The National Midnight Star #590

From temples@syrinx.umd.edu Tue Jan 5 19:21:13 1993 Return-Path: <temples@syrinx.umd.edu> Received: from syrinx.umd.edu by dsys.ncsl.nist.gov (4.1/NIST-dsys) id AA05592; Tue, 5 Jan 93 19:21:12 EST Received: by syrinx.umd.edu (5.57/Ultrix2.4-C) id AA21362; Tue, 5 Jan 93 18:30:07 -0500 Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 18:30:07 -0500 Message-Id: <9301052330.AA21362@syrinx.umd.edu> Errors-To: rush-request@syrinx.umd.edu Reply-To: rush@syrinx.umd.edu Sender: rush@syrinx.umd.edu Precedence: bulk From: rush@syrinx.umd.edu To: rush_mailing_list@syrinx.umd.edu Subject: 01/05/93 - The National Midnight Star #590 ** Special Edition ** Status: R
** ____ __ ___ ____ ___ ___ ** ** / /_/ /_ /\ / /__/ / / / / /\ / /__/ / ** ** / / / /__ / \/ / / / / /__/ / \/ / / /___ ** ** ** ** __ ___ ____ ** ** /\ /\ / / \ /\ / / / _ /__/ / ** ** / \/ \ / /___/ / \/ / /___/ / / / ** ** ** ** ____ ____ ___ ___ ** ** /__ / /__/ /__/ ** ** ____/ / / / / \ ** List posting/followup: rush@syrinx.umd.edu Administrative matters: rush-request@syrinx.umd.edu or rush-mgr@syrinx.umd.edu (Administrative postings to the posting address will be ignored!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The National Midnight Star, Number 590 Tuesday, 5 January 1993 Today's Topics: Administrivia FAQ: Rush Fans Frequently Asked Questions [3/3] --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tues, 04 Jan 93 From: rush-mgr <The Rush Fans Digest Manager> Subject: Administrivia Here at last is the 3rd part of the FAQ. There will be no regular digest for today. - rush-mgr --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 00:32:45 -0800 From: dan@rat.csc.calpoly.edu (Dan Delany) Subject: FAQ: Rush Fans Frequently Asked Questions [3/3] Rush Fans Frequently Asked Questions List, Part 3 of 3 Generated: Sun Dec 13 00:30:09 PST 1992 This file contains questions that seem to crop up frequently in The National Midnight Star and alt.music.rush. If you received a copy of this file in email, other than as an issue of TNMS, it is probably because you asked one of these questions. This file has been expanded into 3 files because some mailers have problems with files that are longer than 60K. Part 1 contains general questions about the band. Part 2 contains questions inspired by specific albums and songs up to and including stuff on _A Show Of Hands_. Part 3 contains questions about material starting with _Presto_. If you want a copy of the current version of this file, email me and I'll send you the most recent version. This set of files is posted on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month to rec.music.info,alt.music.rush, and TNMS. The FAQ is also available via anonymous ftp from syrinx.umd.edu (128.8.2.114) in the /rush/special directory. If you have any suggestions for additions to the list or corrections, please send them to me at dan@rat.csc.calpoly.edu and I'll add them in if you have documentation supporting your theory. Also, don't send your suggestions to rush-mgr@syrinx. I'll repeat that because it's important. Don't send faq suggestions to the moderator of the Rush fans mailing list. He doesn't have anything to do with keeping the faq up to date. Faq suggestions should be sent to me at dan@rat.csc.calpoly.edu and not to the mailing list moderator. If mail sent to dan@rat bounces, try dan@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu or dan@garden.csc.calpoly.edu - they should work. I'd appreciate it if people who submit questions submit anything they know about possible answers, since I don't have all of the answers myself! THE FAQ IS A FILE OF FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT RUSH AND THEIR ANSWERS. IT IS NOT AN "OBSCURE RUSH TRIVIA" FILE. Please consider this before sending me a suggestion for an addition. I'll repeat that because it's important and people don't get it. THE FAQ IS A FILE OF FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT RUSH AND THEIR ANSWERS. IT IS NOT AN "OBSCURE RUSH TRIVIA" FILE. Please consider this before sending me a suggestion for an addition. I know that it's fun to come up with pet theories for how things are related to each other. But please don't send them to me saying that "It *can't* be a coincidence!" I routinely ignore such email. Send me a reference to an interview or a quote or something from a band member that supports what you say, and I'll be happy to add it to this file. If you have a pet theory that you want feedback on, post it to TNMS or alt.music.rush. For example: Don't point out to me that 1001001 in binary is equivalent to 73 decimal, and 73 decimal is ASCII for the letter "I", and the letter "I" was significant to the plot of Ayn Rand's _Anthem_, and Neil Peart read lots of Ayn Rand, therefore "The Body Electric" is a reference to _Anthem_. Believe me, you won't be the first to point that out. But Neil Peart has never said anything on that particular subject as far as I know, so I'm not going to put that into the FAQ. (Especially since I think it's a coincidence!) Remember, coincidences happen, even in Rush songs! An additional thing to consider is that many questions are answered in, of all places, the liner notes on the albums. Please look there before posting a question. DISCLAIMER: The information in this file is accurate to the best of my knowledge, but I'm