kimberlysteele | Music, Cacomagic, and Consent

Gospel singer Bobbi Storm recently went viral when someone captured her verbal tiff with a flight attendant. Bobbi was insistent about serenading the plane’s other passengers with her Grammy-nominated original song. The flight attendant bickered with Bobbi as she tried dodge after dodge, claiming God himself wanted her to keep singing and walking into the cockpit. When she asked the other passengers if she should keep singing, her inquiry was met with awkward silence. After nearly being booted off the plane, she took a seat and suffered the rest of the Delta flight in silence.

The Limited... in More Ways Than One

When I was in my late teens/early twenties in the 1990s, I worked at a now-defunct store called The Limited in the local shopping mall. The Limited was a dead end job to end all dead end jobs: we were expected to harass anyone who came in to buy our cheaply-made yet overpriced clothing for sadly inadequate commissions. The job was so excruciatingly dull, I often jumped at the chance to clean the back rooms because at least it involved some minimal brain activity. The back area was also somewhat of a respite from the horrible canned music that was piped in on loudspeakers throughout the main retail area of the store. The musical choices at the Limited ranged from semi-well known pop hits to obscure, bizarre, acid trip flights of pop fancy and banal spa music with a beat. The tunes they forced on shoppers and store associates alike would not have been all that bad except for the fact they were played too loudly to hear oneself think and they were repeated on a 1.5 hour loop that became extremely grating during eight hour shifts. There is a certain trance that descends upon the retail worker that I came to know very well that was obvious preparation for a life spent as an office drudge. The store managers were always grooming us girls to compete with each other to sell more garbage clothing. We were also encouraged to buy hundreds of dollars worth of the latest Limited styles, especially blazers and matching pants, so we could look like we were paralegals. Considering that pay at the Limited at that time was a laughable $7-$9 per hour, which was low even by 1990s standards, I am not sure where we were supposed to get money for overpriced Chinese-made pantsuits.
 
I was viscerally reminded of my Limited days when I encountered a store associate working the cash register at the local Cost Plus a couple of years ago. She had the same pushiness we were expected to have as Limited drones and wheedled me into accepting texts from Cost Plus on my mobile phone, which I of course cancelled in about a week. The same sort of bland, innocuous music rang through the aisles of Cost Plus, and I could tell that she had often spent her entire paycheck on the crappy merchandise. Her general air was one of abject misery, hatred, grumpiness, greed, jealousy, and sorrow. This is what happens when you trap a human being indoors in a fake happy, posh environment for the majority of her waking hours and pummel her with garbage songs and an agenda to sell more product, even if you have to resort to pushing it on those who cannot afford it.

Meretricious Music

I was born in the 70s and perhaps because of this, I naively thought the music world was a meritocracy. John Denver was huge in my era. Carole King had been writing songs both for herself and others. There was no autotune and except for Nancy Sinatra with her miniskirts and Robert Plant with his package, most singers were fairly modest in their attire. By the 1980s, even I realized that it was the attention getters were doing far better than the virtuosos. Of course there was plenty of great songwriting in the 1980s and afterward, but songwriting decidedly started taking a backseat to theatrical antics and the shock prostitution of megastars around 1983 or so.
 
Christmas music started creeping into our lives earlier and earlier. In my young childhood, the day after Thanksgiving marked the holiday season with Christmas tunes on the radio and Christmas themed commercials on TV. Nowadays, Christmas starts sometime in early August and Christmas displays appear at the large chain hardware stores sometime in July. Most retailers have a burgeoning understanding that Christmas music drives shoppers out of stores, and because of this, I have noticed the volume has been turned down at the local shopping mall. Nevertheless, there are still some stores, such as a local grocery chain that advertises free on-site vaccinations, that pump in loud Christmas music well before Thanksgiving. I guess they have not yet gotten the memo that people find Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas is You played every two hours along with Paul McCartney’s horror Wonderful Christmastime extremely annoying and off-putting.
 
The only cure I have found for annoying music is to counter it with better music. I am not saying my own Orphic hymns or any other of my songs are better than Wonderful Christmastime, however, when I am suffering from the latest in popular music earworms at 3:30am when I have woken up to use the washroom, I will replay my own Orphic hymn arrangement in my own head in order to fight it. Studying music is great for displacing earworms, but listening to the music of J.S. Bach also seems to do the trick. Another strategy could be listening to your own favorite music, whether that is a popular song or something else entirely. Perhaps if the Cost Plus lady was allowed some headphones with her own favorite music playing in her ears for her long stints at the register and “facing” merch, she might begin the long fight in wrestling her brain away from the state of zombie cacomagic intimately known to most retail associates.
 
