Comments on: Clowns and Serial Killers

By: BURKE

BURKE — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:52:20 +0000

I love that this is where the entry on CLOWNS went!!!!
“The same clown knocking on one’s front door at sunset or sitting in a diner (see picture) is more likely to generate fear or distress than laughter or amusement.”

By: chancel

chancel — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:36:42 +0000

ok! I missed all the extra-disturbing part of the entry, but I would like to say that Kim, we can definitely be united in out hatred of the decemberists. HATE. that landlord’s daughter song? do we Really need to explore the mind of a rapist in terms of emotion? I can’t listen to it. and did they purposely choose the worst vocalists they could find?

By: Kevin Erickson

Kevin Erickson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:27:21 +0000

We have talked about this song TO DEATH but i think we have landed on a crucial point–Stevens is a calvinist, so nothing is really framed in terms of “difference” as much as “Universal Depravity”. The point is less about not judging people based on “differences” as much as not judging people based on “similarity” since “ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE TERRIBLE”
The critique that i land on then is more about writing from a perspective of false universalism. He erases differences. This is typical of straight white dudes.
To the point: C.S. Lewis-quoting jerks-i-don’t-like often are found using this song as evidence of their sensitivity
i like his orchestral arrangements though.

By: regarding

regarding — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:35:12 +0000

I feel like the whole “everybody is sinister / everybody has secrets” statement is really just another way of saying “he who is without sin,” right, which is the new-age twee-sincere singer-songwriter’s go-to sentiment for songs about tolerating difference (the idea of “difference” being a “sin” is a whole other ball of wax). This is what makes me think of it as SS’s bizarrely misguided attempt to be like “don’t judge people who are different from you.” Which is a nice sentiment, but using JWG as an example of “not judging those who are different” feels accidentally really offensive to me, like all “difference” is the same? JWG was a damaged human being. He was broken. He didn’t just have a “different lifestyle.”
But, I have many fine friends who really love this song and feel really personally invested in it, so whatever, I could be totally wrong. This is just what I thought and felt when I heard the song, which is obviously subjective. And, I fully acknowledge that my critique makes some cognitive leaps that are not totally blatantly present in the song itself, which is bad scholarship and I’ll be the first person to admit it.
Also, I guess it makes sense that Texas has the most? It’s so big! But still, you’d think a mega-dense state would have more–people jammed on top of each other seem more likely to go completely batshit crazy to me. But maybe there’s something about those flat, burning, wide-open spaces that brings out the wall-eyed bananas in a person.
I really want to stop thinking about serial killers now. I am really disturbed by this entire entry and all the thoughts it has entailed.

By: kim

kim — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:49:22 +0000

I’m really familiar with the song. In fact, I like it a lot.
I think the song is intentionally creepy. I have played it for friends (who don’t listen to lyrics) and they had no comment, until I pointed out that the song is about a serial killer. Then they thought it was a creepy song.
The song reads like your average Time/Life serial killer literature. They love to focus on all the details surrounding the case, because EVERY detail of a person’s life seems creepy when you’re a serial killer. He was a clown: Oooh, creepy. He met Rosalyn Carter. Very creepy. He even gives the midwest a bad name simply for having lived there.
Apropos of not much, when Matthew and I first met we had a serial killer-off: Which state has more serial killers, Texas or Wisconsin? Texas won. But it established early on our own unique methods of flirting.
But getting to the last line, which I think is where your claim lies, I think he’s just pointing out that people are sinister. People have secrets, and false pretenses, and bad motives. Yeah, I would agree with that.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was big into that, too. (The Scarlet Letter.) The secret inner sin. I mean, Stevens is no Nathaniel Hawthorne. I’ll grant you that. But it’s not unusual to use big stories of evil in order to draw milder parallels within common lives.
I have to go to SF to exchange a coat.

By: regarding

regarding — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:16:23 +0000

Have you heard the JWG song? I’m not applying a crazy or fanciful reading onto it. I certainly do not think everyone can only write songs about stuff they love, obviously! I am basing my critique on his own lyrics and the vibe of the song. The song is all about JWG being a sad child, with bad/sad parents, and then imprinting “quiet kisses” on the dead little boys, taking off “all their clothes for them.” The song closes with a phrase about how “on my best behavior / I’m really just like him” and how we should look under Sufjan’s floorboards for his own secrets.
If this isn’t about identifying/empathizing with JWG then I am really confused. I take this song to be SS’s classic phony baloney new-age moralizing about not judging people. A veiled song about tolerance. Which is fine, but it’s super childish and misguided in this case. I mean, I’m pretty uncomfortable with rhetoric that allows fucking JOHN WAYNE GACY to serve as a figurehead for accepting difference / acknowledging that we too are not without sin. It’s pretty much guaranteed to make me feel better about myself, actually. Sure, I’ve sinned, but I certainly never RAPED AND KILLED 30 PEOPLE. It doesn’t exactly beg the comparison. I do not find SS’s deeply-emoting voice to be convincing or interesting when he is singing these lyrics.
Plus the music is barfy. And I’ll admit that doesn’t help, for me.

By: kim

kim — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:50:24 +0000

“If you only know about John Wayne Gacy from that horrible Sufjan Stevens song which tries to make you tolerant of gay/different/weird people by pointing out that John Wayne Gacy’s father drank or something ”
I am seriously confused by this statement. I would never want to talk anyone out of their prejudice, considering how attached I am to my own. But I’m pretty sure Sufjan Stevens doesn’t want us to love or tolerate a serial rapist/murderer/party clown. He’s just writing about him. Where is it stated that the things we write about we love?
I can completely understand any aversion to Sufjan Stevens, although I do like his music. There is a lot of overly precious pop music out there these days, and he kind of fits the bill. (I think we are, as a culture, overcompensating for 30 years of full throttle hair metal dick rock.) But I still like his music.
When I was 17 I hated Morrissey. And then, one day, I didn’t. One day he made me want to tear my eyeballs out, and the next day I owned every single album he ever produced. There’s just no arguing taste. I couldn’t even argue it to myself.
The Decemberists, on the other hand, them and their sea shanty singing b******t: Inexcusable. Surely we can be united in our dislike of The Decembrists.