Dept. of Outsiders are Family

[kaffy_r]

Welcome Home

    I'm a very happy kaffyr right now.
   We have a lovely neighbor, a sweet woman with a smile that lights up her face, and an open-hearted approach to life that makes her a bit of a treasure. We've gradually been getting to know her better, taking that journey from neighbor to friend, and that's great all by itself.
    Today she talked to BB, (who walks her blind dog for her when she's at work as a teacher) and said she'd gotten a couple of extra tickets to a Janis Ian show at one of our local small - and very good - venues. Would we like to go?
    Yes we would.
    When I was a young woman of, oh, about 23 or 24, Janis Ian's songs were definitely a part of my life. "At Seventeen" had the importance for me that it had for a lot of young women who knew very well what the words meant. It was an outsider's hymn for, as she sang, those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces.*
    I don't recall thinking this back then, but I know now that I loved that song because it spoke to my other outsider status. I was a science fiction lover. Those of you who are the same, you know what I mean when I say that.
     I've loved science fiction and fantasy since at least the age of four, even before I could read, when the best stories I could hear were of magic, and rockets, fairies and aliens, the future and the impossible. I have no idea why; it's simply the case. And as soon as I could read by myself, I knew what I wanted to read.
    My mother bought me the books, because she knew I loved them, and she loved me - but she didn't understand why I was so passionate about them. My brother made fun of me. Other adults were bemused at best, uncomprehending in the main and disapproving upon many disheartening occasions. My contemporaries? Don't ask. Even my closest friends, all of whom shared my outsider geekdom to some extent, looked at me with a touch of pity.
    I found my home in science fiction fandom when I was just shy of my 22nd birthday, and I walked into the Fountainbleu Hotel to attend my first science fiction convention; Suncon, the 1977 world science fiction convention in Miami.
    I mean it. I found my home, and my people, my family.
    And the world has turned a lot since then. Science fiction brought me to fandom, and fandom brought me to the United States, and to Chicago, and to BB. BB brought me to rock and roll, and then we headed to Minicon and discovered music there and then we grew a family of our own and raised our own musical fan so the road has been both circuitous and circular. And there have been lots more stops along the way, and they all began with science fiction. And the road's continued, of course; for me, that's meant DW fandom and TWoP and then LJ and reading fanfic and then writing it. Quite the ongoing journey.
    Amid all of this, I sort of forgot Janis Ian and how much her music meant to me, how much "At Seventeen" meant to me, until last year, when gerisullivan sent BB and I a link to this song by Janis Ian; "Welcome Home," ** which she had written to the music of "At Seventeen."
    I listened to it. I started to cry before it reached the half way point.
    Janis Ian was a science fiction fan.
    She had written the song (also known as The Nebulas Song) and performed it in her role  as toastmistress for the 2009 Nebula Awards. I learned that; I learned she'd written science fiction. I learned, through the song, that she read and loved many of the same authors that had helped me get through life.
    I learned, most of all, that she was part of my family.
    Tonight I stood at the back of a lovely little hall, and didn't mind that I had no place to sit, even when my two-inch-heeled boots were giving me hell. I didn't mind that my mascara started running half-way through the first song she sang, that I leaked like a faucet regularly for the rest of the show.
    Because her voice is still beautiful. Her guitar playing is stellar. Her wit is brilliantly friendly. Her smile is another one that lights up the room. Her words are still aimed straight at my heart. She spoke to me when I was young, and I remember that. But she speaks to me now, and I know she's family.
    After the show I got the chance to thank her for "Welcome Home" and she smiled when I thanked her for putting Cordwainer Smith into the lyrics. And I was very proud of myself for not breaking down in tears again, while I spoke to her.
    And I came home with a smile on my face and two outsider's hymns in my head and in my heart. And they had the same tune, and they reminded me that I have family. That I'm home.
   


* I didn't know it at the time, but it was an outsider's hymn for a lot of guys, as BB reminded me.

