Monday was a “Fun Day At Sea”. Or at least that is how Carnival Cruise Lines puts it. I was bored silly, or least I would have been if I was not psyched by the goth scene onboard. I spent most of the day lying in my cabin listening to music on my DELL Axim Pocket PC. Fortunately I loaded it up with MP3s before the cruise. I had lots of Clan Of Xymox songs although I did not listen to them much and some of my very favorite songs like; Covenant “We Stand Alone”, Rammstein “Amerika”, “Mein Teil”, and “Reise Reise”, Lauren Rocket’s cover version of “Cities In Dust”, Moby “New Dawn Fades”, and Apoptygma Berzerk “Love Never Dies”. I should have put a lot more songs on its SD card because that playlist got to be repetitive.
There must have been a psychic vampire onboard because I felt unusually drained a lot of time. Or it could have been my feverish imagination drawing a lot of energy from my body. While I was listening to my music I would slip in and out of dreams and strange reveries. The word reverie is an old fashioned phrase that isn’t used much in our day and age because people crave sophisticated entertainment and are unable to entertain themselves with their own thoughts and dreams. Fortunately this is far from being the case with me. I do not care that much for my thoughts but I dream exceptionally well. I like to quote Rimbaud’s line “I came to find my mind’s disorder sacred” as if that conveys exactly what I mean but I should probably express it better. The subtle workings of my mind is endlessly fascinating to me and quite capable of diverting my attention from the world. Even the splendor of the Carnival Glory and the spectacle of the goths was sometimes eclipsed by my own vision.
However, reading Asmodeus X bio last night reminds me that Industrial and Gothic Rock music is often specifically geared towards putting you into a trance state and directing you inwards. People have been using shamanic drumming, chants, frantic dancing, and fantastic animal costumes since the dawn of time to put themselves in a trance state in order to make an inner journey. The club scene is sometimes no different than a shaman’s ritual. If you have not done your homework you may think this is a ridiculous comparison. But I can cite a long list of sources to back me up. For example, there is even a sub-genre of music known as Technoshamanism. According to the Wikipedia article, Binaural beats can influence functions of the brain besides those related to hearing. This phenomenon is called frequency following response. The concept is that if one receives a stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brain wave frequency is said to be likely to move towards the frequency of the stimulus (a process called entrainment). Many goths are well aware of the relationship between shamanism and their music scene. I recommend Raven Digitalis’s book “Goth Craft: The Magickal Side of Dark Culture” if you want to find out more. There really is no need for me to elaborate on this topic when there is an excellent book available.
But I do need to mention that I am quite susceptible to music that is meant to induce a trance state and it often fills me with a sense of power.
At 3:00 PM it was time for the next scheduled goth event, the Champagne Gothic Piano Recital in the Ivory Lounge. The piano recital was performed by Kael, a young man dressed in a puffy white shirt and an elegant velvet jacket. He looked like an emo Amadeus. That may be really insulting but I can’t think of any better description. He may have been inspired by some Final Fantasy fashion. He played a few classical numbers, some music from video games, and a piano cover of a VNV Nation song which was practically the only music I found familiar. He missed many notes and stopped frequently because he did not know how to play all of the songs he was attempting. I didn’t mind because this clearly was not meant as part of the entertainment. It was more like a group tradition among the regulars who were good friends. A few old ladies had to be asked to leave because they thought the piano recital was a Carnival Cruise activity.
I ordered a long island ice tea and put a lighted ice cube in it. I was rather pleased by that because I’d brought several lighted ice cubes along to add to the festivities but I wasn’t using them. The man who was interested in video footage approached me and got my email address. Then I overheard Zaida talking about her plans for next year’s cruise. I only remember that she insists on October for the Gothic Cruise and prefers the larger vessels.
After the piano recital there was a Gothic Beauty fashion show in the Ebony Cabaret. Gothic Beauty is one of my favorite magazines and I’ve been a subscriber for years. It is one of the few glossy magazines remaining that is devoted to covering the gothic scene. There are no more fanzines because it is easier to create a web site instead. Although it is mainly focused on fashion you can find advertisements for horror novels and music reviews in it’s pages. I usually browse through a new issue looking for some new contribution to dark culture but there is rarely anything significant. I saw the publishers of the magazine preparing the show, Steven Holiday, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief and his wife, Ruby Holiday, Fashion Director. Also at this time I finally recognized the founder of Vampire Raves, Cancer, who wears red silk Chinese jackets. I recognized a few of the songs that were played during the show. One song that seemed hauntingly familiar was Public Image Limited’s “The Order Of Death” but I could not place it. I thought it was a song from “The Lost Boys” song track but I probably remembered it from the movie “Hardware”, an obscure sci-fi movie which I have on Laserdisc. It is certainly a movie the Industrial crowd would love. They also played Covenant’s “We Stand Alone” which sounds like a vampire’s anthem and a song from the Fifth Element movie. That movie was like a really bad fashion show so I guess it was appropriate.
The models for the fashion show were actually members of the group. The girls that I thought were fetish models didn’t even participate. Maybe they were just fans. I didn’t try to find out anything about them. Some of the models did not stop for the photographers. They just walked on by without posing. That was funny and made the entire show seem less imposing.
First there was a raffle to give away some record company promotional merchandise only the guy giving away the stuff was not there. Zaida’s voice was hoarse, probably from trying to have conversations in the noisy environment of the cruise ship. I didn’t do any socializing because nobody would have been able to hear me at dinner, at the concerts, or anywhere else what with all the noise. You really shouldn’t expect me to say anything intelligent unless it is quiet.
The fashion show featured jackets with long flowing sleeves that looked like straight jackets. Do people actually wear something like that at a club? There were the usual Victorian gowns, one skimpy outfit, and outfits based on Bohemianism and Dark Romanticism. Personally I prefer a good old Siouxsie Sioux clone. But you are not going to find any goth fashion victims in Pennsylvania. Nobody dresses all in black except for the Amish. I guess you could say the Amish are like gothic farmers or rusticated goths. I haven’t even seen a goth locally in years.
The ship was rocking a lot in the aft where the Ebony Cabaret was located. It must have been tough on the models. Maybe that is what made me so sleepy all of the time. The ship rocked like a cradle. During the fashion show my mind wandered and I thought about how the goth scene needed to be a little more sublime. It should try to capture the essence of a nightmare, the soul of the dream, and abandon the grotesque. It is difficult to remain in the scene as you mature if it isn’t elevated. I can take it as deep as it needs to be and refashion everything I see in my imagination.
An example of this occurred as I was sitting in the lobby waiting for dinner. I became curiously fixated on a light shining in the depths of the elevator pulley system. It was a strange thing to focus on given the lavish surroundings. Nevertheless it inspired a vision of a bleak industrial complex except for the incongruous image of an elegant businesswoman sitting at a desk in a vast and lonely space, sipping champagne. It was a very mysterious scene from some inscrutable drama.
