H. Duffdom

She repeats 'she can swallow knives' x2 in an effort to describe the gypsy woman in the song "Gypsy Woman", and according to the NY Times, she sings the song herself. Even when she is live. Hilary Duff, better known by her real name Lizzie Mcguire, is apparently back like she has never been before. The Times article referred to her fans as tweens and former tweens, but I will have them know that I was never a tween fan of Hilary.

It was the fall of junior year. The leaves were green, evergreen, for we were in California. But a wind was sweeping through the streets, and it whispered in your ear: Hilary..... Hilary......
That wind spoke to many of us. Especially those who had already been listening to Metamorphosis. Those who hadn't done so seriously enough installed a copy in their car stereo, and put the lyrics on post-its all over the dash. Learning Hilary's lyrics seems to be a pretty big deal. The idea is that you never know what you are going to find.

I once found, and later immortalized on a T-shirt with puff paint, the sagacious epigram 'If the light is off/ then it isn't on.' This sounds silly, looks silly here, typed, and looks silly on a T-shirt in pink puff paint. But the thing is, when Hilary sings it, really belts it, and when she says "Oh ahn," dramatically and emotionally raising the pitch and the intensity of the final moment of the verse, it isn't silly at all. It kind of makes sense. You know why?

Because of you, the listener. Language related arts draw their creativity from their receivers. All that they need to do is make you receptive. For this reason song lyrics often look nonsensical when recited or written. But the musical beauty seems to imbue them with something. Really all it does is make you relax and open up to the infinity of possible meanings conveyed by the words. Similarly, poetry needs only to convince you of its success, its creativity, for you to indeed find it creativity. It is all about mood.

So when I laughed in the car after shutting off the stereo immediately following the famous light on/off parable, it was because I lost that connection with the music. When I put it on my shirt, thinking it would be cool because I was mocking the teenage star, it was out of the context of her beautiful voice and background 'music'. But when she was on stage and I could see all of her beauty and freshness, and hear the 'music' live, and see her lip sync or maybe even sing, I suddenly understood the meaning of those words. In their simplicity they contained something incredibly profound, far beyond language. In my dismay at having previously underestimated her power, I tore my shirt to pieces, ripping it from my back and heaving it onstage, where it came to rest near her feet, a tribute to her profundity.