Bah Humbug and be blessed.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

Interesting post. Some people in Canada consider it poor taste to decorate for Christmas until after Remembrance Day (11 Nov). So there isn't quite the rush up there.

A friend of mine starts a game of Whamageddon every year. It's begins 1 Dec and goes to 24 Dec. If you hear the song "Last Christmas" by Wham you're out. On Christmas Eve you see if anyone is still in. Covers don't count. Just the original Wham version.

Heloise

From:

methylethyl

This was one of the great things about taking up liturgical chant. As long as I can stay in that sort of intense learning groove, where I practice every day and I'm always working on something that I haven't mastered yet, it chases out all other ear-worms. Where maybe once an advertising jingle or lewd lyric might have plagued me, now that space is filled by the Psalms, Kathismata, meditations on the eleven eothinon gospel readings, and particularly catchy bits from holy week. It only works as long as I'm actively in the *learning* phase though-- once I've mastered one, I have to keep moving to stay in that space. Fortunately, it's huge body of work and I'll never learn it all ;) But this is why I doggedly stick with it, even though I am a pretty mediocre chanter. It's not about the *performance*-- I've always hated performing in front of people-- it's that it's a *job* that someone has to do, and the accountability of having other people who expect me to know the music each week overcomes my natural laziness.

I have not experienced it with other music, but I do also find that, once committed to memory, things like the Psalms take on a life of their own. It's not *just* that they chase away other earworms, it's that they come to me when I need them-- like a well-organized toolbox. There I am, zombie-ing around the kitchen, bored and unhappy, looking for things to graze on when I have real work to do... and oh, hi, it's Psalm 140! "Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the traps of the workers of iniquity..." Oh, thanks David. I needed that reminder. I didn't really want to be reminded, of course, but now that you mention it, I guess I'll get on that project I was supposed to be doing.

From:

nightwatchwaits

Thank you Kimberly for your essays and those who make such excellent comments.

For me (Church of England and a bit Franciscan) Xmas starts on the 25th of December, so all the Kitschmas stuff that goes on before then is very strange. I do however try to be as gracious as I can and gently take part in office Xmas meals early in December - they are far from being all bad and after the covid years I am grateful to still have an office to work in rather than just my home.

Not a Xmas hymn, but this seems pertinent to countering the cacomagic you describe.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GqyWitOWDc8&pp=ygUneW91dHViZSBtYWRkeSBwcmlvciBjb21lIG9uIG15IHBhcnRuZXJz

From:

kimberlysteele

LOL Whamageddon! I am going to start a new challenge. Every time you hear the original, non-cover version of Wham's Last Christmas, you owe yourself your favorite beverage. For me, that is either peppermint hot chocolate or something involving matcha. It can be homemade or bought at a café. The day after New Years, when the ExMass cacomagic is fading, we can all compare notes to see who tallied the most beverages.

From:

kimberlysteele

I love it! Psalms, hymns, and liturgical chants seem like a direct line to the Divine. Modern day church services outside the Orthodox and old Catholic rites are the equivalent of getting caught in a phone tree at best, whereas the ancient stuff has the power to ascend-dive through a sea of accumulated astral garbage.

From:

kimberlysteele

Thank you NWW. Yeah, as clichéd as this sounds, it is super-important to look at the bright side of Christmas. There are some lovely rituals and many people are full of warmth and good will because of the holiday season, so we can all focus on that instead of Wham's annoying tune. Actually every time I hear George Michael, I remember the stories of what a beautiful person he was -- he wasn't hard to look at on the outside but he was even more amazingly beautiful on the inside. He was generous to a fault, always giving whatever he had in great excess.

Pretty tune! They just got another subscriber.

From:

methylethyl

It really does-- slices right through the commercial crapola. I think most modern recorded popular music has *too much* going on in it-- complicated and fussy without real complexity, like you can hide lack of originality and meaning by just throwing in a lot of *stuff*. Doesn't work with music any better than it did with Veg-all casserole.