not perfect. If you have an answer to one of these questions that doesn't match the one given here that you can verify, let me know, and I'll put it in. But if you make a bet based on this information and you lose, don't blame me. One more thing: If you send me mail and I don't answer right away, please be patient. I eventually read all of my mail. However, Rush FAQ related stuff has a lower priority than my job. Here are the questions I get asked the most, so I'll put them here at the start: What is The National Midnight Star? It's a Rush fans newsletter that is distributed via email. Submissions are all sent to one address, and the moderator goes through the submissions periodically and sends out a digest containing lots of submissions. (If you don't know where the name "The National Midnight Star" comes from, that means you don't watch enough Canadian TV.) How can I subscribe to The National Midnight Star? Send email to rush-request@syrinx.umd.edu asking to have your name added to the list. Don't send email to me - I can't add you! I'll repeat that. I (dan@rat.csc.calpoly.edu) have absolutely nothing to do with the management of TNMS. I can't add your name to the subscription list. Latest Word on the next album: I haven't seen any official word about the rumors of a boxed set of Rush CD's. Until I see official word on the subject, I'll treat that as a rumor. The band is scheduled to go into the studio in January or February 1993. According to an interview with Alex on 97.7 HTZ FM in Hamilton, Ontario, the album is expected to come out in June. Also mentioned is that they will be taking the summer off, so we can't expect an immediate tour. This info was originally posted in alt.music.rush on Nov 4 by v281nr6a@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark D Uher). (According to Jeff Robertson, 97.7 HTZ FM is actually in St. Catharines.) Atlantic/SRO has denied the rumors that there is a video release scheduled for December. *********** The following questions are contained in this file: ************** What are the hands in the "Presto" liner doing? What is "Chain Lightning" about? What is "The Pass" about? What is "Scars" about? What is the song, "Anagram (for Mongo)" about? Has anybody noticed that Anagram (for Mongo) contains lots of anagrams? What does (for Mongo) after "Anagram" on the "Presto" album mean? What is "Red Tide" about? Who does the RTB spoken section? Who is the boy in the RTB video and on the RTB cover? Is there a "Gangster of Boats" trilogy? But why is "Where's My Thing" labelled as Part IV of the trilogy? Is there a reason for the arrangement of the numbers on the dice on the RTB cover? Has anybody noticed that the "Gangster of Boats" is mentioned in the HYF liner notes? Who is the "Gangster of Boats?" What does the pattern of skulls and bones at the bottom of the inside front cover of the RTB tourbook mean? Is there a pattern to it? Will there be a live album or concert video from the RTB tour? -------- Questions and answers follow. ------- What are the hands in the "Presto" liner doing? They are making scissors, paper, and stone, like in the children's game. There is a discussion of the scissors/paper/stone symbols in the Presto tour book. This is paraphrased in TNMS #212. What is "Chain Lightning" about? "I'm a weather fanatic - I really love weather, and I watch the weather and look for a good weatherman. And, one night I was watching it, and there are two incidents in that song that are synchronicity to one weather report, where the weatherman showed a picture of sun-dogs, and described them, and they are just two little points of light that appear at sunset, often in the winter when the sky is clear and crystalline, and they are like little prisms, and they sit about ten degrees north and south of the setting sun, and they are just beautiful little diamonds of light, and often-times there's a circle of light -- one line, that connects them. So they are a really beautiful natural phenomenon, and I love the name too. 'Sun-dogs' just has a great sound to it. And in that same weather forecast, the weatherman announced a meteor shower that night, and so my daughter and I went out on the lake in the middle of the night and watched this meteor shower. So the whole idea of the song was response and how people respond to things, and it's a thing I've found a lot in travelling around the world, too. It's not enough just to travel and see things. You have to respond to them -- you have to feel them, and a lot of the thrust of that song is how things are transferred, like chain lightning or enthusiasm or energy or love are things that are contagious, and if someone feels them, they are easily transferrable to another person, or in the case of watching a meteor shower, it's made more special if there is someone else there. 'Reflected in another pair of eyes' is the idea that it's a wonderful thing already, just you and the meteor shower, but if there's someone else there with you to share it, then it multiplies, you know, it becomes exponentially a bigger experience, so response is a theme that recurs in several of the songs and was one of my probably dominant sub-themes in the writing." -- Neil Peart, on the _Rush - Profiled!