US, raw and aching with loss, not knowing if I would ever see Kelley again–because we're both women and immigration and everything else, institutionally, was arrayed against us. “Fast Car” is a song about longing–about longing to escape reality and flee to a better situation.
I don't think the singer of the cover knew a thing about poverty, or loss, or oppression, or longing–that or he's a crap artist. But the song felt surreal to me; either an abomination, or the most pitiful fail, depending which ear I listened with.
But, hey, mileage varies.
Ok, got it now. Like bad imitation of the imitations of imitators. Eventually so many miles away that it's a whole other world. Thanks.
Yep. Like a reflection of an echo of a copy of an imitation. Shudder.
Or a Salvador Dali painting come to life.
I've gone off pondering (bad habit), about how original meaning becomes drowned in imitation. I was trying to remember if I had ever read a story about that, but couldn't think of one. But, it made me think of Braveheart – movie-goers leaving the theater imagining themselves an imitation of Mel Gibson imitating William Wallace. Better yet, the Occupy Wall Street participants wearing “John Fox” masks, identifying themselves as a movie imitation of a character. You're right, it is all a head-shaker.
ok. will do.
kate
maybe a little background to the question: it seems to me that “hild” isn't like anything you've written so far (not that i've read all you works…); immersing oneself into 7th century britain is like earning a phd so where on earth did the motivation for something like this come from? it made me speculate: is it some kind of back (i mean, reeeally far back) to the roots thing? human curiosity strikes again!
I'll answer this early next week.