crescent moon

the bolter, taylor swift (2024) // the bolter, frances osborne (2008)

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--- the american dream (king of my heart, 2017; fresh out the slammer, 2024; paper rings, 2019)

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎"i love you, it's ruining my life."

t.s - the prophecy 🌙🖤

I love you, it's ruining my life.

Theodore Roethke, from "What Can I Tell My Bones", The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke [ID'd]

Taylor's 2011 interview with The New Yorker is so interesting in the context of Clara Bow...

"Swift is sometimes called a twenty-one-year-old 2.0—the girl next door, but with a superior talent set. She has an Oprah-like gift for emotional expressiveness. While many young stars have a programmed, slightly robotic affect, she radiates unjaded sincerity no matter how contrived the situation—press junkets, awards shows, meet and greets." ("Flesh and blood amongst war machines.")

"Swift has the pretty, but not aggressively sexy, look of a nineteen-thirties movie siren. She is tall and gangly, with porcelain skin, long butterscotch hair that seems crimped, as if from a time before curling irons, and smallish eyes that often look as if they were squinting. She loves to wear makeup, but it tends to resemble stage makeup: red lipstick, thick mascara. . . . She is in the midst of her second world tour, and every show begins with a moment in which she stands silently at the lip of the stage and listens to her fans scream. She tilts her head from side to side and appears to blink back tears—the expression, which is projected onto a pair of Jumbotron screens, is part Bambi, part Baby June." ("You look like Clara Bow.")

having listened to this song approximately 34 times in the past 2 hours, I increasingly feel like there's a comment in it about Taylor's public persona and how it connects to the ever-changing ideal of "the perfect female artist". The "you" in the song is set apart from others, who lead scandalous lives or are "fake"/manufactured ("fresh of breath air in smoke rings" / "flesh and blood amongst war machines"). The suits in L.A. highlight that as a good thing – specifically as something that can be marketed to people. However, as we reach the end of the song, the "you" is applauded for having more edge than Taylor Swift. Suddenly she is the smoke ring in fresh air, and that is what makes her interesting and unique. And Taylor Swift, who presumably was this wide-eyed girl we met at the beginning, who was made to fit into this bright eyed, pure mold, looks back at perhaps her rawest and edgiest album yet and realizes she shed who they made her be for good. The tides have changed.

TAYLOR SWIFT ⎯ Fortnight (2024)

And for a fortnight there, we were forever.

‘When the Moon came down’ by Feridun Oral

All's fair in love and poetry...