_ CD What is "The Pass" about? "There was a lot I wanted to address in that song, and it's probably one of the hardest ones I've ever written. I spent a lot of time on it, refining it, and even more doing research. There was one song previously, called 'Manhattan Project' where I wanted to write about the birth of the nuclear age. Well, easier said than done, especially when [writing] lyrics, you've got a couple of hundred words to say what you want to say. So each word counts, and each word had better be accurate, and so I found in the case of the Manhattan Project, I was having to go back and read histories of the time, histories of the place, biographies of all the people involved, and that's not without it's own rewards, but it's a lot of work to go to to write a song - having to read a dozen books and collate all your knowledge and experience just so you can write, you know, if it says the scientists were in the desert sands, well, make sure they were and why, and all that. So with this song it was the same. I felt concerned about it, but, at the same time, I didn't want the classic thing of 'Oh, life's not so bad, you know, it's worth living' and all that. I didn't want one of those pat, kind of cliched, patronizing statements, so I really worked hard to find out true stories, and among the people that I write to are people who are going to universities, to MIT, and collecting stories from them about people they had known and what they felt, and why the people had taken this desperate step and all of that and trying really hard to understand something that, fundamentally, to me is totally ununderstandable. I just can't relate to it at all, but I wanted to write about it. And the facet that I most wanted to write about was to de-mythologize it - the same as with 'Manhattan Project' - it de-mythologized the nuclear age, and it's the same thing with this facet - of taking the nobility out of it and saying that yes, it's sad, it's a horrible, tragic thing if someone takes their own life, but let's not pretend it's a hero's end. It's not a triumph. It's not a heroic epic. It's a tragedy, and it's a personal tragedy for them, but much more so for the people left behind, and I really started to get offended by the samurai kind of values that were attached to it, like here's a warrior that felt it was better to die with honor, and all of that kind of offended me. I can understand someone making the choice; it's their choice to make. I can't relate to it, and I could never imagine it, for myself, but still I thought it's a really important thing to try to get down." -- Neil Peart, on the _Rush - Profiled!_ CD What is "Scars" about? "I think it's part of everyone's experience that a certain record reflects a certain period of their life, and that's a pleasurable scar, you know, there's a mark left on you, a psychological fingerprint left by a very positive experience. And music is an easy one, but it translates to so many other parts of life where it's a given that, for instance, the sense of smell is one of the strongest forces in your memory, where a given smell will suddenly conjure up a whole time of your life, and again, it triggers another scar, it triggers another psychological imprint that was left by a pleasurable thing. So it was just, again, the metaphor of scars and using it to say that, as the song does, that these are positive and negative aspects of life that have both left their mark. Trying to make it universal, it's not autobiographical, and I took a whole autobiographical story of my own and made it one line, basically, but there are other things in there, parts of life that I've responded to in a sense of joy, and in a sense of compassion, and there's the exaltation of walking down a city street and feeling like you're above the pavement, and Christmas in New York is the perfect time to feel that, really, where you just get charged up by the whole energy and the positive feelings of it all." -- Neil Peart, on the _Rush -- Profiled!_ CD What is the song, "Anagram (for Mongo)" about? "It doesn't really say one thing; it says a bunch of little things, and I think that's OK as long as it sounds good. You know, as long as it rolls off the tongue kind of thing? So I think different songs are different exercises, to a degree, and I think that if they feel like exercises, then there's something wrong with the song. But if they can slip by in a kind of cohesive and fluid way, or if the effect is to be disjoint, and sometimes that's what you're after. Sometimes you want it to be jarring and disjointed and nonsensical. I think it depends on what you're trying to do, and whether you've achieved it in your mind, and whether it actually worked, and 'Anagram,' I think, did work, even though it's a game - the whole song is a game. The choruses are quite smooth and quite interesting, and they have a nice sound to them and they kind of mock the whole song itself, so I think it was effective there." -- Geddy Lee, on the _Rush - Profiled!