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What's The Most Boring Fortean Subject?

Visited in the the 2012 black comedy ‘Sightseers’. Worth watching if you haven’t already. 8C858893-2439-4618-949F-67447CF1C634.jpeg
 
Anything whatsoever to do with something called Taylor Swift (who's trying to creep into the Fortean corner and for some reason the editors have actually done an article about her in the latest magazine). Give it a couple of years and I'll also not give a shit about someone called something like Ge/men-imii who also won't be the antichrist or in any way relevant unless you're 14 years old and only live for your mobile phone. Or you're an editor for FT magazine.
 
Swifty said:
Anything whatsoever to do with something called Taylor Swift (who's trying to creep into the Fortean corner and for some reason the editors have actually done an article about her in the latest magazine). Give it a couple of years and I'll also not give a shit about someone called something like Ge/men-imii who also won't be the antichrist or in any way relevant unless you're 14 years old and only live for your mobile phone. Or you're an editor for FT magazine.
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In some quarters Taylor Swift is allegedly a worshipper of Satan (Molech, Ba'al, etc).
 
hunck said:
In some quarters the earth is flat.
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That the earth is not flat is easily provable.

With Taylor Swift, the allegations are not provable so the two cannot be compared.

Some are alleging her concerts are full of satanic symbolism and ritual. I am repeating what others have claimed so please don't shoot me, I am the messenger. I neither believe it or disbelieve it. I have placed it on my shelf labeled 'I don't know'.

Bob Dylan has, in a video interview, admitted he 'sold his soul to the devil' in order to obtain the ability to write the songs he wrote. I'll try and find the video clip. In the video he's very much a shadow of his former self. What I struggle with is why would he lie about himself? Again, for many reasons I've put it on that 'I don't know' shelf.

edit: @hunck

I've found it and oddly enough it's now on youtube. It wasn't on there before although it's not the full video.

Video titled: Bob Dylan - Sold his Soul - 60 minutes.

 
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kesavaross said:
That the earth is not flat is easily provable.

With Taylor Swift, the allegations are not provable so the two cannot be compared.

Some are alleging her concerts are full of satanic symbolism and ritual. I am repeating what others have claimed so please don't shoot me, I am the messenger. I neither believe it or disbelieve it. I have placed it on my shelf labeled 'I don't know'.

Bob Dylan has, in a video interview, admitted he 'sold his soul to the devil' in order to obtain the ability to write the songs he wrote. I'll try and find the video clip. In the video he's very much a shadow of his former self. What I struggle with is why would he lie about himself? Again, for many reasons I've put it on that 'I don't know' shelf.

edit: @hunck

I've found it and oddly enough it's now on youtube. It wasn't on there before although it's not the full video.

Video titled: Bob Dylan - Sold his Soul - 60 minutes.

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I'm not cross with you but I am a bit with FT magazine because I paid money for the latest issue. I couldn't care less about some pop star's religion, politics or sexuality and even less what other people think might or might not be happening with their religion, politics or sexuality. Controversy sells more records. I'd buy pop star magazines if I wanted to read about that kind of banal crap.

Anyway, morning all! :)
 
Swifty said:
I'm not cross with you but I am a bit with FT magazine because I paid money for the latest issue. I couldn't care less about some pop star's religion, politics or sexuality and even less what other people think might or might not be happening with their religion, politics or sexuality. Controversy sells more records. I'd buy pop star magazines if I wanted to read about that kind of banal crap.

Anyway, morning all! :)
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But as we see in this very forum not every topic is of interest to everyone so what you find boring others will be fascinated by. So some will love the Taylor Swift article, heck it might even tempt some new people to buy the magazine and then they find they become hooked and buy every issue thereafter.
 
Swifty said:
Anything whatsoever to do with something called Taylor Swift (who's trying to creep into the Fortean corner and for some reason the editors have actually done an article about her in the latest magazine). Give it a couple of years and I'll also not give a shit about someone called something like Ge/men-imii who also won't be the antichrist or in any way relevant unless you're 14 years old and only live for your mobile phone. Or you're an editor for FT magazine.
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Has Baywatch ever been in? I'd buy that issue.
 
gordonrutter said:
But as we see in this very forum not every topic is of interest to everyone so what you find boring others will be fascinated by. So some will love the Taylor Swift article, heck it might even tempt some new people to buy the magazine and then they find they become hooked and buy every issue thereafter.
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That's a fair point Gordon. I was just going with the spirit of the title of this thread. I'd have been more impressed if the article had also included and reminded us of Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads in the ('20's?) and that this is nothing new then gone on to include other 'satanic panic' musical/artist etc members.
 
kesavaross said:
That the earth is not flat is easily provable.

