Perhaps the point of the title Aerial Boundaries was the actual possibility of something that had seemed impossible. Like Michael Hedges’ two-handed plucking/tapping. Like a hive of activity in a field that first seems to be sleeping in the sun. Or like finding music for myself. And some measure of serenity.
Same-sex marriage and public acceptance of legal equality for LGBT folk has broken out of the beachhead phase; defenders of inequality have turned to erecting enclaves for discrimination like the failed “religious freedom” law in Arizona. Marijuana legalization is still in the beachhead phase. We’ll know it’s broken out when enclaves start being built against that. But redoubts almost never hold.
The cathartic quality of Purple Rain spoke directly to me. I could dare to recognize now that I had been engineering my own catharsis. And so for that night Purple Rain was my anthem.