From: (Anonymous)

Similar here! The period from yesterday up to Dec 25th is the Nativity fast. It's a lot like Lent but slightly less strict-- we are seriously not supposed to be going to parties or anything during that stretch. The Feast of the Nativity happens on the 25th, and the parties are between then and Theophany on Jan 6. Americans get a special exemption from fasting for Thanksgiving, but if you have leftovers, you have to freeze them till after Christmas ;) As Americans we still struggle to keep the spirit of the thing-- but also as an introvert it's a relief to be able to claim a religious exemption from all the "holiday" glurge.

From: (Anonymous)

Your version sounds a lot more fun. I'm in!

Heloise

From:

kimberlysteele

Fasting during the leanest and darkest days of winter makes a great deal of sense.

From:

kimberlysteele

Every now and then, Max Martin ( he writes an astounding percentage of pop songs) will write something simple and beautiful, and the flavor-of-the-month pop singer whose label bought it will ruin it with either overproduction, sleazy imagery, or both. Exhibit A: Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball.

From:

jpc_w

Over on JMG's Covid thread the topic of the Beatle's Now And Then came up.

I watched the official video.

Musically, it strikes me as both an elegy for the pre-COVID world and a premonition of the surviving Beatle's deaths, similar to David Bowie's Lazarus.

As a video, the digital mixture of living Paul and Ringo with dead John and George struck me as necromantic. At the same time, it does an end-run around post 1960's music, an admission the whole enterprise will be tossed in a dumpster by the newly arrived Nomad generation and the Hero generation to follow.

From:

kimberlysteele

The whole re-do of the Now and Then song does strike me as extremely self-stroking and cringey, even for Boomers, and that is saying something. The Beatles... le sigh. They are like the Rolling Stones or Elvis in the way that if you're not a fan, they are a big giant "So what?" The one nice thing I have to say is they put out quite a few halfway decent songs for a single group. But it really does depend on what you are into. For those who love the Beatles, I am sure any remake of any given song is manna from heaven. Personally, I find the whopping majority of the songs on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts record to be annoying. If I never heard the song Strawberry Fields Forever or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds again, it would not be too soon. And I think John Lennon's marriage to Yoko Ono proved he had awful taste and horrible judgement all around despite mass efforts to turn him into a saint.

Yeah, they sure do seem to be asking the public "DO YA MISS ME???" a bit prematurely. Adding George and John via AI or Forrest Gump or whatever the hell was gross. Let the dead have their rest. At least Bowie tried to write new songs until he died instead of resurrecting old crap.

From: (Anonymous)

I've come to wonder before if the Beatles were tapping into the Plutonian Current, which was quite strong during their heyday; they have the hallmarks of Plutonian figures (the weird worship from their fans; their repeated terrible judgement in a host of things; they were a major part of the counter culture; and I could go on at length), but also, a lot of their songs have heavy Plutonian themes running through them (the hopeless detached romanticism of All You Need Is Love; the misery and isolation in Elanor Rigby; the psychedelic nature of Lucy in the Sky and Yellow Submarine; the intense nostalgia for something lost due to your own mistakes on display in Yesterday; and again, I could go on at length).

If I'm right, then I'm imagining the next few years will see most of their music forgotten as part of the end of the Plutonian. This also implies, oddly enough, that even though they likely are among the 20th century's most accomplished and well known musicians, most of whatever recordings are left will be utterly incomprehensible to a lot of people within a decade, and to nearly everyone within two.

From:

kimberlysteele

Fascinating. I have had a difficult time understanding their appeal, and there is precious little music that ages well. Whether I listen to Renaissance motets or the popular music of the American Civil War, maybe I am just oversensitive but I find that both of those highly revered styles are very grating on the ears. Renaissance choral works seemed to have a lot of whiny viols and droning instruments, and there are lots of male singers with a castrati vibe. There are only a handful of works from that era I can stand. The clacking of harpsichords, clavichords, and claviers is also horribly annoying. Thank heavens for the piano.

The music of the Civil War was very upbeat and chipper even when the song was ostensibly about death and despair. That's what I don't like about the Blues as a genre: the Blues never truly sound sorrowful even when to sound happy is obscene. If Johnny Cash or Hank Williams (Sr. and Jr.) are forgotten/discarded, it will be because blues sounded too happy when the lyrics were about getting drunk, murder, and rotting in jail.

