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Post by Lori on Jul 31, 2003 23:23:02 GMT
As the people here grow colder I turn to my computer And spend my evenings with it Like a friend
I was loading a new programme I had ordered from a magazine
"Are you lonely, are you lost? This voice console is a must" I press Execute
"Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired I bring you love and deeper understanding Hello, I know that you're unhappy I bring you love and deeper understanding"
Well I've never felt such pleasure Nothing else seemed to matter I neglected my bodily needs
I did not eat, I did not sleep The intensity increasing 'Til my family found me and intervened
But I was lonely, I was lost Without my little black box I pick up the phone and go, Execute
"Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired I bring you love and deeper understanding Hello, I know that you're unhappy I bring you love and deeper understanding"
I turn to my computer like a friend I need deeper understanding Give me deeper understanding
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Post by brillo69 on Jun 12, 2004 22:03:12 GMT
As the people here grow colder I turn to my computer And spend my evenings with it Like a friend.
I was loading a new programme I had ordered from a magazine:
"Are you lonely, are you lost? This voice console is a must." I press Execute.
"Hello, I know that you`ve been feeling tired. I bring you love and deeper understanding. Hello, I know that you`re unhappy. I bring you love and deeper understanding."
Well I`ve never felt such pleasure. Nothing else seemed to matter. I neglected my bodily needs.
I did not eat, I did not sleep, The intensity increasing, `Til my family found me and intervened.
But I was lonely, I was lost, Without my little black box. I pick up the phone and go, Execute.
"Hello, I know that you`ve been feeling tired. I bring you love and deeper understanding. Hello, I know that you`re unhappy. I bring you love and deeper understanding."
I turn to my computer like a friend. I need deeper understanding. Give me deeper understanding.
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Post by paul1574 on Apr 27, 2006 15:33:22 GMT
i came across this recently and it made me think of this song... www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0952/but this song also seems to have been a precursor to the net and chat rooms/messenger progs almost
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Sheila
Moving
Life is a minestrone served up with parmesan cheese.
Posts: 701
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Post by Sheila on Apr 28, 2006 13:53:12 GMT
i came across this recently and it made me think of this song... www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0952/but this song also seems to have been a precursor to the net and chat rooms/messenger progs almost Thank you! I have been saying this since it first came out! Back in 1989 I was writing for a Kate fanzine and there were a bunch of computer geeks in it who absolutely HATED this song because they said the premise was impossible. I argued that it wasn't. These same people had the Love Hounds email digest at the time before I really understood the concept of email. It is one of my favorite tracks off of this album. It's a song that seems to grow with the times. I think it will just keep ringing more and more true. I wonder what those computer geeks think of it now 17 years later. (I bet those guys are still in denial and sticking to their guns : Ouch--that hurt to say that was 17 years ago! I have a couple questions about this song as long as I'm here: Is the last line of this song "I have to please you"? Did anyone else notice at the end the birds singing and then the sound of chainsaws? As if all of nature could be destroyed if everyone relied on computers to survive? Or am I interpreting this wrong?
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Post by Xanadu on Apr 28, 2006 17:58:52 GMT
I have a couple questions about this song as long as I'm here: Is the last line of this song "I have to please you"? Did anyone else notice at the end the birds singing and then the sound of chainsaws? As if all of nature could be destroyed if everyone relied on computers to survive? Or am I interpreting this wrong? I'll have to listen to it again (it been a bit) and hear it that way. Can't say that I ever thought of chainsaws?
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mizzshy
Reaching Out
"Oh darling, Make it go, Make it go away..."
Posts: 214
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Post by mizzshy on Apr 28, 2006 18:52:04 GMT
I have a couple questions about this song as long as I'm here: Is the last line of this song "I have to please you"? Did anyone else notice at the end the birds singing and then the sound of chainsaws? As if all of nature could be destroyed if everyone relied on computers to survive? Or am I interpreting this wrong? I'll have to listen to it again (it been a bit) and hear it that way. Can't say that I ever thought of chainsaws? See, I've always heard that last line as being "I hate to leave" but I could be wrong...
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Sheila
Moving
Life is a minestrone served up with parmesan cheese.
Posts: 701
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Post by Sheila on Apr 28, 2006 20:37:16 GMT
I'll have to listen to it again (it been a bit) and hear it that way. Can't say that I ever thought of chainsaws? See, I've always heard that last line as being "I hate to leave" but I could be wrong... You have to turn it up very loud to hear the chainsaws. And I think she's saying: I hate to leave you I hate to leave you I hate to leave you I hate to leave you I hate to leave you I have to please you. I can clearly hear an "s" in the last line. But I could be wrong. If I'm right, though, doesn't that make the song so much creepier?
