TORI STORIES

When the Complete Videos 1991-1998 was released on video, a promotional item was sent around with it.  It was a booklet with Tori's own scribbling and musings about each of the videos in the collection, as well as random little thoughts.  The booklet was written on the road during the 1998 Plugged Tour.  Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the entire contents of that book.  Enjoy!

SPARK

a parallel. Obviously.

People have said to me that they’ve found this video Disturbing. I guess facing Death is just that.

I didn’t want a play by play on film of the literal meaning of Spark. So I would spend hours talking to James (Brown the director) about circumstances out of your control and having to find this will in yourself that you didn’t know you had. I’ve said before that Spark is about a girl having a Really Bad Day.

Angels. I knew I wanted "them" represented in some way. Someone had said to me after the miscarriage, "Well, at least the angels were with you..." NO I said. They went to a Rave and why not. When the wolf is at your door there is no insurance

no distracting

him

her

no angel can or has the power to Break Universal law

not with this wolf

or my Door.

Water. The Rhythm of the water in the Tropics where I wrote "Choirgirl" was the element that Brought me strength to my woman, who was truly in NO MAN’s land after losing the Baby.

So James said to me that Water had to be the turning point the pivot where my character transforms.

The ominous pulse of the video was no different than the feeling I had

the Day

Spark is based on

Death lurking....

People have asked me what happened to the girl in the Spark video

Well, the children of the corn as I call them or the angels or as James fondly calls them - Village of the Damned arrive in their buggy

and Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan

Do not come to mind

and you figure maybe

She’s better off not getting, going whatevering with them anyway

and then they say, "But what about him? - He’s still out there."

And I say yes I know

HEY JUPITER

I guess it’s quite telling

when people, especially people you know very well

people who know you’d gobble up Royal Jelly -

the most foul of

foul -

before you’d put

a flesh and blood cigarette in your mouth

(I’M A BLOW BACK girl myself)

Anyway, they never fail to ask you

for a light...

MTV had a problem with all the pyrotechnics

So we had to cut some of the fire sequences Down particularly the ending.

However, since this is not their’s or anyone else’s

Release I’ve chosen to stand by the Ending that

Earl (Sebastian) and I really felt was the truth of the woman in Jupiter.

A craving or hunger or Burning for someone is seduction when she’s kind. When She turns, you are truly in hell and the humiliation of your need is the Cherry on top for her.

Martyrs for a cause are treated quite differently than

Martyrs for love.

Buddhist monks are immortalized

the courage

the Respect

Rejected lovers

yes immortalized,

the pity

the loneliness

CHINA

So Cindy called me up and said I know what he’s building you. I said Cin who’s Building me what. Your lover in the video she said.

As I remember, we started to Dive into the idea that creative couples make "things" that can Rip each other and their images of themselves - separate and together

Separate

and

together

Which make them

Separate together.

Build walls separately

Build walls together

Egos are delicate things

Unfortunately

Walls are not

Misperceptions running fast so fast it helps set the stones in place.

China was shot in North Cornwall

Strangely enough where we Recorded Choirgirl 5 ½ years later.

As in Spark you are seeing

Real water in Winter’s glory in England

My "love" in the video built me two things which the

Sea took with her - an honest

to god Rock piano

and an upside down china teacup in the form

of a skirt.

JACKIE’S STRENGTH

Sometimes I fall into the videos like a haven, a welcome escape from my real life character and the dynamics that surround "her".

Jackie was one of these times where I could put "whatever" somewhere. I would Ride around in this taxi for hours as a pick up truck with a Camera on the back of it followed

and followed and followed me as a truant bride.

The mythic references for Brides are endless

James again was at the helm with Miss Karen always near.

Since Under the Pink, Karen has worked with all the Directors on casting which is a reflection on the music.

Jackie was an on location shoot as was Spark, Jupiter, Talula, God, Past the Mission and China. I always have a picture hidden in one of my bags - which I talk about in the Intermission - Food section.

Back to Jackie.

This video was tricky because it was close to the bone, having only been married for 2 ½ months. Karen and I would talk about how "she" - the girl in Jackie, the Bride in Jackie was a parallel on some plane somewhere who had made different choices in her life. A medicine woman told me once that alternate dimensions existed where a different you, a different me play out choices we could’ve made.

The girl in Jackie is an artist of some kind but "it ain’t neva gonna happen" to quote Miss Karen. As she and I went back and forth over this alternate reality we re-built my life, with the help of LL (fondly called double L) who was referenced in that other book - the top 100 psychics.

Anyway with LL’s help I re-built her psyche I should say MY psyche. We knew what she ate I knew she drew with pastels I knew she was never going to make it to the church that day. It’s not that she didn’t love him - they’d been together since they were kids it’s just about a promise she had made to herself a long time ago.