From: (Anonymous)

I think you're right about Now and Then being a premonition of the Beatles dying, and an elegy fro the pre-Covid world, but I think there's another way to read it: it also works as an elegy for the whole Plutonian Era. There's also the creepy element of having the dead joining the living, and not just in the video: they managed to use AI to recreate Lennon's voice and they added guitar riffs recorded by George Harrison before his death; but symbolically, I think it's best read as saying that the living will soon be joining the dead. Except, the sense I get is that it's not just the Beatles death; but rather, the death of everything they are linked with, such as the Boomers; the legacy of the 1960s; among a great many other things.

As for David Bowie's Lazarus, this looks uncomfortably like something I'd expect given a very troubling hypothesis I've formulated over the last few years. Here are some lyrics from the song:

"Look up here, I'm in heaven...
Look up here, man, I'm in danger...
This way or no way, you know I'll be free
Just like that bluebird now, ain't that just like me?
Oh, I'll be free, just like that bluebird
Oh, I'll be free, ain't that just like me?"

David Bowie was always a Plutonian figure; the song itself is very Plutonian; and the reaction to his death was also quite Plutonian. Here, he's both saying he's in heaven and in danger; and that he's about to be free. Well, to some extent, this might just be the ordinary contradictory state the Plutonian creates; but I can't help but note that in some ways Pluto seems to be an overgrown comet, and it might function like one, taking away the souls who resonate too strongly with it when it leaves.

One of the enduring Plutonian obsessions is also with freedom, which, to the Plutonian, is defined as being free from all limitations. There is no way to reach this state while still existing in human form; or in any form which we can possibly imagine. Limitation seems to be hardwired into our universe; and so it might not even be possible to exist at all in our reality and attain the freedom which the Plutonian desires.

That being said, there's no reason why a reality as alien as the one which created the Plutonian current needs to follow any of the rules of our reality; it is possible, then, that the freedom which Bowie sings about will be found when he crosses over to the Plutonian reality.

In which case, his "heaven" might actually be very dangerous: it marks the end of his souls link to our world. What really troubles me is that the song has exactly the vibe I'd expect if at some level he knows that when he dies he's leaving us for somewhere else, and will never be able to come back...

From:

kimberlysteele

Intriguing. There is a trope that seems to have reached a frothy head in the Plutonian era of the pop star who has sold his or her soul to the Devil. Bob Dylan has said odd things about making a bargain that do not seem entirely tongue-in-cheek. Dylan is a poet, so I would not take his statement in that video as anything more or less as a metaphor. Still, it's a sad one, as he bluntly states there is a gatekeeper who exacted a hefty price for his level of fame. This is echoed in many big celebrity origin stories.

From:

jpc_w

Bowie's Blackstar video from the same album resonates with these themes, especially the parts of the video that looked like they were ripped from an astral journey into the underworld.

From: (Anonymous)

This is one of the odd data points that made me think of my hypothesis in the first place. This might just be ordinary malevolent spirits; or it might be that they've made a deal with something else. I'm inclined to think "something else" because many of the celebrities have had much longer careers than the lore suggests possible with deals with demons.

If, on the other hand, the deal is with Pluto, it might be something like, "I can give you fame and fortune; but when I leave, you're coming with me." There might not even be a literal deal: this might just be symbolic reflections of this reality coming to the surface, which would be a very, very, very Plutonian thing indeed...

From:

kimberlysteele

As you are probably aware, I think that everyone who took the quaxx (my term for the Covid MRNA vaccines) and possibly those who pretended to take the quaxx to "go along to get along" made a deal with something that wants to spirit them away to some other world for a very long time. I am not saying that this entity or group of entities will be successful, only that it is extremely powerful and its agenda is not on the up and up. Unfortunately, my conversations with dead people tend to confirm this fear, but as always, I could be wrong and in this case, I hope I am 100% wrong as many of my own loved ones took the quaxx more than once.

It's interesting that most Hollywood celebs took the quaxx without so much as a second thought.

From:

kimberlysteele

Ugh, he seemed so sad. What a terrible set of visions to occupy oneself with at the end of life.

From: (Anonymous)

This is something which has bothered me for a while, actually. It seems like a lot of people are still resonating with the Plutonian; and if my hypothesis is right, a lot of them will need to die in order to follow it to whatever destiny it has once it's no longer affecting our world; in other words, some very large number of people will need to die before 2036 or so.

Pluto being Pluto, some of these will be suicides; but some of them will be weird accidents, some will be murders; and some of them will the result of Plutonian phenomena gone amok. Well, the whole Covid panic reeks of Pluto; and the vaccines give me a strong Plutonian vibe.