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Post by paul1574 on Apr 28, 2006 20:46:14 GMT
Thank you! I have been saying this since it first came out! Back in 1989 I was writing for a Kate fanzine and there were a bunch of computer geeks in it who absolutely HATED this song because they said the premise was impossible. I argued that it wasn't. These same people had the Love Hounds email digest at the time before I really understood the concept of email. back in 1986 a game called "ID" was released for the zx spectrum the premise of said game was to build trust with the machine as it 'spoke' to you to get it to reveal who it was ~ it asked you questions and based on your answers you gained its trust till it revealed info about its Identity (or ID if you will) to be honest it was ridicoulously easy ~ even for me being 12 at the time but the idea was still there and for the times it was very innovative so aha to those nay-sayers! YOU were and ARE right.... and heres another such thing (says its a 404 but its not really scroll down) www.reddert.net/BogusPage.html
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Post by tannis on Jul 17, 2008 11:31:50 GMT
Both emotionally and sonically, the Trio fits deftly into Bush's multi-tracked choral vocals. On Deeper Understanding they are the spiritual countervoice in a song about emotional disconnection, where the protagonist finds love in a computer program. "Yes, it is emotional disconnection, but then it's very much connection ," says Bush, "but in a way that you would never expect. And that kind of emotion should really come from the human instinctive force, and in this particular case it's coming from a computer. I really liked the idea of playing with the whole imagery of computers being so cold, so unfeeling. Actually what is happening in the song is that this person conjures up this program that is almost like a visitation of angels. They are suddenly given so much love by this computer--it's like, you know, just love. There was no other choice. Who else could embody the visitation of angels but the Trio Bulgarka?" she laughs. Musician, "Kate Bush's Theater of the Senses", February 1990gaffa.org/reaching/i90_mu.html
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Post by tannis on Aug 24, 2008 2:16:11 GMT
THOMAS AQUINAS: "Where are the angels?"In Suspended In Gaffa, the protagonist asks, "Mother, where are the angels?" Is KT referencing Saint Thomas Aquinas who, in the Middle Ages, asked similar questions? Saint Thomas Aquinas (c.1225 – 1274) was an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis and Doctor Communis. The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. The Summa Theologica follow a cycle: the existence of God, God's creation, Man, Man's purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. The Summa is composed of three major parts, each of which deals with a major subsection of Christian theology. First Part (in Latin, Prima Pars): God's existence and nature; the creation of the world; angels; the nature of man. TREATISE ON THE ANGELS ~ THE ANGELS IN RELATION TO PLACEWe now inquire into the place of the angels. Touching this there are three subjects of inquiry: (1) Is the angel in a place? (2) Can he be in several places at once? (3) Can several angels be in the same place? Whether an angel is in a place?Aquin.: I answer that, It is befitting an angel to be in a place; yet an angel and a body are said to be in a place in quite a different sense. A body is said to be in a place in such a way that it is applied to such place according to the contact of dimensive quantity; but there is no such quantity in the angels, for theirs is a virtual one. Consequently an angel is said to be in a corporeal place by application of the angelic power in any manner whatever to any place. Accordingly there is no need for saying that an angel can be deemed commensurate with a place, or that he occupies a space in the continuous; for this is proper to a located body which is endowed with dimensive quantity. In similar fashion it is not necessary on this account for the angel to be contained by a place; because an incorporeal substance virtually contains the thing with which it comes into contact, and is not contained by it: for the soul is in the body as containing it, not as contained by it. In the same way an angel is said to be in a place which is corporeal, not as the thing contained, but as somehow containing it. Whether an angel can be in several places at once?Aquin.: I answer that, An angel's power and nature are finite, whereas the Divine power and essence, which is the universal cause of all things, is infinite: consequently God through His power touches all things, and is not merely present in some places, but is everywhere. Now since the angel's power is finite, it does not extend to all things, but to one determined thing. For whatever is compared with one power must be compared therewith as one determined thing. Consequently since all being is compared as one thing to God's universal power, so is one particular being compared as one with the angelic power. Hence, since the angel is in a place by the application of his power to the place, it follows that he is not everywhere, nor in several places, but in only one place. Whether several angels can be at the same time in the same place? Aquin.: I answer that, There are not two angels in the same place. The reason of this is because it is impossible for two complete causes to be the causes immediately of one and the same thing. This is evident in every class of causes: for there is one proximate form of one thing, and there is one proximate mover, although there may be several remote movers. Nor can it be objected that several individuals may row a boat, since no one of them is a perfect mover, because no one man's strength is sufficient for moving the boat; while all together are as one mover, in so far as their united strengths all combine in producing the one movement. Hence, since the angel is said to be in one place by the fact that his power touches the place immediately by way of a perfect container, as was said (A[1]), there can be but one angel in one place. We must next consider the local movement of the angels; under which heading there are three points of inquiry: (1) Whether an angel can be moved locally. (2) Whether in passing from place to place he passes through intervening space? (3) Whether the angel's movement is in time or instantaneous? ... St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologicawww.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0023/_P1G.HTM Thank you for posting this. It gives a bit of a new perspective on the question of 'Where are the angels?' ^ Yes, Rosa, I agree. And it also gives us a deeper understanding on Deeper Understanding ~ a visitation of angels... Suspended In Gaffaweb: "Where are the angels?"Erkki HUHTAMO: One of your important hypotheses is that the traditional distinction between the concepts of presence and representation is melting away with these new forms of virtual community. Virilio, in one of his books, reminded us of a story related to Galileo Galilei and his telescope. When Galilei introduced his telescope, it was the era of the Counter-reform in the Catholic Church, so it posed a very important question: under what conditions would it be possible to use the telescope to actually participate in the community rituals of the Church, the mass? This is an ethical question, but it is also related to the essence of telecommunication: you are physically away but you are also a participant by means of the telescope. Isn't this also related to the connection between representation and presence - "the telescope" obviously had something to do with the Renaissance sense of the visual as well? Philippe QUEAU: Yes, I would like to make a similar comparison with the idea of Virilio. I would like to quote the famous words by Thomas d'Aquino, the famous theologist from the Middle Ages, the 13th century. He asks the question: "Where are the angels?" And the answer is: "Angels are not where they are but they are where they act; they are where they love. That's the answer. We too could ask the same question--for instance, about virtual surgery. Where is a virtual surgeon? Where is he physically? In New York? Where does he act as surgeon? For instance, in Africa, through networks? The answer in this case would obviously be: Surgeons are, where they do act, because it is there where they express their finality. They are what they act. So, the question today, with the spreading of cyberspace on those distance/telepresence systems, is: "Where are we?--Are we where we are sitting or are we where our mind is exerting its own strength? Where Are The Angels? ~ Representation of Presence in Virtual Communitieswww.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic018/intercity/angel_E.htmlThe origin of the term virtual reality can be traced back to the French playwright, poet, actor and director Antonin Artaud. In his seminal book The Theatre and Its Double (1938), Artaud described theatre as "la realite virtuelle", a virtual reality "in which characters, objects, and images take on the phantasmagoric force of alchemy's visionary internal dramas" ~ a Theater of the Senses! The earliest use cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is in a 1987 article entitled "Virtual reality", but the article is not about VR technology. The VR developer Jaron Lanier claims that he coined the term in the early 1980s, however this is almost fifty years after it appeared in Artaud's book. "Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired. I bring you love and deeper understanding. Hello, I know that you're unhappy. I bring you love and deeper understanding."In Deeper Understanding (1989), KT turns to her computer and spends her evenings with it like a friend. Furthermore, Kate describes this virtual reality and virtual community as "almost like a visitation of angels" (Musician, 1990). And Queau makes a similar point, when he compares Thomas d'Aquino ("Where are the angels?") with cyberspace and presence in virtual communities (Queau, 1996). And when virtual communities exert their strength to bring love and deeper understanding, then that connection can be like a visitation of angels ~ the idea of a divine energy coming through the least expected thing, to open up our spirituality... the voice of angels speaking... Date: Thu, 14 Nov 85 13:38:12 est From: nessus (Doug Alan) Subject: Holy shit! I've been scheduled an interview with Kate Bush for next week! If anyone has any questions they want asked, better recommend them now. |>oug's famous Kate Interviewgaffa.org/dreaming/doug_int.htmlVirtual reality is closely related to the concept of virtual community. In August 1985, Doug Alan created an online discussion group about KaTe. At first taking the form of a mailing list called "Love-Hounds", it soon grew into a usenet newsgroup called rec.music.gaffa ~ the virtual community which led to "Gaffaweb". So maybe KaTe was suspended in Gaffaweb when she wrote Deeper Understanding... Deeper Understanding: the Narrator and the NarrativeKT: This is about people... well, about the modern situation, where more and more people are having less contact with human beings. We spend all day with machines; all night with machines. You know, all day, you're on the phone, all night you're watching telly. Press a button, this happens. You can get your shopping from the Ceefax! It's like this long chain of machines that actually stop you going out into the world. It's like more and more humans are becoming isolated and contained in their homes. And this is the idea of someone who spends all their time with their computer and, like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive amount of time with their computer. People really build up heavy relationships with their computers! And this person sees an ad in a magazine for a new program: a special program that's for lonely people, lost people. So this buff sends off for it, gets it, puts it in their computer and then like <pyoong!