Petrosinella, Rapunzel, and Tangled: Princesses and the Other, Part 1

otherwise known as: 

My Obsession with Tangled: Part One of Infinity

"And the walls that surround her, and hold her back, are symbolic of walls in anyone's life, those things that hold us back from being who we really long to be. Yes, that is feminist and masculinist and humanist."

- Glen Keane, Executive Producer of "Tangled" and Directing Animator of Rapunzel

In this series, I won't only be discussing Disney's adaptation of Rapunzel, "Tangled."  However it was the teaser trailer that inspired me to look up older adaptations and the origins of the tale in general.

Petrosinella Diane Stanley

Rapunzel Trina Schart-Hyman

Disney's Tangled

- In fact directly after seeing the Tangled teaser trailer a google search lead me to watch my first Barbie movie, Mattel's "Barbie as Rapunzel" - so you see how avid I was to find something to get my Rapunzel fix!

  Anyhow, I figure I'll start by telling you how I became fascinated with Rapunzel/Lady in the Tower tales through the release of "Tangled" in 2010, an hopefully you'll become fascinated along with me!

My freshman year in the usual generic way I was asked to write an essay entitles "An Event that Changed Me."  I felt like I'd underwent much change but could not pinpoint any particular "event."  The following was my first draft.  It was trashed because my teacher did not accept a movie as an event.  Anyhow, it is a good introduction to my love affair with the movie, and after this I will elaborate on the feminist themes I touch on here.

The language is especially fanatic here, don't let that scare you.  I was feeling poetic I guess so I flew off the handle.  Don't worry - I am capable of discussing the faults of the movie, and I'm not starting a cult surrounding it any time soon.  I do however like its themes involving women and the human condition, so I thought this especially colorful intro would be nice.  Here goes:

An Event That Changed Me

Normally it would seem frivolous to name a movie as an event capable of changing someone’s life, but even the severest critic knows the impression the Disney© Company has left on the entire world’s culture; and as a member of the world I have been influenced as well.  When the first teaser trailer for Disney’s adaptation of the Rapunzel fairy tale “Tangled” came out, something hit me; something fantastic, infectious: I had to know everything about it.

The energy, the tactile promise of the hair itself, the possibilities of what such a company was to do with the first CGI fairy tale musical ever let alone my second favorite fairy tale – it lit something up inside me, and I haven’t gotten over it since.

It served as a catalyst that called for action, called for questioning all the concepts that intrigued me, called for me to face various conflicts in my life and provided a lens through which to understand myself more and more.  It begged the eternal balance between the relevance and weight between “to do” and “to be.”



My reader might ask whether I am superimposing something that isn’t there on a simple film; and I would say they are both right and wrong.   The film’s unusual artistry and detail, coupled with its outstanding relevance to me at this time in my life and development, caused a level of involvement, expression, and enthusiasm that can even be described as articulate yet boundless.  You might say it changed me so much because it was already so much a part of me.  Self-awareness and exploration is change too.



It started innocently enough; when the teaser trailer came out, and the bright colors, detailed CGI cloth and hair design, and the smart-ass chameleon hit my eyes I decided to do some research, find out more about it.

I have since collected article after article, filled 2 DVDs with information and videos about its development, merchandizing, face characters, technological publications, and staff, and bought “The Art of Tangled,” the only book so far released discussing the behind-the-scenes decisions and art direction.

So far I have as much as 17 GB total of information not to mention my compilation of concept art, advertising, and other Tangled-related imagery currently adding up to about 2.29 GB (5,350 photos).  Even if these figures are a mystery to a layman’s ear, be assured I haven’t managed to read as fast as I’ve been collecting!  I am a person who likes to delve to the very depths of meaning and form and an animated feature is so complicated in the necessary planning and labor involved that there can be no end to the treasures I can find.

With Disney specifically however, all decisions must have thorough research behind them (John Lasseter stresses this in all interviews, and it does appear to be true to some extent); for example, the very shape and contour of a street-cart that only appears on the screen for thirty seconds must first have been decided from a thorough research on different street-cart designs from across history and across the world, as well as with the shape themes found in certain genres of animated films and the specific shape themes chosen for this particular movie (this is a random example of course - but I can tell you for certain they researched in a like manner for animating the aging Mother Gothel).

