No Sign of the Devil at Lilith Fair Web Site

Jerry Falwell’s rep reached a new, comic low last week when his National Liberty Journal created yet another laughable boogeyman. Not only should we keep our preschoolers a safe distance from the degenerate purple Teletubby known as Tinky-Winky, but we must keep our preteen girls far from the wayward influence of the she-devils who practice heretical soft rock at the sacrilegious Lilith Fair.

As the Lilith Fair music festival is poised to begin its dastardly mission of outfitting a sea of females with acoustic guitars, we pause to take a rebellious virtual tour of a few Web sites related to the controversy:

In the June issue of Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal (https://www.liberty.edu/chancellor/nlj/June1999/lilith.htm/), the editor warns parents that the Lilith music event celebrates the “raven-haired Lilith,” a pagan demon banished from Eden. Some of the nasty things that Ms. Lilith has been accused of include dwelling with demons and embarking on a killing spree in which she seduced and murdered her own male offspring and their offspring (her grandchildren?). One legend suggests that Lilith herself was the apple-happy serpent.

A more positive spin on Adam’s ex (the original member of the first wives’ club) can be found at the Lilith Shrine, an online evocation of the prototypal uppity Jewish woman at https://www.lilitu.com/lilith/. The site, part of one Renee Rosen’s Goddess in Training Home Page, includes a history of the demon goddess as well as modern interpretations, imagery and links to daughters of Lilith.

But as columnist Ellen Goodman quipped, “Calling Lilith Fair a pagan festival is like calling Amazon.com a pagan Web site.” (Click on https://www.amazon.com/ to search in vain for propaganda about pagan wonder women.)

Similarly, this year’s Lilith Fair Web site (https://www.lilithfair.com/) does not include any mention of the heathen goddess for whom the festival is named.

Instead, the most radical aspect of the fair, which comes to the Rose Bowl on July 17, and its Web site is a determination to raise funds and awareness for such demonic nonprofits as the Breast Cancer Fund (https://www.breastcancerfund.org/), the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (https://www.rainn.org/) and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (https://www.ncadv.org/).

Otherwise, the Web site is simply an entertainment-oriented repository for information about the music festival. Surfers can read artists bios, hear snippets of their music and then coordinate their festival itinerary by checking out the schedules for Lilith’s three stages. In the scrapbook section you can see clips of tomorrow’s Sheryl Crows and Sarah McLachlans who competed in local talent searches.

Lilith Fair honcho McLachlan has decreed this to be the festival’s final year. As she stated at a press conference, it’s time for her and the other 30-something female rockers to start popping out the babies. This fairly ironic statement can be streamed at https://www.bugjuice.com/sarah/index_nest.html.

And surely, this pronouncement would please Jerry Falwell (https://www.falwell.com/).

*

Erika Milvy writes about arts, entertainment and pop culture from her home in San Francisco. She can be reached at erika@well.com.