>, it turns into this big voice that's saying to them, "Look, I know that you're not very happy, and I can offer you love: I'm her to love you. I love you!" And it's the idea of a divine energy coming through the least expected thing. For me, when I think of computers, it's such a cold contact and yet, at the same time, I really believe that computers could be a tremendous way for us to look at ourselves in a very spiritual way because I think computers could teach us more about ourselves than we've been able to look at, so far. I think there's a large part of us that is like a computer. I think in some ways, there's a lot of natural processes that are like programs... do you know what I mean? And I think that, more and more, the more we get into computers and science like that, the more we're going to open up our spirituality. And it was the idea of this that this... the last place you would expect to find love, you know, real love, is from a computer and, you know, this is almost like the voice of angels speaking to this person, saying they've come to save them: "Look, we're here, we love you, we're here to love you!" And it's just too much, really, because this is just a mere human being and they're being sucked into the machine and they have to be rescued from it. And all they want is that, because this is 'real' contact. Radio One Interview, Roger Scott, 14th October 1989gaffa.org/reaching/ir89_r1.htmlBoth emotionally and sonically, the Trio fits deftly into Bush's multi-tracked choral vocals. On Deeper Understanding they are the spiritual countervoice in a song about emotional disconnection, where the protagonist finds love in a computer program. "Yes, it is emotional disconnection, but then it's very much connection ," says Bush, "but in a way that you would never expect. And that kind of emotion should really come from the human instinctive force, and in this particular case it's coming from a computer. I really liked the idea of playing with the whole imagery of computers being so cold, so unfeeling. Actually what is happening in the song is that this person conjures up this program that is almost like a visitation of angels. They are suddenly given so much love by this computer--it's like, you know, just love. "There was no other choice. Who else could embody the visitation of angels but the Trio Bulgarka?" she laughs. Musician, "Kate Bush's Theater of the Senses", February 1990gaffa.org/reaching/i90_mu.html
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Aug 27, 2008 20:38:06 GMT
I forgot to reply to this post earlier... But thank you for the inspiring quotes and thoughts. It is a really beautiful concept that spiritual energy can be found in the unlikeliest places - coming from a computer, a machine, something that seems inanimate. And with the way technology does surround us, I think we have to find a way to let spiritual energy flow through it. Otherwise we become horribly alienated. But I like that this song portrays it in a positive, through also dangerous way, if that makes sense. It really shows a direct, startling, glorious energy arising from a machine, and also the peril of losing yourself in it. Yet if we are open to that energy, and keep it in check, so much good could be done... It's just interesting.
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Post by tannis on Aug 28, 2008 2:02:05 GMT
I forgot to reply to this post earlier... But thank you for the inspiring quotes and thoughts. It is a really beautiful concept that spiritual energy can be found in the unlikeliest places - coming from a computer, a machine, something that seems inanimate. And with the way technology does surround us, I think we have to find a way to let spiritual energy flow through it. Otherwise we become horribly alienated. But I like that this song portrays it in a positive, through also dangerous way, if that makes sense. It really shows a direct, startling, glorious energy arising from a machine, and also the peril of losing yourself in it. Yet if we are open to that energy, and keep it in check, so much good could be done... It's just interesting. Thank you, Rosa. "Angels are not where they are but they are where they act"; and spiritual energy can indeed be found in the unlikeliest places. Let only good energy act upon you and you will be surrounded by a phalanx of angels. Repel psychic attack and do not let the weirdness in... "Don't let go!" ... Gabriel before me Raphael behind me Michael to my right Uriel on my left side In the circle of fire This is my space!
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Aug 28, 2008 17:28:17 GMT
Thank you, Rosa. "Angels are not where they are but they are where they act"; and spiritual energy can indeed be found in the unlikeliest places. Let only good energy act upon you and you will be surrounded by a phalanx of angels. Repel psychic attack and do not let the weirdness in... "Don't let go!" ... Gabriel before me Raphael behind me Michael to my right Uriel on my left side In the circle of fire This is my space! Yes. Our angels are everywhere.