Being the first CGI film with hair as such a main plot point, all new technology was needed to create realistic hair – but it also had to be stylized, for just as an actress in a movie could not physically hold up so much hair, neither can an animated character – so a stylistic physical world had to be created – the very laws of physics changed, both for immediate simulation and for artistic manipulation at an animator’s convenience.  I’ve always loved physics – though I am by no means naturally gifted in the field – but it was Tangled that made me realize just about anything one is inclined to like can be applied to a work, an opus, a vision.  Such a marriage of process and artistry is in my mind the very essence of life.

Tangled specifically also mirrors the long history of the Disney company, for even dating back to the days of the founder, Walt Disney (with whom I happen to share a Birthday) an adaptation of the Rapunzel story was in development – and saw trials and errors, attempts and failures, all documented in a library, creating a wealth of ideas to draw from; and it is often proudly advertised by Disney that their greatest treasures lie in their past mistakes.  The challenge with the Rapunzel story also mirrored the challenge of life in the sense that the problem always went back to the enclosing and limiting space of the one room the fairy tale Rapunzel is necessarily trapped in.

Can fiction – and, by implication, thought, action, interesting and incentivized life – take place in an enclosed space?  Which – if interpreted metaphysically – could be seen as the human condition’s earth and mortality itself?

These concepts were also layered within the story – not just with the original fairy tale, and the implications of what they could do with it, which was the subject of my constant musings before it came out in theaters – but also with the movie itself, which once it was out in theaters I saw ten times.  – But I’m getting ahead of myself.  After that first trailer, I experienced a whole lifetime of change even before the movie came out!  In particular, the idea of contained then released energy – the “imprisoned” girl, her hair almost representing a compressed spring, and then the release, the liberation.

In the Grimm version the release is first banishment, but the ending is very clear – she was once in a tower, defined by a tower, and now she is out of the tower, and it no longer defines her.  Very identifiable for a 20 year old girl who chose to take two years between high school and college, spending a lot of time about books in her room – not looking out the window perhaps, but looking out into the internet – to the potential of thought and expression.

This image of the girl looking out the window in a sort of wistfulness for the unknown – not just the “Manifest Destiny” concept of literally exploring the rolling hills leading to the horizon – but in constantly wanting to find more, earn more, do more; the hunger born in everyone’s soul.  Conversely, the idea of Rapunzel – her riches in seclusion (for the dim prison of the Grimm story is not accurate to the gilded “cage” of the original story, “Petrosinella”) – coupled with Disney’s Rapunzel – the ultimate expresser, painting the walls “to make them disappear” as Glen Keane, the head of her animation, said – she HAS to express herself.

As Glen Keane also said, “Even her hair is growing" to an extreme length symbolizing all she can and wants to be – attracts a very alluring concept of an private, isolated, and permanent home, a pedestal, the wish to in fact never “escape” – as Freud would put it, the wish to retreat back into the mother’s womb.  But Rapunzel in many versions does the exact opposite, doesn't she?  She becomes a mother herself.

Mother Gothel discovers Rapunzel's Pregnancy
(because her dress becomes too tight)

Rapunzel Paul O. Zelinsky

Nevertheless I knew such feelings must be fleeting, for both heroines got sick of their beloved privacy and broke free, risking everything for the chance to share their world with someone else. And surely I would do the same.  Such thoughts and images feverishly fleeted though my mind as I googled and read forums and papers and interviews and theories, all attached to what some would simple-mindedly call a simple film; or even, a conventional, pandering propaganda machine.