So, what if these vaccines are one method by which many of those souls who need to go with Pluto are removed from their bodies? If, as seems uncomfortably plausible to me based on both physical and metaphysical evidence these end up killing some large fraction of the recipients, well, it seems uncomfortably plausible to me that this would just be the universe making sure the souls who need to go with Pluto are free to go with it....

From:

kimberlysteele

Well, hopefully Pluto's promises to sweep potential billions of souls away to his Blackstar/Villa of Olmen world will end up as overblown and short-lived and the Plutonian era itself. It would not be out of character for Pluto's menace to be a paper tiger. The death of Christianity, i.e. Pisces or Neptune, was freaking horrible, marked by bloody civil wars in 1790s France, 1860s America, and let's not forget WWI and WWII and Marxism in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, I am likely on may way towards another Ogham reading retraction -- I thought my Ogham were wrong about a Black Plague level die-off from the quaxxes but now I'm thinking they are right about the die-off, the only thing they got wrong was timing. We seem to be in a BIG, slow descent that falls short of Plutonian abruptness but delivers plenty in terms of billions of souls about to be free of human incarnation for a long time. Naomi Wolf describes a recent visit to some rich friends as the end of an era: https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/among-the-rich Yes, that is what it feels like, I think, for all of the well-to-do, including the upper middle class who aren't quite as rich as the gilded age elevator set.

My thoughts are that some of their souls may be "spirited away" to Blackstar villa -- Bowie was very clearly haunted by some awful crap he did/agreed to and what he imagined to be in store for him and people like him. You have to wonder if there is any lenience for those who sold themselves off while very young, passionate, impressionable, and under the influence of copious drugs.

Once again, this die-off isn't that fast and there is a huge number of souls to work with, huger than any time in human history. This isn't 1349. My logical estimation is that quite a few more people will be incarnated again despite Plutonian bargains, especially in human population centers such as China and India, and given more chances even if this merely amounts to the rope needed to hang themselves.

From:

lukedodson

I began using counter-earworms in 1998, when Cher's "Believe" was in the charts. I found the main melody saccharine, but the early use of autotune was the thing that I found most grotesque. Thankfully, a classical compilation CD that my parents owned had a rendition of 'La donna e mobile' by Giuseppe Verdi, the ridiculously jaunty and catchy tune of which I found most adequate to push out Cher's android warbling.

From: (Anonymous)

I just watched the video, and oh dear gods it's creepy how well this resonates with it. This isn't going to be a full analysis of all the symbolism in the video, just some of the highlights I saw on my first (and likely only) pass through the video, and having read the lyrics.

First, the eclipsed sun. If my hypothesis is right, then since at least 1900 the Central Stillness has been eclipsed by another system, and this is behind a lot of the weirdness of the 20th and early 21st centuries. There's also the dead astronaut; this is likely Major Tom, and thus symbolically David Bowie. He ends up falling to the Black Star; but not before someone takes his skull, adorned with jewels; symbolically, David Bowie's legacy.

The woman who discovers Major Tom's skull is not human; she has a tail and uni-brow. If David Bowie is no longer going to be human, then he would be alien to us; but from his perspective, we'd be be the aliens. So she is symbolically, one of the people left behind.

The dancers with David Bowie at this point are not dancing; they seem more shaking, as if possessed. This would fit the idea of the Plutonian as an alien influence. Notice how David Bowie's eyes are covered; he can't see what's happening clearly at all, caught up in the influence himself.

The middle of the song is a lot less overtly creepy and more musical; and while people have read it as Death talking to Bowie, it works equally well if it's Pluto talking to him. "I'm not a gangster", "I'm not a pornstar", and the various other things which the "Black Star" is saying it is not are all related to the Plutonian, and perhaps Pluto is saying it is not whati t has made among men; but then "I'm not a wandering star" seems out of place. But, that's the old meaning of "Planet", and so here the Black Star feels the need to say it is not a planet. Which, if it is a comet, fits. It's not a planet, and it never really was one; it was just a reflection of a truly alien influence on us.

"I can't answer why (I'm a blackstar)
Just go with me (I'm not a filmstar)
I'ma take you home (I'm a blackstar)
Take your passport and shoes (I'm not a popstar)
And your sedatives, boo (I'm a blackstar)"

This seems like a reference to travel. Notice as well that exactly where they're going is never mentioned. It's a question of faith, or, if you're more cynical, a matter of destiny which is now too late to change. The reference to sedatives is a creepy one, given that they are often used to avoid dealing with reality, and suggests that wherever they are going is going to be unpleasant enough to require them. The passports and shoes suggest a long distance to go; and in some cases "taking one's passport" has been used to indicate someone is never going back.