With Taylor Swift, the allegations are not provable so the two cannot be compared.

Some are alleging her concerts are full of satanic symbolism and ritual. I am repeating what others have claimed so please don't shoot me, I am the messenger. I neither believe it or disbelieve it. I have placed it on my shelf labeled 'I don't know'.

Bob Dylan has, in a video interview, admitted he 'sold his soul to the devil' in order to obtain the ability to write the songs he wrote. I'll try and find the video clip. In the video he's very much a shadow of his former self. What I struggle with is why would he lie about himself? Again, for many reasons I've put it on that 'I don't know' shelf.

edit: @hunck

I've found it and oddly enough it's now on youtube. It wasn't on there before although it's not the full video.

Video titled: Bob Dylan - Sold his Soul - 60 minutes.

Click to expand...

I like the way the caption ‘demonic spirts’ pops up at 1.17. Totally convinced me..

The ‘sold his soul to the devil’ legend is way older than Bob Dylan as you’re no doubt aware. The first time I heard it was about bluesman Robert Johnson in the 20s & it may well predate that about people with an unusual talent.

Dylan is just talking about his early songs which he wrote in a purple patch of some years when he was young decades ago & which has now gone. He’s mainly talking about the lyrics. He admits he doesn’t know where they came from & can’t tap into that source again. Maybe the drugs helped - who knows.

The man’s an artist, an uber talented man who's written hundreds of songs over several decades, many of them classics. He’s still writing now in his 80s but he’s not the same as he was when younger.

He doesn’t admit he sold his soul to the devil. He’s just saying he doesn’t really know where or how some of the songs came to him. Many talented/gifted people will say the same. Some music comes to people in a dream.

I found this:
  • Giuseppe Tartini, "Devil's Trill" Sonata:Â It's said that Tartini once dreamed he had made a pact with the devil, and asked if the devil might play his violin. What emerged from this dream was a sonata Tartini described as "so beautiful, performed with such mastery and intelligence," that he wanted to possess it. He attempted to write out the music he heard in his dream, giving birth to the piece we now know as "The Devil's Trill.”
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That’s in the 1700s.

I'm too scared to ask what satanic symbolism is Taylor Swift using..
 
kesavaross said:
Thank you for your reply and sorry. Rudeness is not my nature. I have seen the full 60 minutes. You haven't. I'm now not interested in anything you post and will no longer reply.
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Oh dear.
 
hunck said:
I like the way the caption ‘demonic spirts’ pops up at 1.17. Totally convinced me..

The ‘sold his soul to the devil’ legend is way older than Bob Dylan as you’re no doubt aware. The first time I heard it was about bluesman Robert Johnson in the 20s & it may well predate that about people with an unusual talent.

Dylan is just talking about his early songs which he wrote in a purple patch of some years when he was young decades ago & which has now gone. He’s mainly talking about the lyrics. He admits he doesn’t know where they came from & can’t tap into that source again. Maybe the drugs helped - who knows.

The man’s an artist, an uber talented man who's written hundreds of songs over several decades, many of them classics. He’s still writing now in his 80s but he’s not the same as he was when younger.

He doesn’t admit he sold his soul to the devil. He’s just saying he doesn’t really know where or how some of the songs came to him. Many talented/gifted people will say the same. Some music comes to people in a dream.

I found this:


That’s in the 1700s.

I'm too scared to ask what satanic symbolism is Taylor Swift using..
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You really need to watch the full 60 minutes. You tend to get a better feel for what he is saying. It's like Vordament or Vordamot or who ever in the Harry Potter films, he who must not be named. It's a very sad interview of a broken man.

As for Taylor Swift, sorry, I'm not going to answer that.
 
If we could stick to subjects at least generally agreed to be Fortean and remember to post with an open mind and a friendly tone, then the mods might be allowed to enjoy their Sunday morning coffees.

