Free Tori Amos: Piece by Piece by Tori Amos, Ann Powers Page B

do seem to be carrying a lot of aggression concerning the Church.”
    “Damn right I am, Mom.”
    “Please, let's not use
damn
, dear.”
    “Okay, Ma. Darn tooting I am. But I am harboring a lot of fucking rage over those Passive-Aggressive Manipulators of Authority that constitute The Patriarchy.”
    “That's better, dear. Articulate the breaking of the dam, the breaking of the emotional chains that have bound women for centuries—from your young feminist perspective. Use your music to tackle the infirmities of the patriarchal structure, which at its foundation has a cancerous moral flaw.”
    “Huh … ? Ma, are you all right?”
    “Am I all right? Oh, darlin’, I haven't felt so alive in years. Thank heaven your generation is rising to the call.”
    For a moment it seemed as if my mom were singing “Sister Suffragette,” from the movie
Mary Poppins.
She was on a roll.
    “In my own daughter, in other mothers’ daughters across the land, there will be a thirst for knowledge. Yes, that is the way we will rattle the foundation of The Patriarchy's segregation. Their segregation of heartfrom mind, of actions from consequences, of man from woman, of power from imagination, and of passion from compassion.”
    “Jeez, Ma. I didn't know. I had no idea you still had it in you.”
    And she looked away. When she turned back she took my hand and whispered, “We all have it in us, but those voices can get lost and buried. Those thoughts you just heard have only been sleeping in me. And they sleep in everybody, dear. Don't let anyone tell you that these thoughts are dead. But they have been in a deep sleep. Your passion for the Magdalene is electric. So I don't want to discourage you when I say, a majority of the people in America are just not quite ready to open up to Mary Magdalene the way you have. But be vigilant.”
    “Why? What do you mean?”
    “Be vigilant. Be vigilant against dangers. Be vigilant against the Magdalene's villains, against her vicious betrayers. And, dear, in most cases … they won't even know who she is or what she is. Some will, but many won't.”
    Why is my mind remembering this moment in time all those years ago? Like a film playing in my head as I sit here—sit here waiting. In the conference room at Doubleday Jeez. It's easier to get into the Oval Office than to get into the military compound known as Doubleday Books. So here in the Broadway Division I sit, remembering my mother's monologue as Johnny and Chelsea do business in another room. Funny. I look up. I'm surrounded by point-of-purchase posters for
The Da Vinci Code.
Ah yes,
The Da Vinci Code.
The book, whether you like it or not, that struck a chord with the masses, whereby the public began to look up to the Magdalene, to open up to the Magdalene as a Being, not just as a demeaned prostitute. And yet, what is a prostitute? I know many businessmen prostitutes. What is a sacred prostitute? Do I know any? Could you be one? Could I be one? My mind wanders as I sit here …
    ANN:
Rock and roll is an erotic art. That's a central truth perennially revealed, riding into the public consciousness on Elvis Presley's hips, Robert Plant's androgyne scream, even, though slightly degraded, Britney's stripper sneer. No one accepts, celebrates, and explores this given more keenly than Tori Amos, veteran traveler in the delicate areas where imagination meets the flesh From her first days as a singer-songwriter, she has stood, eyes and voice open, before subjects around which other stars pole-dance. Speaking honestly of rape in “Me and a Gun,” sexual dissatisfaction in “Leather,” or masturbation in “Icicle,” Amos undertook the feminist task of speaking women's truth to patriarchal power. Later, her investigations became both more personal and more enigmatic. Blunt lines edging toward obscenity shoot through songs like “In the Springtime of His Voodoo” and “She's Your Cocaine;” more mature statements like “Lust” and “Crazy”