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Review about Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park ------Performed by Tragically Hip | 07/16/2004 11:00:00 AM The Athropomorphic Analysis Of Ursine Angst 8 out of 8 Found the view helpful "What's troubling Gus?" A fine question. As I waited for the arrival of The Tragically Hip's In Between Evolution, I would scan the website with an unsettling obsessiveness. Nothing...Nothing...Nothing. The bastards just don't update the thing. But there was the track listing (which was discussed in creepy detail on message boards. "I think this is just to throw us off. I mean, be serious, they couldn't really have named a song If New Orleans Is Beat. Could they?"). I'd tilt my head, and squint my eyes and wonder what that sonorous mutant Gordon Downie has cooked up in that fevered brain of his. And the one I always came back to was Gus, The Polar Bear From Central Park. It brought to mind a series of children's books about a polar bear, by the name of Larry, in New York, who has a somewhat unnatural love for muffins, by that master of zaniness (and borderline inappropriateness) Daniel Pinkwater. Obviously one has nothing to do with the other, but I'm not so certain they're unrelated. The crux of the song, for me, is the notion of being out of place. Being an animal out of place. If we go back to the Fully Completely album, in the liner notes there's a letter, "Dear you,..." it begins. He throws out the idea, "Maybe if I was a barracuda, y'know, a compulsive killer that destroys more than I eat." There's a recurring theme, perhaps slightly occluded by beer goggles, or whatever else we're wearing over our eyes on any given day, the notion of humans as animals. That's what we are, but we have thumbs, pants and churches...we're the masters of our destiny. Right now, here in the United States, a debate rages over marriage. Who gets to love whom. What is the function of legal union, and who shall be deemed worthy of inclusion. I sat for two days watching C-Span2, listening to debates, rhetoric, statistics, fabrications, and, ultimately, a total lack of historical perspective on the function of marriage. "Marriage," it was said, over and over, ad absurdum, "is the bedrock of our society." ???? The notion was posited that allowing same gender marriages would undermine the entire fabric of our culture. &, yes, this actually does have to do with the song, bare with me. The function of marriage, in it's true, historical context, is a moot point. Marriage wasn't an issue until Homo Sapiens began to phase out of nomadic living, and settle into permanent, or semi-permanent arrangements. This all came into being with the development of agriculture, and the domestication of animals. Marriage was part of this paradigm shift. As the culture evolved, former behaviors were no longer necessary, or even desireable. Marriage is, at it's root, a socio-economic arangement for the mutual benefit of all parties involved. Well, it was. This continued making sense for a long, long time. Right now we can look at the tradition of dowries and betrothal as...Well...Barbaric. We marry for love. This is stupid. This is the true threat to the sanctity of marriage. And this is the result of another shift, which we, in many ways, havn'e fully grasped the cultural, behavioral, ethical, and moral ramifications of. The industrial revolution was precisely that; a revolution. And here we are staring down the barrel of the consequences of short-sightedness. "When it's either them or it's us, everything that moves, and anything you see becomes something to kill and eat" Certainly this song is about a depressed polar bear in the middle of New York. But, like Nautical Disaster, Daredevil, or, really, any number of Hip songs, there's a whole lot more below the surface. There'a a craft to it, as well. Hiding an allegory about the human condition beneath layered guitars, and those phenomenal Gord Sinclair bass lines. We're and animal, as Socrates put it, "...who eats and excretes." But I know, "You sound demented." I get it all the time. Thanks to Klugarsh for submitting the review.