Even such an accusation as I have just made calls to mind the stubborn quest for the idyllic – controversy – denial – debate – hope – failure – independence.  I confess in my exponentially growing obsession I lost much sleep and saw much less people for a while in the contemplation of these terms and the study of these concepts; but Tangled also made me a more involved person.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget too, the Rapunzel Tale starts with a girl - I don't know of one that starts with a princess.  A girl destined to be a princess, of course, but not a girl who was born to be a princess, or knows herself to be one, or to even be destined to be one.  Yes, in the Disney version, possibly to stress her arrested potential, they have Rapunzel a born princess, ignorant of her birthright.  But the truth of the tale remains the same: the tale starts with a girl, just some girl, usually a very common, if beautiful, girl.  In all interviews the Directors and Animators and Developers of Tangled's Rapunzel stress they designed her to be more of a "girl next door," a girl you could imagine meeting, even being - not a distant princess archetype.  So you see this old fairy tale has a very immediate, earthy sense to it.  I'll be exploring that a bit more as well, - if all goes well.  It's a meeting of opposites: the humble girl and the crown.

I'll leave you with those thoughts for now.

Here's A taste of the blog entry to come -

Part 2: Rapunzel Film Adaptations Before Disney Gave it a Go

My Life = The Little Mermaid, Part One

Mermaids and Blogs and Feminism: they are the same

...otherwise known as: a History of the Creation and Development of this blog

The following was my College Common App Personal Essay.  I post it here to hopefully make more clear how I see mermaids, feminism, and blogging to be especially related and relevant to me at this time, and hopefully it will make clear why it would be interesting for you to read my opinions.  

Here Goes:

Everyone has a favorite story since they were little, a story that is almost an image, that inspires them and drives them forward, acting as a lens through which they actualize their ambitions: for some it is “The Little Engine that Could,” for others it is “Leo the Late Bloomer,” or even “St. George and the Dragon;” for me, it was “The Little Mermaid”.  For me, the fable’s secret world and unshakeable desire first introduced the concept of dreams creating purpose; the mixing of species and elements has cultivated the bridging of apparently disparate worlds as a constant point of fascination.   

During my time between high school and college, I’ve been involved in substantial  self‐reflection, thinking a lot about independence, identity and soul; and naturally  

“The Little Mermaid” constantly came to mind.   It is such a time-honored and beloved story, yet there is little organized research dedicated to it: the poignant tale of a fish longing for legs is, like its protagonist, without a firm grip on land.  I have been exploring new and different media myself, not only between water and earth but also within the technological world; a mystery to me when I graduated high school two years ago. 

It started when my best friend who had moved away suggested we both start a blog.  As I began to consider my blog’s theme, I remembered that almost every one of my essays in high school, despite the assigned topic, came back to feminism.  I have always been fascinated that such a well-worn topic could still be so new and ambiguously defined. After choosing feminism as the topic of my blog, I began a serious love affair with detail.   

I often chose to cover animation of females; studying frame-by-frame face changes of early Disney princesses was hard work, so I chose to make a video zipping through my thousands of screen captures.  Soon I was adding music, or changing the speed of the flipping images, to encourage themes of thought in my audience.  As my technological standards got higher, I adapted by learning new skills and using new programs.   

Soon I graduated to working with clips instead of images.  The cutting and re- arranging of film with a certain aesthetic in mind so reminded me of the collages I love to make, that I began to call my videos “clip collages.”  One has reached over 80,000 views on YouTube© over the past four months.  These were intended to complement textual analysis on the blog. I prefer a multi-disciplinary approach – science and art, math and history – to fully understand and appreciate what surrounds me.  If we can as skilled mathematicians see the art in golden ratios and theorems and as experienced artists appreciate the chemistry of the artist’s brush stroke, the possibilities of all measurements of reality working together are mind-blowing.  I have tried to bring this multi-lens view into all my evaluations and interpretations; therefore, multi-media analysis was the next natural step.  

As I began to embed videos on my blog, my own creations as well as clips from movies and documentaries, I was often faced with technical problems and soon found that to make my blog the way I wanted, I’d have to learn HTML.  If essay writing is a balance of form and function, I was learning that web coding was a well-defined balance of HTML and CSS.  I learned the history of web-site construction.  Initially it was just data tables for scientists who didn’t care about appearance.  Soon social, commercial, and educational purposes were discovered, and attempts to change HTML to compensate turned (literally) ugly, necessitating the invention and inclusion of CSS and a purified HTML, a new revolution still in motion.   

