The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/music/page/9)
When David Bowie died in January, there was a mass outpouring of emotion. Fans around the world shared memories, re-watched his movies, and listened to their favorite Bowie songs. The international media machine dug up stories about his life and influence. Bowie was, and still is, an icon representing a form of transgressive pop culture. Through that work, he pushed boundaries into the fantastic and was fully embraced for his oddity.
[We welcome back guest journalist ZB. She is a poet, and a journalist for the San Francisco Herald. She has written two interview books, “Women of the Underground,” featuring female musicians and artists. ZB’s autobiographical writing narrates Goeff Cordner’s feature-length film “Portraits from the Fringes,” a segment of which became the award-winning “Hotel Hopscotch.” In all her work, she likes to focus on feminism, radical outcasts, surrealist art, social activism and the esoteric. Today we present side A of her interview with author Patricia Kennealy-Morrison.The second segment, side B, will be presented next Sunday.]
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison was one of the first female rock critics and journalists, having begun her career in the 1960s.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA –The time around the winter solstice is, in the far northern parts of the northern hemisphere, a period of deep darkness. Many northern-based spiritual traditions, including forms of modern Heathenry and similar paths, have rich traditions, which involve dealing with this darkness in the physical world, as well as on emotional and spiritual levels. Artist Kari Tauring, who has been exploring these concepts for some time, created a show called Winter Solstice in the Northlands, which she had been staging annually from 1999 to 2006. This December, after an eight year hiatus, she brought the show back to life. We were able to catch up with Tauring in between her performances to ask her about the production and her background.
[The following is a guest post from Michelle Mueller. Michelle Mueller is a doctoral student researching polyamory in Pagan communities. She has integrated women’s and gender studies throughout her study of religion, and thinks it’s never a bad idea to think about representations of women in the media, as well as messages about queer culture and Pagans.]
As many of us in the Bay Area (and beyond) reintegrate into the “mundane world” after PantheaCon, it feels timely to turn an eye towards images of Witchcraft in pop culture. Some Wiccans were upset about Katy Perry’s performance of “Dark Horse” at the Grammys three weeks ago, during which she invoked theatrical imagery to refer to “the Burning Times.” In her grand finale, she attached herself to a broom (basically stripper pole style); the pyrotechnics produced a blazing fire around her, a reference to witch-burning.
I missed the Grammys but my good friend, Assembly of the Sacred Wheel member, Shelly Graves brought the performance to my attention with a Facebook post the next morning, “Did anyone just see that performance by katy perry?