Ani DiFranco (revisited) and Holden Caulfield and numerous
Andrew Charles Kennis (holden@escape.com)
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:23:15 -0500 (EST)
As long as people are posting away about Ani, and as long as there
seem to be SOME people who are at the very least sympathetic towards
Ani's viewpoints, and finally as long as I haven't posted in AGES (some
of you may remember my infamous arguments with someone named Jennifer?
when I was posting from my 'kennis@math.grin.edu' account; I was even
lucky enuff to get a reprimand from the then system admin d00d, named
Stephen or whatever); well, I'm gonna of course throw my two cents in
(such is the beauty of list serves, we can all do this, whenever we want;
the ultimate in freedom of speech; whoa, was that only ONE sentence?!).
Ani DiFranco is the shit. No holds barred. EVEN setting aside the
impressiveness of her devout loyalties to her beliefs, i.e. her
righteous feminist *AND* leftist beliefs (unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly,
her sympathies to the latter ideology are largely muffled and/or ignored,
yet do not be fooled, they are still omnipresent and very much
there!).....yes, even setting inside the impressiveness of these very
brave, courageous, and pleasing political loyalties (and I *only* set
them aside cuz this ain't a political list), even with setting them aside
(yes I will make my point!) you can STILL easily admire Ani from a
Salingersque point of view...........just how can one make this at first,
seemingly abstract analogous statement?! EASILY! Listen...
First of all, Ani did not, 'sell out'. The woman never signed with a big
corporate FAKE / PHONY / WATTERED DOWN 'poppish' / let the corporate big
wigs take out ALL the musical integrity out of the artist LABEL. She's
INDIE! How fucking beautiful! Holden would be more than impressed.
There's yet another reason why Holden would be impressed with Ani's flair
and breathtaking style. She doesn't and hasn't changed for anybody!
Despite her unbelievably increased notoriety, the woman is still
flamboyantly feminist (even when feminism was not 'in', a la pre-Alanis
days) and punk as all hell! Hardly fake or phony in ANYBODY's book! I can
personally attest to this, not only from listening to her albums
countless times, but from seeing her in person (in Cedar Rapids, Iowa of
all places, when I was then attending Grinnell College). In person, Ani
is very much attuned with her audience, being more than honest and unfake
at various moments, a la 'oh shit, I forget the next lyric' which she,
from other accounts I have hard, always does at any show where she fucks
up. This is a humble modesty that most stars have no idea to have. And
that's another characteristic that Ani eminates. Humble and enriched and
yet UNFAKE modesty. NO, not that b.s. FALSE Hollywood modesty. Sincere
and unadulterated modesty.
Indeed, in sum, Holden Caulfield and ANY Salingerian should be more than
impressed with Ani. For she embodies, more than almost any other
'noteable' these days, the very meaning of being truly and honestly,
UNfake!!!!!!!!
--AK