Then it shifts back to a more eerie tune; and it shifts between some sort of weird ritual, scarecrows dancing while being crucified, David Bowie (his eyes covered again; perhaps he doesn't want to know where he's going after all), and a Lovecraftian creature dancing. Given the intimate connection between Lovecraft and the Plutonian, this dancing creature may be as close as we're going to get to seeing what awaits those who follow Pluto away from our reality....

From: (Anonymous)

I think that most people will end up being fine. This doesn't mean that there isn't a risk here: it's just that there are other factors holding most of us to our world. In order to end up leaving with a comet, as I understand it, requires lifetimes of effort put towards resonating with it. One lifetime wallowing in the Plutonian won't do it. But, several lifetimes wallowing in materialism starting out a few centuries ago, incarnating during the 20th century, and promptly making a beeline for the Plutonian might be enough.

I suspect that even most who got the vaccines will come back later. Worst case scenario, I think it's only a small percentage of people who will actually end up dragged away with Pluto; but this doesn't mean that there won't be quite a few more who sense this happening, because they are moving in that direction but something will stop them; nor does this require that the methods used to ensure those who are dragged away are free will only hit the people who are doomed.

From:

methylethyl

Take your passport and shoes (I'm not a popstar)
And your sedatives, boo (I'm a blackstar)"

Weirdly reminiscent of the Heaven's Gate folks, heading off to catch a comet in their matching Nike sneakers.

From:

mr_nobody1967

I'm okay with the traditional Christmas carols, but contemporary American Christmas music is nothing short of an abomination.

From:

kimberlysteele

Unpopular opinion here -- Blackstar is tuneless. All of his later works seem to suffer tunelessness, whereas the stuff he wrote in his heyday, including the silly Labyrinth stuff for the Henson film, was quality. His final melodies and harmonies don't have any staying power. I can flash-memorize tunes to the point where I can play and sing hundreds of songs (it could be thousands?) by memory, and some of them are two part counterpoint. I would have to cram the Blackstar song over and over to get it to stick. The "ahhh" part is garbage and the harmonies are boring and cliché, edgelord parallel fourths. IMO, the Blackstar song and album sucks. He was raking in millions of dollars, awards, and chunks of fancy real estate at that point based on prestige and past glory. I'm sure he poured his heart and soul into that album but to my listening ears, it simply wasn't memorable or good. Kind of like Sting, who truly used to have something and now sounds devoid of musical potency. Maybe this is what just naturally happens when you satisfy every material desire.

From:

kimberlysteele

LOL "android warbling" made my day, that is the best description of it I have ever heard! Verdi wrote some very beautiful music. Actually, Believe is a very pretty song when it is stripped down to its basic chords. I like acoustic covers of it and I often have my vocal/guitar students perform it.

From:

kimberlysteele

Some of it's OK. I like Brenda Lee because she was so wonderfully and genuinely happy, or at least she came off that way when she sang.

From:

methylethyl

Haven't heard it, tbh. Just looking at lyrics.

Bowie's one of those artists I liked in my twenties when I was depressed and rudderless. After that, I found with him, and so many other artists-- I could still see the raw talent and charisma that I'd liked when younger, but... the attraction's just not there anymore.

I do wonder sometimes if there isn't some sort of "cacomagic" type thing going on there. Like, was it just part of growing up, growing older, and an organic changing of tastes, or was it getting serious about my religion, joining a liturgical church, and taking up the regular practices thereof-- developing a bit of resistance to exploitative commercial magic? I noticed it as it happened-- just sort of lost all enjoyment of really studio-refined, heavily-produced music. These days, I *do* music far more than I listen to recordings of it.

From:

methylethyl

I remember when that one came out-- every single time I'd hear it on the radio, it was like "what the heck *is* that noise going on there?"

From:

methylethyl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7jVFuydx_4

Here is the very traditional Christmas Kontakion.
I want to sound like Nektaria when I grow up ;)

From: (Anonymous)

One of the leaders of the Heaven's Gate cult had the nickname of Bo, but it may have been pronounced Boo.

I don't have the link any more, but Chris Knowles of the Secret Sun blog made a case that Bowie had genuine knowledge of the occult that included an interest in UFO lore. So he probably knew details about that cult.