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Post by tannis on Sept 18, 2008 6:44:04 GMT
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING: The voice of God...In the Melody Maker (1989) article, KaTe discusses Deeper Understanding with reference to Stephen Hawking. Recently, the Large Hadron Collider has sparked debate between 'God particle' theorist Peter Higgs and Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Higgs and Hawking are now going for the Nobel prize!Deeper Understanding is the most extreme song on the album... "Well, wherever you live, chances are you won't know your neighbours, you won't even know the person who lives next to you. But I see this song set in America, just because it's so much more extreme out there: people don't go out of their houses, they watch the television, they can shop from the television, they speak to people on the phone. If they want, they needn't have any form of human communication of a real kind at all, and I think that's being encouraged. "You know, a couple of years ago there was a lot of news about how women were divorcing their husbands because they were spending all their time with their computers--they were in there all night. I suppose it's still happening. And this song is about this very intense relationship that developed, where this person spends all their time with computers. They talk to the computer and the computer talks back. "I suppose I really liked the idea of deep, spiritual communication--deep love which should come from humans--coming from the last place you'd expect it to, the coldest piece of machinery. And yet I do feel there is a link. I do feel that, in some ways, computers could take us into a level of looking at ourselves that we've never seen before, because they could come in from outside all this...I'm not really sure what I'm saying..." She laughs and takes a sip of tea. "I think a lot of things in Nature are almost programme-based, and a lot of things that we do are very mechanical, so maybe somehow going right through a computer, almost so that you come out the other side--going through all that science--will take us to something very spiritual but very earthy. "I was very inspired by Stephen Hawking. Have you heard about this guy? I think he was an Oxford scientist. <Cambridge.> He's very ill and, basically, he's coming up with how everything is created...or not created, as he sees it. "I saw him on television, and it was so moving: this guy who's so close to the answer of it all, in a body that was desperately...it was going, and quickly. And he was fighting against the time he had left, and yet...Here was this guy who was probably the closest to knowing it all, and he was speaking through this voice-processor. It was almost, for me, like hearing the voice of God. "What he was saying was so spiritual, it was not like a scientist. It was someone saying, 'Well, look: it wasn't ever created and it won't end, it just is .' You know, this wonderful conceptualism is almost beyond words, because he's gone so far through the process. Words can't explain what he's discovered." I find that a bit scary. I wonder if we want the answer? "Well, I wonder if we'd understand it! Even if we knew the answer, we probably wouldn't understand it." But if we ever found out, definitely, whether there's a God or not, it would be like definitely finding out there are aliens from outer space: the human race couldn't handle it, couldn't cope with not being the centre of the universe. And what if we found out there definitely isn't a God, what then? The truth would be too much to bear. The idea of death being an inconceivable nothing would drive us mad with the contemplation of extinction. "We seem to be very much in the era of reason, and I think science is the ultimate example of that. The other side is the instinctive, which is not logical on any level. Perhaps it's the putting together of the two. You know, like what you were just saying there about aliens? Most people's response would be that it's just not possible because their reason says so, but then an instinctive person might feel, 'Yes, this is so's because it just feels right. "Maybe we've lost touch with our instincts, so it's become very important for us to work out logical explanations for things all the time, which I think is a bit of a shame, really." Melody Maker, "The Language of Love", by Steve Sutherland, October 21, 1989gaffa.org/reaching/i89_mm.htmlLarge Hadron Collider: First subatomic particle collision to happen next weekwww.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/16/scilhc116.xmlSo-called ‘God Machine’ will prove nothing, even if it workswww.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2446284.0.Socalled_God_Machine_will_prove_nothing_even_if_it_works.phpLarge Hadron Collider: 'God particle' theorist Peter Higgs attacks Stephen Hawkingwww.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/11/scicern411.xml
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Post by tannis on Sept 18, 2008 7:00:26 GMT
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING: Welcome to the machine..."It's about someone being trapped in the city, in isolation at work, where they just spend all the time with this computer, actually really developing a relationship with it. Which a lot of people seem to do - they talk to it. So the idea is in sending off this programme for the lonely lost; they put it in and this sci-fi being comes out and says 'I know you're lost, but I'm here to help you, we love you.' This person doesn't have human contact any more, he's just kind of addicted to the machine. I suppose in subject matter terms I really do see it visually..." Deeper Understanding is also the first track to feature the Trio Bulgarka. "That song was sort of finished when I got involved with the Bulgarian singers. I just thought of all the people to represent a being that exudes divine love, it had to be the Bulgarian singers. The idea was to put them in the chorus where the computer was singing, so that they'd have this ethereal sound." International Musician, "What Katie Did Next", Tony Horkins, December 1989gaffa.org/reaching/i89_im.html
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