Learning the history of web coding in my online beginner’s course was like learning a microcosm of the history of the world.  Although not religious, I found something oddly Buddhist about it, these lessons in process that spread across all different genres and disciplines.  Inspired, I began implementing these concepts into my cello teaching,  - this balance and concomitance of the technical and the “emotional” – which any musician will tell you, defines music.  

 As I worked through my HTML and CSS beginners’ course, I developed a habit of reading the source code of every website I came across.  The minute structural and artistic decisions used to decorate or facilitate the websites through a profession so new and uncharted drew me further into the purpose of my blog:  the giving, analyzing, and presenting of data and thought.  I began to learn – both through the web course and through trial and error – to promote my blog more professionally.  

This all may seem like a far cry from a fairy tale about a half-fish out of water written nearly two hundred years ago. The more specialized my skills and research became in the online tech-world, the more I delved into fairy tale influences on culture over the ages, especially in film adaptation. 

The history of The Little Mermaid, though extremely small in comparison to the history of other fairy tales, is very rich with adaptations, cultural influences, and historical landmarks.   Comparing what different film adaptations did with the same story became an addictive new hobby, so I began collecting anything I could find. As my search became international, I learned more technological skills I never knew were within my grasp; .srt subtitle coding, for example.  Every turn brought something new.  This was a rewarding and relevant tale that spoke to the urges of the “other” - the land beyond reach, the possibilities of change - to the very skills and pursuits, the web-coding, the cello teaching, the film editing, the film and cultural history, that attracted me in the first place.   

One of my dreams is to make a website that focuses on all the facets of the story of the Little Mermaid; film, literature, followings, imagery.  Such a website does not exist.  This idea started when people from across the world, most recently Spain, the Philippines, and Mexico, saw my clip collages online and contacted me asking for obscure background information, or to find a version they remember from childhood. 

It is such a thrilling thought that in actuality I am helping people who are intellectually thirsty about the same things as I; it surprises me that someone so unfinished in her schooling can start something new and build on something old in order to better inform, intrigue, and amuse a willing audience.  I thought the only unexplored “new worlds” were the research of smallest unit of the atom or some sort of Lewis and Clark venture; but now I know that I can break bonds and build beginnings throughout my schooling by following my passions as I have in the last two years.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Father's Day Loudon Wainwright III Style with Fairy Tales on the Side

"But I think that people - people are - are still heroes. There's something still heroic about - about failure. That's why I love it so much." - Loudon Wainwright III

More than a Month's gone by, but it feels like

FOR-

EVER

(which, coincidentally, is what reading this entry will feel like... haha... no seriously keep reading - I manage to compare Loudon Wainwright III with Rapunzel! Ah-ha! NOW I've got your attention...)

God I've missed this. HI!!!!!!!!!! And Happy Father's Day.

I have decided to commemorate Father's Day through the raw genuineness of Loudon Wainwright III. I was at the bank several weeks ago and saw a flyer saying Loudon Wainwright was to play at SOPAC. I screamed all the way home.

I was there, June 4th, a Friday, with my dad and sister, and saw Loudon Wainwright in PERSON.

Best. day. ever.

Anyhow the reason I find him so fitting for Father's Day is not only the fact that he is a father, but that - I don't know - something about the way he writes and sings his songs seem to appeal to the concept of living - the medium (as in the element through which something is transmitted, like air for sound waves) of fatherhood. Though I don't think of him AS a father, which I suppose is a subset of fatherhood, since fathers aren't initially fathers DUUUH.

Before I go on to discuss sophisticated an contemplative themes between this artist, art, fathers, with hopefully some relevance to feminism, let me just get this out of the way:

I GOT HIM TO SIGN HIS NEW CD, MADE OUT TO BEMUSING JO BINGO!!!!! YESSSS!

Plus I told him it was my psuedonym. It's not exactly an endorsement, but now I can truthfully say that Loudon Wainwright III knows my pseudonym. Yes!

Cough Cough ok now...

Loudon Wainwright's family is known to be a bit - complicated. Broken here, broken there. Bitterness here, miscommunication there. I'm not an expert, but the general impression I get is there's several missing pieces to their puzzle and no one has any idea what the resulting picture is supposed to be when the puzzle's solved.

