The Aesthetics of Androgyny: Ged-aesthetics

The winds of fandom fluttering a Rush flag!

In order to make this post make as much sense as it possibly can, I have to begin by noting that there are levels of engagement when it comes to obsession. I maintain that I am always a fan of a given number of things (Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Civil War history, the band Coheed and Cambria) but I am not always engulfed by the neurological storm that is obsession... and I'm not always aware that I'm undertaking some task that will cause those wild winds to flare back up. So here I sit, victim of my own obsession, blow back into full blown Rush fandom... and remembering the good old days when my obsession had just begun.

To make this post make more sense, I have to account for the culture of "those days." I was in high school and Amazon.com may have existed, but no one really trusted internet shopping yet. Rush wasn't (and still isn't) Kiss, so the number of products a fan could acquire were limited to the albums themselves and the VHS video compilation Chronicles, which I got by sending away to an address on the inside of a cassette tape. Oh, dark ages! So Chronicles arrived in its nondescript cardboard container and my dad picked me up for our weekend visit and, while he made lunch, I popped my tape in and sat on the floor so as to be closer to the action, rocking back and forth with excitement, and saw my heroes for the first time. (I told you it was the dark ages).

I was prepared to love Geddy Lee because I loved his voice (yes, I know, this is not everyone's reaction) but there he was - fragile and sparkly with his long hair and long fingers and gentle face and behind me I hear my dad declare, "That is the ugliest man I have ever seen."

I admit being rather shocked by this. He was beautiful to me (he still is, and manages to be at just about every period of the band's existence, although everyone looked a little suspect in the late 80s....) but I guess this was my introduction to the fact that tastes do differ widely... that we all have our own sense of aesthetics.

Maybe I can blame my personal version of beauty on David Bowie. He was the earliest crush I remember when he played the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, so maybe he paved the way for my androgynous rock star!

I'm willing to stipulate that part of the fun of a rock star crush (whom my in-laws even recently asked if I would run off with - where's the trust?) is that larger-than-life figures offer a canvas to paint what you want to see. Thankfully, as a good Canadian boy, Geddy lives up to the kindness and graciousness I wanted to believe in. Indeed, one of the reasons I love Rush so much is that they offer me something secular that I can look up to. They care for their families, they give back to their communities, they work hard, and they're genuine people. In a world with so few role models, I need them!

So in celebration of all beauty that wavers in between, that shimmers with 70s stage-era sparkle, that has its own gentleness, I give you a select gallery of Geddys! (I don't know how you'll feel about it by the end of the post, but I bet I'll be smiling!)