** Oh, and you should definitely visit Janis Ian's website, because it's cool, and has things you might be interested in. Also, you can access "Welcome Home" from the site, if the link above doesn't work right.

Comments

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

JANIS IAN! OMG. I graduated in the MoonShot year, and during our spring concert a friend performed Society's child. At Seventeen was my favorite song until I heard the blusey The Come On. I sooooo envy you right now.

[kaffy_r]

I think it was even more remarkable for having come out of the blue. I graduated high school in 1972 and, believe it or not, had never heard Society's Child. I actually heard it after "Seventeen."

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

LOL! Re Society's Child, I was hitting Send as you were finishing hitting Send. Snap!

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Now then, this is a fascinating post, for me at least. Because Janis Ian (a name I'd not heard mentioned in a long, long time, but then again not as long as one might think - read on) is in most ways the utter antithesis of what turns me on in the arts, and At Seventeen, for all its presumably worthy-as-worthy-gets lyrics, is an ear-melting, retch-promoting-and-then-coma-inducing piece of nanna-aged elevator music... and yet... and yet...

She wrote and performed Society's Child, one of the most haunting oh oh oh eternally haunting, exquisitely delivered, bone-chillingly beautiful songs ever, ever set down on record. A song that to this day - despite its (again) painfully, sledgehammerishly Worthy^TM lyrics - makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up even when I listen to it on my internal mePod, as I'm doing right now. And the woman seems to be a critical thinker of the right water, as was pointed out to me a few years ago when I was shown some of her campaign against the idiotic greed of the RIAA and their ilk.

...so yes. You can keep the rest of her work. For me, that one song pays for all :-)

(p.s. If there's any truly intelligent life-form out there that doesn't grok the brilliance of Cordwainer Smith, I want it caught and shot immediately!)

[kaffy_r]

If there's any truly intelligent life-form out there that doesn't grok the brilliance of Cordwainer Smith, I want it caught and shot immediately!

Heh - points of congruence, points of congruence, we haz them! (Although I'd rather keep such benighted souls around and see if I can turn them on to Mr. Linebarger's charms. I've done it before. Besides, shooting's so messy.)

Concerning Janis Ian, why bless your heart .... one could say, as my elders were wont upon occasion, "Each to his own, said the old lady as she kissed the cow." Which is to say, of course, that taste is taste.

It sounds as if you've listened to at least one of her albums in its entirety, else you'd have had little on which to base your opinion. Still, I've always liked this song, "From Me to You," whose sole message is "hey, friend, it's too damned painful to watch you destroy yourself, so this is one last message of love before I get the hell out and avoid getting caught in the wake." (I think she does it even better now - a little slower, a little more powerful - which makes this worth sitting through the execrable video quality.)

And that's the end of my Ian comments. I am interested, however, in some of the singers that evoke strong positive emotion in you. Examples?

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

~grins~ I remember, years ago, the first time I read James Clavell's Noble House and thinking the character of AMG simply had to be inspired by Mr Linebarger - who was a rather extraordinary person. Since I like Clavell's writing very much, it's always amused me to think that he might have been reading Smith too :-)

Re Janis Ian - yes, I investigated her live work manymanymany years ago on the back of Society's Child and was horrified. Folkies, ewwwww! And then years later when That Ghastly elevator Song came along I was even more horrified. Just sayin' :P

Singers that evoke strong positive emotion - erm, M or F? Or does it matter? because I've never liked most female voices much...

[kaffy_r]

Singers of either sex, really; anyone whose writing and/or interpretation of others' writings truly speak to you.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

~shrugs~ For various reasons, not all the same ones:

Freddie (well duh)
Mavis!Staples!
Marianne Faithfull (from Broken English onwards)
Bif Naked
Joan Osborne
Paul!!!Rodgers!!!
Huey Lewis (as sexy-voiced in his way as Staples)
Cleo Laine (ah, the purity without the boredom!)
an assortment of classic rockers, especially Ian Gillan and Steven Tyler

Also, on the strength of delivery alone: Ben Folds; Amanda Palmer; Sir Mick; Dexter of the Offspring; and Damon Albarn, especially in his Gorillaz incarnation.

