Striking Revelations of the Lightning Bolt!
I believe that this is urge might also be another impulse of mine to get off my system. I've thought about it and if anything is to be inked in my flesh for life is this.
I tend to model myself after the beloved grandmother of punk rock.She is a prodigy that continues to influence girls and artists, to carry on .For girls she is a feminist goddess, who set many firsts for the upcoming,liberated female musician.She herself is the embodiment of feminist power house that radiates energy to all girls that feel neglect for their sexuality, class,or other general standings.
Patti is a great musician and writer.I myself consider her early life memoir ,Just Kids a great examination of a life of an artist in the New York scene.A lover of classical French poets,cinema and painters.A founder of punk rock and great aspiration to the many great female musicians of today.
Patti Smith gives me great hope in that she herself embodies the idea that a female musician can make a respectable name for herself.She also has achieved a successful music career, raised a family and managed writing career on the side.She has given me hope in many ways in my troubled youth.
Although nothing as great as the queen ,I always looked up to her in my moments of self doubt and self growth.I know I'm no musician or legitimate writer ,but in many ways I found myself longing to be one.For that I want something that reminds me of her profoundly and all that she means to girls like me.
However I have not completely resolved how she herself came with the idea of the lighting bolt tattoo all so surely.I found two quotes from her memoir that seem to clarify things a bit.
From her book Just Kids she mentions the novel Crazy Horse :
“I thought of something I learned from reading Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz. Crazy Horse believes that he will be victorious in battle, but if he stops to take spoils from the battlefield, he will be defeated. He tattoos lightning bolts on the ears of his horses so the sight of them will remind him of this as he rides. I tried to apply this lesson to the things at hand, careful not to take spoils that were not rightfully mine.”
In another excerpt from her memoir,she mentions a girl in which she is influenced by her image to get the tattoo.
"I decided I wanted a similar tattoo. I was sitting in the lobby drawing versions of lightning bolts in my notebook when a singular woman entered. She had wild red hair, a live fox on her shoulder, and her face was covered with delicate tattoos. I realized that if one erased the tattoos, they would reveal the face of Vali, the girl on the cover of Love on the Left Bank. Her picture had long ago found a place on my wall.“
"I asked her outright if she would tattoo my knee. She stared at me and nodded in assent, not saying anything. In the next few days we arranged that she would tattoo my knee in Sandy Daley’s room, and that Sandy would film it, just as she had filmed Robert getting his nipple pierced, as if it were my turn to be initiated."
That in the name of the punk goddess gives me an good enough nudge to ink my skin. However, not entirely convinced I have found other great inspirations from other icons of the scene who rocked the lighting bolt.
The likes of David Bowie who glorified the striking ,lighting bolt face makeup.David Bowie, whom in his Ziggy Stardust phase,he glamorously wore.
David Bowie ,himself was influenced by no other than the king,Elvis Presley.
Presley a great influence of Bowie's in many aspects,like choice of body suits and mullet like hair.They both recorded for RCA and they both even had the same birth date.
Bowie's adaptation of his Ziggy phase was once again a greatly influenced by the ring the king often wore.
"The lightning bolt motif Bowie wore for the Aladdin Sane album cover was partly inspired by a ring that Elvis wore – which had a lightning bolt emblem along with the letters TCB. Of course, Elvis was more famous for his TCB pendants than his ring, but that’s beside the point," according to elvisblog.com
No comments:
Post a Comment