I found a rather informative article that I think sums it up rather well (by the way - you can click "next page" within this little window embedding and it will go to the next page within the frame - it doesn't mess up my blog entry's set up. So click away!):

- what the article says about "telling anyone under 40 your off to see Loudon Wainwright, the look uncertain and ask if he is anything to do with Rufus" is soooooo hilarious because that literally happened with my best friend. I didn't even know the answer too, which is the funny part (that and the fact that I am significantly under 40). I had to look it up. XD

Loudon Wainwright stands with two other men in a very important category for me; singers whose voices seem to hold such an essence and substance that I could cry listening to it. The two others are Cat Stevens and Bruce Molsky (by the way, have met Bruce Molsky too! Thank you, Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp).

I first discovered Loudon Wainwright III about two years ago when I watched Sandra Bullock's "28 Days" for the first time. All those sneaky and natural transitions from gaiety to self-destruction in the film (such great writing) were so well-highlighted by the music.

Looking up lyrics is what initially led me to Wainwright. Thanks to my little sister's discovery of Grooveshark (which used to be better than it is now), I found other songs of his, including "I wish I was a Lesbian" - good entertainment there.

Anyhow here are clips from the movie including him to allow you to see what my first impression of him was. Yes, he cameo-ed in the movie, listed in the credits as "The Guitar Guy."

This short song is actually one of my favorites of his. I love how completely bored and tired and grumpy he acts for the part of fellow-outpatient in this rehab center.

"Heaven and Mud"

"Drinking Song"

"White Winos"

This next one isn't a song of his, but he looks so completely grumpy and disillusioned and bored that I couldn't help but include it. Deadpan = Hilarious.

"Santa Booze"

I was particulary struck by one song, which I finally looked up online - "Dreaming." The last verse was not in the movie, most likely just a time issue.

"Dreaming"

Lyrics:

I'd rather be dreaming than living
Living's just too hard to do
It's chances not choices
Noises not voices
A day's just a thing to get through
Living's just too hard to do

I'd rather be dreaming than talking
There's nothing to hear or to say
With ears covered mouth closed
The world is opposed
Nothing gets in or away
There's nothing to hear or to say

I'd rather be dreaming than thinking
Thoughts are small comfort to me
Dreams might be pretend
But at least dreams end
And I just can't stop thinking you see
Thoughts are small comfort to me

I'd rather be dreaming than sleeping
Just sleeping you're just as well dead
In dreams I can fly
In dreams I don't die
That's why I lie here in this bed
Just sleeping you're just as well dead

I'd rather be dreaming

I was pretty obsessed with the song actually. It was in my senior year of highschool and I was using napping as a form of escapism XD. I found his distinction between dreaming and sleeping intriguing.

Since then I'd only seen him in one other movie, "Knocked Up," and I was thrilled to find that the entirety of the credits were him singing. Later I realized that Dr. Howard looked so familiar b/c he was a smilely version of "Guitar Guy" and perhaps it might be said a better groomed version of Loudon Wainwright III. :)

In Knocked Up as "Dr. Howard"

by the way, WILL blog about Knocked Up before I die - love that movie.

Okay - before I move on, click this image if you want to see more of Loudon Wainwright various acting/ cameo clips from movies I probably haven't seen - more complete, in other words.

Soooooo, Today I was feeling somewhat down, feeling a bit like I'd be happier if I was Rapunzel (specifically, Paul O. Zelinsky's Rapunzel) in a high isolated tower doing nothing but reading books.

Nota Bene: All images below are super high-quality ('cause they are scans), so please click them! You have an 80% chance of achieving Nirvana if you do, they are that good. (If you don't like clicking the back button to return to this page, try control clicking them, and you will see an option to open the image in a new window.)

Actually I wasn't thinking so much of Rapunzel as of "Daughter" from Antonia Barber's "The Enchanter's Daughter" illustrated by Errolle Cain.