When James called me for the 17^th time that day and said - I’ve got it as you go through your old neighbourhood interspersed

with present and past

you finally run into young Tori.

We started to talk about casting and Karen convinced us with the help of Lesley (make-up) of course that we could pull off young Tori.

Having to face my younger self was pretty wild - her position being very clear - "we had a vision you’ve become numb, we may never succeed but you never even tried". So the answer is NO, I don’t know if "she" ever eventually marries her childhood love - But she Doesn’t that Day.

INTERMISSION 1.

We spend so much time in Hotels where walls are pretty thin And I can’t really say to you I’m an eavesdropper by choice but if you just sit quietly... reading... or just whatever.... daydreaming... you start hearing all sorts of stuff. I had convinced myself that all the rooms across from mine had women in them with a predilection in them for imitating their house pets.

Next door on the other hand money was definitely the subject and something about "her" being a "conniving little thieving Bitch". He was pretty much at the end of his Rope and I thought about sending him over a Super Tuscan with my Shrink’s number but she’s a bit of a Recluse. And this was only 1 day in Ohio.

CAUGHT A LITE SNEEZE

At first Caught a Lite Sneeze was going to be filmed in Black & White so that the special effects could work, so it was a nice surprise when Mike the Director said he wanted to give it a go in colour.

A Ghost.

He kept feeling my character was my own ghost trapped between the worlds.

Whether a part of me had gone so close to the edge that she went over the edge thereby Resulting in a death of some kind...

I find it funny sometimes that although "Pele" was really playing with emotional death, my character physically dies in 2 of the Pele videos (Sneeze and Jupiter).

"Choirgirl" on the other hand, which confronts physical death, has the most energetic - being physically present - from Super-girl in Spark, to Running Bride to Rave Chick in Raspberry.

When I was studying all the videos with my friend Tam I tried to remember my impressions when we were filming. Sneeze was physically demanding whereas Jackie was the most emotionally challenging.

I remember in the Sneeze set, which was at a Studio Somewhere in London, having conversations with Karen and Leslie about parts of "one" dying when there is no Resolve in a particular relationship. It really took until "Choirgirl" with the inception and then the loss of the Baby for me to nod Spiritually to the two men of whom Sneeze references.

Karen and Lesley knew I was *dancing* thru the whole video shoot, demanding my heart to race across the planet and back into my body - a theme I come back to time and again as in "Calling for my soul at the corners of the world I know she’s playing poker with the rest of the Straglers"

The chair scene here has become a mechanical dragon dragging parts of myself from other parts - it’s a long way from the protective chair in Pretty Good Year.

PRETTY GOOD YEAR

Casting Greg for Pretty Good Year was vital because the song was inspired by a Real boy named Greg whom I have never met - not that I know of. I received a letter from this boy and it therefore became the seed for PGY.

The boy that was cast in the video had the Real name of Greg and we felt he carried a similar longing... The duality of the video for me is Starkness in fantasy

Things are going well,

clinically well or

maybe transparently well

that she sense what is about to come.

Her breaking of the glass to follow him into his private Dreamworld is her way of confirming her instincts.

Karen and I chuckled over the Ann Margaret Reference, As always when things are in the presipice of Blowing up -

Break into a dance

Routine

I say.

TALULA

Boy in the Plastic Bubble has always been a cornerstone for me and Miss Karen

If we were freezing, imagine the Harpsie...

Battersea Powerstation in February - yick.

Talula the song has two major themes, Power and Value. Those in power can demand that we see and agree with them by threatening us with a loss of some kind.

Here in Talula my character is separated from her primal voice her Bloodline which is represented by the harp.

If you don’t agree or follow those in power I do believe there will be rejoicing by your own inner child. Loss is a scary thing but what I found to be more

scary

would be to feel nothing over a loss.

Similar to that sentiment, I would rather have loved

and loss [sic.]

than to have never loved

at all.

CORNFLAKE GIRL US VERSION AND UK VERSION

The American version of Cornflake Girl happened after Karen and I were ‘Runnin our Mouths’.

Atlantic America thought the Black and White version was too ABSTRACT. I’m not Really sure what the Black & White version is about I think a kind of "Dorothy in Hell searching for a Pacific Rim Chef" - a Journey to the centre of the Universe with a Rope tied around my furry galoshes. At any rate the Black & White was a 2 day shoot - as was the God video which was happening the same week across town. Because Europe and America were going for 2 different singles it was a pretty busy week for this person.

The American version was also shot in L.A. about 2 months later when the Americans finally decided they were going with Cornflake as the British decided on Pretty Good Year which was shot in a studio in London.

