Wooden Indians
Wooden Indians
Someone commented on the Neil Young list regarding his carrying along a wooden Indian as a stage prop for his performance on the Leno show last night on the rustlist:
What's up with Neil hauling around that noble wooden Indian to all of his gigs??? It must be some sort of security blanket or something...it couldn't be that his Neilness is trying to establish a trademark orimage because...after all... the folks most likely to take notice of such minutia are us Rusties/Zumans/NYAS members...and we now know from that Shakey tome that Neil could give a flying f*ck about what we think...The very use of the word “noble” in this post shows how pervasive myths are. My first thought was that Neil never strays too far from myth; myth is a big part of dreaming, and he is most effective as a dreaming man, rather than as a political pundit. I tend to skip that part.
Inside jokes are always a big part of any artists work, I think. Sometimes they're embarassing, as Walker Evans so rightly pointed out.
Performing, particularly on the scale of artists of Young's stature is nothing if not mythic. Identifying and controlling those myths is a project that every artist strives for; I suppose you could say that it is a security blanket. It’s the how of mythmaking that dominates much of my thinking lately, rather than the why.
Are you negative?
In a world that never stops
Turning on you
Turning on me
Turning on youNeil Young, "Are You Passionate?"