My favourite all-around musician of the century so far: Germanotta. Love her voice, her playing, her delivery, her stage persona, and her sense of satirical humour. The woman ROCKS>

[kaffy_r]

Mavis is wonderful, isn't she? I'm so proud to be living in her town. Osborne is great, too; did you see her in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"? She tears it up on "What Becomes of the Broken-hearted" and more! And I'm in love with Marianne Faithful, who, in my humble opinion, far outstrips Mick, her one-time mentor. (But then, I've always been a Keef girl. Heh.)

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Mavis' voice pays for almost everything. And reminds me of why it's so important to be able to separate the art from the artist. And she is a lovely, lovely person in her own way, as was her father. And they once provided me with one of the more surreal moments of my former career. And if I tell you any more I'll have to kill you :P

Osborne was after my time, so I never had the pleasure of working/jamming with her, but I tell you, the first time I heard Spider Web it took the back of my head off. The voice. The arrangement. The lyrics. Ohh yeahhh.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

p.s. Writing is a whole other kittle of fush. For another time, perhaps :-)

[kaffy_r]

We fen have our down sides, too, of course; we tend to be didactic, socially inflexible and upon occasion, rather graceless in the interpersonal arena. But I'll take those down sides because, yes, you're right, skiffy fen are the salt of the earth.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Also, your husband walks a neighbour's blind dog? He gets so many gold stars from me that they'd barely fit into a jar. Just saying.

(And in other news, given the way you write here, I'm absolutely gobsmacked that you say you learned to read so late! ~boggles~)

[kaffy_r]

Oh, BB has so many gold stars that he glitters and shines himself upon occasion. Of course, the fact that he adores dogs probably has something to do with this specific star-generating activity.

I recall that you learned to read at an age earlier than four, right? In my neck of the woods, kids tended to learn how to read beginning in kindergarten, which one attended when one was five. My teachers were a little bemused, I'm told, when I arrived already equipped with the skill.

(You have no idea how manfully I resisted saying "Well, admitting I only learned to read in 2005 would have been embarrassing.")

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Ah, but that would have been an excellent comeback! Heh. Although surely your resistance was womanful :D

And yes, but far from only me: most of the people closest in my life so far were reading - largely self-taught - before the age of three. Several of them (including self and some blood kin) well before that. I'm well aware that there are - and historically, have been - a number of highly intelligent/high-achieving people who came very late to literacy (Albert Einstein among them IIRC...?), but it still boggles me that anyone could spend so many important years without the ability to read. It's just a me-thing, I s'pose, since reading has always been so important to me.

[kaffy_r]

Ah, if I could boast even a quarter of the mental acuity of Dr. Einstein ....

I spent much of my pre-reading time playing with my beloved younger brother, an activity which largely consisted of us making up and telling each other the adventures of two characters we named after ourselves (ah the near-solipsistic imagination of youth); I'm satisfied that my love of stories, and of the printed page in general, came quite naturally from the community story creation we undertook together.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Storytelling, eh? I got all mine from my step-nan, who BTW helped turn me, from infancy, into a raving dog-lover :-)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

A wonderful telling of a beautiful night. I'm glad it turned up for you.

[kaffy_r]

Thanks! I'm still smiling when I think of it, two days later.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

How wonderful. Thank you for writing this. I'm just smiling.

[kaffy_r]

I'm always happy when I can make you smile!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

You have to look at this!

[kaffy_r]

Oh. My. Lord.

Want. Now.

*is incoherent*

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're not into DW, but a rocketship in the same idea would be pretty cool!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Ah, and the guy who made it is on this forum, along with lots of other tardis people.

[kaffy_r]

I checked out the forum a little bit - what magtnifcently dedicated geekery! (I think I'm jealous, because I don't have the gift of thinking things like this up and carrying them to fruition.)