In general, if FT were to run a 'stunt article' about how some people had claimed Pacman was inspired by Etruscan folk spirits in order to sully the name of the designer of the game, who had publicly expressed a strong preference for a specific candidate in the upcoming U.S. election—or had links to Chinese technology—or had voiced support for the Palestinians over the Israeli government (or vice-versa), it would not make Pacman a new 'Fortean subject'.

That contemporary cultural debate has descended to this level is grimly interesting, but it isn't our point of enquiry on this message board.

========================

It can't beat my earlier answer of numerology (which features both boring subject and boorish advocates), but tales of 'Guardian Angels' are rather dull to me.

They seem most often to be psychological crutches as opposed to objective entities. Or unnecessary religious glosses on more interesting phenomena.
 
kesavaross said:
You really need to watch the full 60 minutes. You tend to get a better feel for what he is saying. It's like Vordament or Vordamot or who ever in the Harry Potter films, he who must not be named. It's a very sad interview of a broken man.

As for Taylor Swift, sorry, I'm not going to answer that.
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I watched one lasting 15 minutes titled Full 60 minutes. Presumably that’s the name of the show not the length of the interview. Is that the one you mean?

The interview is 20 years old - from 2004. He was 63 then & looks even older now. It was the time of his memoir ‘Chronicles’. A great read if you’re a fan. In it he writes he thought he was finished & washed up in the late 80s before rediscovering his muse in New Orleans. The ‘Oh Mercy’ album followed. Something of a renaissance.

There’s no doubt Dylan is a strange & elusive man who doesn’t like or ever intend to be pinned down but there’s really nothing demonic or devil related in the content nor is there any hint of it from the interviewer. He’s just a ‘legend’ looking back at his career. In his earlier days he was lauded as ‘the voice of a generation’ & all that. It’s clear he never accepted it himself & it’s quite a millstone to have hung round your neck. I can’t think of anyone else who’s had that sort of weight attached to them.

Nowhere in the interview does he admit he sold his soul to the devil as you said above. He just says he doesn’t know how some of the songs came to him.

I don’t see anything sad about it. As for broken man, he continues to write & record new material & is still on his ‘never ending tour’. Not bad for a man now in his early 80s. Not many have a continuing music career lasting that long. I don’t think he’ll stop until he’s physically incapable.

It’s another thing we’ll have to agree to disagree about..

Re songs coming in dreams, Paul McCartney has said he dreamt the melody of ‘Yesterday’ & on waking he first came up with the lyric ‘scrambled eggs’ as a starter line because it fitted rhythmically, & that was the name of the song for a while.
 
Analogue Boy said:
Looking forward to this summer’s Fortean Times Swimsuit Edition.
Aleister Crowley in a Mankini…Phwoooar!
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Not Crowley but another climber and bohemian... I'm writing a couple of pieces for the centenary of the 1924 Everest attempt about George Mallory and he was a very keen nudist... (Shockingly good looking, unlike Crowley, too).
 
BS3 said:
Yeah I seem to recall various Bloomsbury Group types swooning over him.
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So far for me on the most boring level, it's a toss up between what Alister Crowley used to do to get himself attention and what Taylor Swift is currently doing to get herself attention now that Lady Ga Ga seems to have gotten bored of getting herself attention and Madonna also chucking the towel in.
 
Swifty said:
So far for me on the most boring level, it's a toss up between what Alister Crowley used to do to get himself attention and what Taylor Swift is currently doing to get herself attention now that Lady Ga Ga seems to have gotten bored of getting herself attention and Madonna also chucking the towel in.
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I like batshit Edwardians/late Victorians, got to admit - eccentric ladies in velvet, etc. And weirdly, can tolerate Taylor Swift. Although I wouldn't buy a magazine because she was featured in it. I would buy one for Crowley lol. I like reading about weird secret societies of the early 20thC and people coming a cropper by getting entangled in weird stuff - conmen and women, fake spiritualists etc.
 
One of the reasons fortean subjects are quite popular is that they are presented in a quite easy to understand way, not much academic rigour they would say, Dr Ian Stevenson gave reincarnation the academic once or twice over and I must admit it can be rather dry stuff however to me he is the definitive writer on the subject
 
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