The American Cornflake was choreographed by Bunty a choice of Karen’s - She also plays one of the women in the back of the truck (the girl in red confronting the evil Uma Thurman looking control Bully)

Nancy Bennet and I had a blast doing this with Karen as always styling and conceptualizing with us. I can’t lay claim to a lot of this

but I do take credit for the lipstick weaponry and cooking the cowboy - all in all a low pressure day.

GOD

God was definitely high drama

I chose Melodie, confidant and confident She had a wealth of Religious perceptions.

Rituals became the key word as well as languages - the different ways people worship

What is sacred to one person would be insulting to another

Which is why so many people have been tortured and tortured others over "My God’s bigger than your Dog".

The Realism of God juxtaposes with the "fantasy gone wrong" happening across town of Cornflake kept me Karen and Leslie constantly having to refocus ourselves.

I learned specifically 2 things on the God shoot:

1) Rats shit but they don’t fart

2) Never handle snakes after cavorting with 150 rats without sterilizing yourself in Clorox first.

Obviously there’s always a p.s. to this -

not everyone will see the artform

in us pairing the junkie

with the Hasidic wrapping Ritual.

CRUCIFY

Queen Elizabeth I and Peeping Tom were the buzzwords I was hearing from Cin when we were chatting about Crucify. Cindy’s visual sense never ceased to surprise and generally make me belly laugh. She’s a bit of a devil.

Cindy was always weaving in a subtext - Elizabeth the first getting baptized and then doing the saucy strumpet

shimmy

after being blessed of course

FOOD INTERMISSION

After having made over 14 videos if we count The Big Picture from Y Kant Tori Read the one piece of advice I will put out there to those who will be making one for the first second or third time -

I didn’t learn learn this until my 5^th one -

YOU MUST HAVE GOOD FOOD TACTICS.

I now know why we artists are so highly insured on these shoots - with a little bit of help from Prehistoric Catering the SAID ARTIST just might contract E. Coli. the record company in turn makes a killing.

On Location was always trickier, now it’s cake - the method completely instilled and a joy to whip up.

In the UK it’s always Marks and Spencer

Marks and Sparks to the Locals (the guac) oh god, and a health food shop in Notting Hill where the Kalamata olive pate is beyond....

It’s about nibbles -

anything that needs heating is a reject -

trust me

I had my team living out of my Brown Bags more than once

The stress is when you and your fellow rabbits

Come to the bottom of your second bag

the only acceptable answer,

"you" have another one

hidden

:)

ROAD NOTES

Johnnie says we found a hair that belongs to the *murde?*

Bose is down

Trevor is taking her apart in Reverence notes on her will from now on be in black ink

Elton’s piano tech is coming in to liase with Trev

the Midi system being his specialty

She being Trev’s.

I’m told I’ll be playing

Shhh (Turn over quickly)  a yamaha

Came up on a truck from NYC

We’re in Ithaca

I will keep you posted

RASPBERRY SWIRL

I will tell you this

Kids and pigs mixed together

with their gorging of sweets and excited kiddie poo vomit and literally piggy poo and cake pudingie ickie oogie Sugarie pukie all messed together sitting there rotting under the lights take after take and you wonder why I carry an oxygen machine -

card holder since 94

Raspberry was one of the longer days of my life....

Karen pulled in these young directors: Barnaby and Scott.

I liked the idea

Their visual sense

and their openness to Karen’s mad visions

She was inspired by an URBAN Alice and Wonderland feel if I recall the treatment correctly.

Kids with red wigs - red wigs

Little Tori’s she said

This boy leading me into a world where Karen truly lives

Every movie ever made Karen can give her version

"A READ AIN’T NO ONE EVER EVVA thought of pushing,"

a long but magical day

WINTER

without question

my favourite time of year

Strange for a girl who is always cold

there is something that draws me though, whether it’s to catch me watching Torville and Dean

walking down a road so bundled up I look like the Yetti

or taste testing Daz’s mulled wine

I’ve found myself out, I’m a winter girl.

PAST THE MISSION

Probably my favourite

here I am taking Vanessa Williams’ advice saving the best for last

We filmed in Arcos Spain

We were there 4 days - 2 days shooting

1 day in

1 day out

my mother flew in for this one and you can just imagine your mother surrounded by all these older Spanish

Sweethearts

Working with Jake Scott was fascinating from my POV because although he was a young director it was so in his blood

it was intense

Karen and Leslie found the casting of the Priest enough for a gossip

Yes he was gorgeous as was everyone - the young girls one of the girls’ mothers - the wee one - helped us put the whole thing together

4 days of my life I will never forget

It changed my thinking

about food

about passion

about the committment to art, to love

unfortunately not to learning to spice

Oh news bulletin

Trev says Bose is recovering

well from surgery and to

quote the great

Alan Parsons

the Eagle will rise again.