It Doesn't Have to be Perfect

Spot the 110 year old mistake

Our capitalist society has a thing about quality and professionalism. The source can only be capitalism because it connects the worth of things to their economic or productive value. That's why it's okay to be snooty about the unemployed but billionaires can exist with impunity in our society.

When you take economic or market value out of a thing it has a remarkable effect because the word amateur comes from the Latin for love for a reason. I was inspired to think again about this when I was recently writing my post about not writing a tarot book, and I was thinking that to get a book commercially published you have to say what the market is perceived to want to hear otherwise you 'fail'.

Take that pressure out and you have more what looks like the blogging world where you can say pretty much what you want and also control any comments about your witterings. Magically this is moving from the element of earth alone, and prioritizing air (thoughts), fire (will, desire) and water (love, desire). Take the financial lead out of it and the elements are already more balanced. 

If nobody will hear you it doesn't matter if your singing is terrible. It doesn't matter if nobody else understands your art, and so on. Doing things for the love of it is about as revolutionary as you can get!

The other thing I was thinking was that many people look at the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck and rightly think it looks like it was thrown together by a very drunk four year old but it has been remarkably influential. Personally I've tried a couple of the tidied up versions and simply can't engage with them in the same way.

Since this is about being unprofessional let's have some artists. 'Is he artistic? No, he's musical,' as Dame Hilda Bracket used to say. First one who genuinely didn't realize what she sounded like, and so enjoy Florence Foster Jenkins singing Mozart's Queen of the Night:

While looking for that video, fortuitously I came across a real review from 1934 of one of her concerts:

Mrs. Jenkins appeared in flame-colored velvet, with yellow ringlets piled high on her head. For a starter she picked Brahms’ Die Mainacht, subtitled on her gilt program as “O singer, if thou canst not dream, leave this song unsung.” Mrs. Jenkins could dream if she could not sing. With her hands clasped to her heart she passed on to Vergebliches Standchen, which she had labeled “The Serenade in Vain.”

The audience, as Mrs. Jenkins’ audiences invariably do, behaved very badly. In the back of the hall men and women in full evening dress made no attempt to control their laughter. Dignified gentlemen sat with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths and tears of mirth streaming down their cheeks. But Mrs. Jenkins went bravely on. For a Spanish group she wore a mantilla, carried a big feather fan, undertook a few little dancing steps to convey more spirit. While she was getting her breath, the Pascarella chamber group played Dvorak’s Quintet and cameramen photographed the happy laughing faces in the audience.

Sometimes, her concerts were painful in more ways than one, the review noted, not only because she “struggled” with the songs but also because she once literally tossed roses into the audience and “in her excitement, the basket slipped from her hand, [and] hit an old gentleman on the head.” Source

The linked article correctly comments that if she were alive today she would be trending on YouTube.

In a rather different vein we have the legendary Jonathan and Darlene Edwards who definitely did know how to do it and get paid for it in their regular careers but had a side career out of doing it wrong:

Finally I'm delighted to introduce you to Francisco and Fernando, two Venezuelan backpacking friends who self funded an album of them singing. You wouldn't be hearing about it now if one of them hadn't subsequently gone on a talent contest and let out that there was in existence a whole album of the singing he treated them to. Do join in the chorus. It really won't make much difference if you're tone deaf, sing in a different key (I mean different to the at least three keys the song is already being sung in at once) or feel like singing a different song. That's the point.