Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008 )

I have put “The Dionysian Rationale” back up at ER Salo Deguierre’s page. What could these strange lyrics mean, you ask?

I will tell you only that they were inspired, as far-fetched as it may sound, by my readings of Joseph Campbell and his rather fanciful suggestions about “body wisdom”–the idea that mythology is actually the result of bodily processes at war with each other. It suggests that the journey of the hero in a story actually represents the body’s journey through its various stages, passions, growing pains and deteriorations. Some stories are about becoming aware of sexuality. Or anger. Or a collective spiritual presence. Or power–the need to dominate others.

Say that we are talking about “Wayne’s World,” just to be silly. Wayne Campbell’s conflict with girlfriend Tia Carrera arises from his inability to overcome his adolescent sexual fixations, his discomfort with his sex drive, and his inability to deal with it as an adult. As he becomes more sexually confident and confront his urges, he can see her as an equal.

OK, I know this all sounds patently hokey. But there are a lot of attractive things about the body wisdom concept that keep me reading about it. I could say that a lot of human hostility–and thus the potential for dramatic conflict–comes from the need to shun ourselves and our own feelings–say when a boy calls a girl slutty just because he’s attracted to her and can’t admit it. We aren’t fighting with her, we’re fighting with ourselves.

So I was hoping to talk about this subject a little in a song with a 4/4 disco beat. Nothing wrong with freeing your ass so that your mind will follow. Even if you think the lyrics are stupid, maybe you like the arrangements, no?

(EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been revised since it was first published. I think I wrote the first draft when I was feeling a bit incoherent and tired. So I decided to clean it up a bit and add some parts to clarify my points. Why do I get to do this? Because it’s my fucking blog, that’s why!)