She has much in common with Rapunzel; she was taken from her parents at birth by an affluent, magical, domineering and demanding person - in her case, a magician rather than Rapunzel's witch:

She, like Rapunzel, was brought up by said power figure in a decent, if not exactly familial, way, surrounded by riches in seclusion, having seen no other human than their "parent," who themselves are unwilling to let go of their precious possession, perhaps out of pure obsession with acquired property, perhaps out of a need to preserve purity, or a potent mixture.

But what am I getting at here? What does this have to do with Loudon Wainwright or Father's Day? I'm getting there... I think.

As I said, I was feeling somewhat unhappy, and felt an urge to be in some sort of gilded cage, and, as in the case of "Daughter," the castle is kept warm and green "amid the frozen wastes" due to the Enchanter's spells.

But I knew such feelings must be fleeting, for both heroines got sick of their beloved privacy and broke free, risking everything for the chance to share their world with someone else. And surely I would do the same. Right?

I wasn't so sure. And I'm still not. But it was then that I thought of what Loudon Wainwright III calls "The Great Unknown" in his "Another Song in C."

Here's another song in c

when I play piano it's my key

if I was playing my guitar

I probably be in g the chances are

but here's another song in c

with my favorite protagonist: me

of my little world I'll tell and show

I'll sing all about it so you'll know

the people in it break my heart

and my little world can fall apart

and there's not a thing I can do

except to sing in c to you

o there used to be a family

brother sister father mother and me

we were living in our little home

we were fending off the great unknown

but the great unknown it got inside

and what happened oh it did divide

in the end the father had to leave

when he did the mother had to grieve

that's the time real trouble starts

it's when a world can fall apart

and there's not a thing I can do

except to sing in c to you

I grew up and had a family

and it broke apart so easily

all that started 30 years ago

why it's never ended I don't know

I could blame it on the great unknown

and as a kid what I was told and shown

but I blame myself and I blame her

the cruel and foolish people that we were

and the children that we had are grown

they're out fending off their great unknown

and I've noticed they're a bit like me

with a tendency to to sing in c

So by now it's clear to here I know

I don't play a lot of pee-an-oh

but sometimes a fella has to sit

just to sing about the heavy shit

and the great unknown's a hurricane

with howling wind and floods and driving rain

you might make it through, but you don't know

if right behind it there's a tornado

and if families didn't break apart

I suppose there'd be no need for art

o but you and I know they do

so I sing in c to you

I love this song. I heard it for the first time at the concert; after listening to it, it takes me awhile to drag myself back into the real world. And by that I mean; when he sings, I feel my mind GOING to "the great unknown," - a less romantic way of putting it might be that I'm spacing out, but I like putting it that way - and when the singing stops I find it hard to connect and re-align my brain and eyes.

Anyhow my POINT is in the midst of my lower mood this image of the isolated fairy tale maiden and the real-life man singing of his broken family seemed to belong next to each other, though in fact in "The Enchanter's Daughter" she is working to be reunited with her family and Loudon Wainwright's song speaks of how a family is never the same after parent's split... I think. Despite this apparent gaping disparity, I feel that both figures are majorly whistful - not just in a "Manifest Destiny" way of wanting the great unknown - ooo look lands I don't know I want to go there - not that kind.

Just this "heavy shit" - confusion, things getting mixed up. "Cruel and Foolish People." I may be missing Loudon Wainwright III's intended point but I feel this song is all about how this "Great Unknown" is indescribable and therefore terrifying - basically, a sort of gut feeling everyone has that they don't have everything under control. Which is exactly the problem the enchanter and witch from "The Enchanter's Daughter" and "Rapunzel" are severely infected with. They are all about control. When they lose control of the heroines, they become nasty, whereas at the beginning of the story they weren't necessarily the antagonists.

I've always liked to think that the essence of the "need for art" is when ambiguity is so menacing all you can do to defend yourself is throw a little ambiguity back (abstract art being the most exaggerated form of this approach). Fighting fire with fire.

I'm including these thoughts in this entry because I want to stress that the concept of the individual and it's relation to the concept of family is OVERWHELMING. I mean think about it; it's the entire question of the universe encapsulated. What's the difference between the group and the individual? What makes an individual part of a group? How many individuals make a group, are certain types of groups permanent - and if a group's number and arrangement of individuals can fluctuate, than what does that do to the identity of that group? Does it change it? I could go on, but I won't, and I now give you permission to give a sigh of relief.

