You said the world was magic/I was wide-eyed and laughing

So I made Petunia watch the Indigo Girls DVD with me last night. Right off, she belittled me for calling it a CD, then made fun of me for saying “DVD” like an old lady. At least I didn’t call it a tape, which is what I started to write at the beginning of this post. And at least I didn’t try to rewind the DVD at the end of the concert as I’ve been known to do.

At any rate, the DVD was awesome. It featured a 1990 blast-from-the-past peek at dear old Amy and Emily, and I couldn’t get over how young they both looked. Every time Emily came on screen (we do still call them screens, don’t we?) I exclaimed incredulously, “She looks really good!” Petunia attributed this to the soft-focus lighting, but I though she just looked young and fresh despite her appearance in a collar-up, long-sleeved purple polo shirt. Amy Ray, however, looked like ass.

[I almost hesitate to write this next part, since one of my friends from college is Amy Ray’s biggest fan (think restraining order—that type of fan). She’s hardcore: she wanted the opening lines to “Joking” tattooed on her back and would break out in a pantomime of “Get Out the Map” without so much as a single shot of tequila on board. I haven’t heard from her in years, but I just know I’m going to get a call from her being like, “I know you didn’t write those evil things about my girlfriend!” and I’ll have to be all, “Don’t lie--you know she looked like ass!”]

Poor Amy Ray. She looks good these days, but she looked like hell throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. In this particular DVD, she danced like she’d been watching too many Madonna videos and sported a bouffant rat’s nest along with her pride necklace and ripped jeans. At least she’d changed out of the social justice t-shirt she’d been wearing in the car, but it wasn’t much of an improvement.

And the fans! The fans were my favorite part of the whole thing (well, aside from singing along to “Secure Yourself” like the loser I really am). Petunia and I counted 27 mullets over the course of the hour, which makes me wish I’d gone to grad school in Athens like I’d planned rather than changing it up for Tufts at the last minute. We also saw several Grade A examples of feathered bangs and a few long-in-the-front, short-on-the-sides anti-mullets as well. What really made me laugh was seeing all the ‘90s-style sensitive men singing along with Emily and Amy—I bet it came as a real shock to them when their girlfriends finally came out!

The Indigo Girls feature prominently in the soundtrack of my adolescence and early adulthood, which is as stereotypical as it gets. Here’s what’s not stereotypical, though—my 20-year old boyfriend introduced me to them when I was 13, and my dad and I attended Indigo Girls concerts together throughout my high school years. Also, a straight couple I know had “Power of Two” as their wedding song (yes, she went to Smith) and at our legal marriage celebration, a gay male friend of ours lobbied hard to hear Petunia play “Closer to Fine” on her guitar, earning himself the coveted title of Honorary Lesbian. I love the Indigo Girls, as unoriginal as that may be, and I love all the mullet-wearing fans who love them, too.

I dedicate this post to missscarlet--thanks for the idea!