_ CD Has anybody noticed that Anagram (for Mongo) contains lots of anagrams? Yes. {I resisted putting this into the faq for a long time, since this seems to be about as shocking as pointing out that "The Big Money" is about, of all things, money, or that "Countdown" is about a launch. But it shows up in TNMS every once in a while. Dan} What does (for Mongo) after "Anagram" on the "Presto" album mean? It's a joke from the movie _Blazing Saddles_, referring to the "Candygram for Mongo" scene, according to Geddy on Rockline 12/4/89. What is "Red Tide" about? "It's a bit of a selfish concern, really. I really love wildlife, and I spend a lot of my time in the outdoors when I'm not working, so that's important to me. One of my main hobbies is cycling, so air quality kind of becomes of critical importance. So it is a selfish thing, and it's something I've written about before, on the previous album - the song, 'Second Nature'. So, again, you want to say things in a way that is not only not preachy, but also not boring. So finding the images like 'Second Nature' - I was really fond of that analogy of saying 'we want our homes to be a second nature', you know. That was, again, taking a common phrase and being able to twist it to say what you want it to say. So, with 'Red Tide' it was a little more adamant, because I think the time is a little more critical, and I had to be firmer about it, but still there are ways of getting at it, and to me there are jokes in there, too, that probably no one in the world will ever get, but in the first verse, when I'm talking about 'Nature's new plague' and then 'Lovers pausing at the bedroom door to find an open store' and all that, to me that was obviously referring to AIDS, but it was the irony of modern life, you know, where spontaneous love still certainly does occur, but here are two lovers who have just met in the middle of the night, and they have to go find a store before they can consummate their new relationship, you know, and to me, when I put those things down, I have a smile, but I know that it's one that will never be shared." - Neil Peart, on the _Rush-Profiled!_ CD Who does the RTB spoken section? Geddy Lee, according to Neil on the Dec 2 1991 "Rockline". Who is the boy in the RTB video and on the RTB cover? According to "The New Music Magazine" 11/11/91, his name is Michael Vander Veldt. Is there a "Gangster of Boats" trilogy? No songs other than "Where's My Thing?" are labelled as being part of this trilogy. But why is "Where's My Thing" labelled as Part IV of the trilogy? S72UJOH@TOE.TOWSON.EDU has posted that Neil said that was a joke on the Dec 1991 Rockline show. (I didn't hear that show - can anybody confirm this or provide me with the exact quote?) Is there a reason for the arrangement of the numbers on the dice on the RTB cover? I doubt it. And if there is a reason, I doubt that it will be made public. (Much like the significance of the HYF cover) Please don't send me mail saying that "it just has to mean something." Lots of people have theories about that. But I haven't heard any "official" word on the subject yet. If you have a theory about this and have to share it, post it to TNMS or alt.music.rush and see if anybody is interested in discussing it. Don't send me mail. I won't add it to the faq without support from a band member. Has anybody noticed that the "Gangster of Boats" is mentioned in the HYF liner notes? Yes. Who is the "Gangster of Boats?" degennar@bmsrs.usc.edu sent me this: According to Neil on the Dec 2 1991 Rockline, it's a running joke. Geddy and Alex keep saying to Neil, "If you don't come up with a name for the album soon, we're going to call it Gangster of Boats." It's also, supposedly, the nick-name given to the Mac they use. What does the pattern of skulls and bones at the bottom of the inside front cover of the RTB tourbook mean? Is there a pattern to it? It's Morse code for "Remember Death". Will there be a live album or concert video from the RTB tour? "I don't think so, no. Definitely not a live album and no plans for a video." -- Neil Peart, in the April 23 1992 TNMS interview ############################################################################## Please send me your suggestions for additions or corrections. But please read the beginning of this faq file for advice on whether or not your suggestion is appropriate for the faq before sending me mail. You might be better off posting your idea to The National Midnight Star or alt.music.rush for feedback. Dan Delany dan@rat.csc.calpoly.edu I failed the Turing test. ----------------------------------------------------------
To submit material to The National Midnight Star, send mail to: rush@syrinx.umd.edu For administrative matters (subscription, unsubscription, changes, and questions), send mail to: rush-request@syrinx.umd.edu or rush-mgr@syrinx.umd.edu There is now anonymous ftp access available on Syrinx. The network address to ftp to is: syrinx.umd.edu or 128.8.2.114 When you've connected, userid is "anonymous", password is <your userid>. Once you've successfully logged on, change directory (cd) to 'rush'. There is also a mail server available (for those unable or unwilling to ftp). For more info, send email with the subject line of HELP to: server@ingr.com These requests are processed nightly. Use a subject line of MESSAGE to send a note to the server keeper or to deposit a file into the archive. The contents of The National Midnight Star are solely the opinions and comments of the individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the authors' management, or the mailing list management. Copyright The Rush Fans Mailing List, 1992. Editor, The National Midnight Star (Rush Fans Mailing List) ******************************************** End of The National Midnight Star Number 590 ********************************************