And finally, back to the subject of the day, fathers. Though the magician only called his adopted daughter "Daughter" and she only called him "Father," for he didn't supply her with any other knowledge of names or anything, that's not really what I'm talking about here.

I just feel that, whether your family is breaking apart, or you are just learning that there is such a thing as "family" (as in the case of "Daughter" when the magician carelessly provides her with books to read), "The Great Unknown" is ever-present, and hopefully we can keep it in a more mystical form, as in the fairy tales... thinking of it as a mist, instead of a shadow; as a magical enigma, rather than a clogging smog. You get the gist.

(click on this for bigger size. you will thank me.)

I will never be a father; I'm pretty certain of that, being female and not predicting any future decision for a sex change. Therefore I probably shouldn't dwell too much on the essence of fatherness. However I would like to therefore point out that being a father is also an "unknown" to me. I always try to contradict E. M. Forster's theory that people, no matter how close, CAN'T ever completely connect, are incapable of any successful communication - I'm especially thinking of his "Howard's End" with the quote he provides, "only connect...". Though my father has more unknown variables in his identity than anyone else in my nuclear family, being the only male, I always hope that connection is possible, if only on the level of Loudon Wainwright's "Great Unknown."

Okay, enough with the ambiguity fighting ambiguity! Let's get back to LOUDON WAINWRIGHT and the awesome concert he held. Keep in mind; I highly admire his lyrics as well as his melodies. If you choose to watch all of the videos I provide, I hope you will listen to the lyrics as well.

THE CONCERT.

Since I've written so much already I don't think I will write about how each song connects to my type of feminism, since I already covered my favorite "Another Song in C."

Basically I've included videos I found of him playing live of the songs I heard him sing live at that concert.

I was disappointed that we weren't allowed to take pictures of the concert - for of course I'd brought a camera - however thank God somebody out there either broke the rules or had special permission and I found these!

This last one is him and his daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche. I didn't know about her (b/c I was quite excusively an admirer of Loudon Wainwright) but they surprised the whole audience with an impromptu decision to have her open the show and I excessively enjoyed it, - though I still kept thinking, how long till Loudon? (Mostly because she hadn't been in the original program. But seriously - she was amazing, and has very much inherited Loudon's sense of humor - all I kept overhearing during the intermission was "she's so funny" - at least ten times! She sang a song about Coney Island that made me happy inside. Doesn't seem to be "out" to buy yet though.)

Pictures (hopefully legally) provided by Joel Dana Stern.

The only two songs I couldn't find:

-simon and garfunkel cover he was still working on with Lucy

-song about family and specifcally his being newly a grandpa (can't find it anywhere! I think he must not have published it yet or w/e)

Okay here we go!

Can't seem to find an actual video for this one but the song is great, though I don't completely get it.

Got this from youtube but the embedding was disabled and I could not easily find any other live performance video which is excessively strange considering its poularity - the only videos are of the song in the background of reels of children's babies. Huh.

"Charlie never recorded this 1897 gospel song, but is said to have played it as a regular part of his shows."

Okay, so to close here is another favorite of mine that he didn't sing that night.

... I put it in this video of mine (if you click play it'll start at the part of the video which plays "Gray in LA").

Okay! So, see you VERY soon, as I have literally nineteen drafts dating back to January that are most of them three quarters done, no lie - I WISH I was joking - and I am determined to get them out of my draft space and into cyber space! (Too cheesy? I'll come up with something better next time.)

So long, here's hoping the next entry isn't THIS long,

-Just Call Me Jo

P.S. This (below) is supposed to be "Daughter" looking down at Loudon Wainwright's official website with approval and awe, and Loudon from his site looking back up with a mutual feeling, just so you know.

P.P.S. An EXCELLENT Father's Day Poem written by the little sister. Surprisingly relevant to the theme of this entry (yes there was one) of the possible link between Fathers and "The Great Unknown."