Sorry, I’m Not At My Desk

Don't rush me: Kate Bush. Photo Trevor Leighton. Courtesy EMI Music Canada.

The cat owners, knit-circle members and raven-haired introverts who comprise Kate Bush’s fan base are rejoicing this week: on
Nov. 8, the English singer releases Aerial, a two-disc set that is her first new recording since The Red Shoes in 1993. In the hectic world of the music business, a 12-year hiatus can seem like an eternity and a day. Yet Bush’s near-total absence from the public eye in that period only seemed to strengthen her cachet among admirers and stylistic heirs like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. In fact, a successful disappearing act can sustain or even revive the fortunes of musicians, filmmakers, actors and authors. Here are ten famously protracted coffee breaks; while most of these creative giants eventually returned to the spotlight, a few are content just to get up in the morning… and then go to sleep at night.

KATE BUSH
Famous for: being discovered as a teen prodigy by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour; recording a series of lush yet eerie songs about hounds, hills and wuthering heights
Length of hiatus: 12 years between albums (1993-2005)
Reasons for break: After abandoning touring due to her fear of flying, Bush grew less prolific after 1986’s Hounds of Love. A one-year break after The Red Shoes turned into many.
How she used the time off: Besides spending six years on Aerial, Bush holed up in her home in Reading, England and raised her son, Bertie. As she recently told The New York Times, “I spend quite a lot of time doing housework.”
The return: Featuring one song about the calculation of pi and another laden with Renaissance-era instruments, Aerial is as rich and idiosyncratic as any of her recordings. Fans hope she does not take her own advice in the new song How to Be Invisible.

Photo by Brenda Chase/Newsmakers/Getty Images.

JOHN LENNON
Famous for: being a Beatle; staying in bed with Yoko; not liking Paul
Length of hiatus: five years between albums (1975-80)
Reasons for break: burnout after notorious booze-and-coke-filled “lost weekend” in Los Angeles and recording the oldies album Rock and Roll
How he used the time off: served as chief caregiver for son Sean; enjoyed Ringo’s solo career from afar
The return: The Double Fantasy album and the single Starting Over had just hit the charts when Lennon was shot dead outside the Dakota apartment building in Manhattan. A steady stream of coffee-table books, movies, reissues and even two “new” Beatles songs ensured that not even death could impede his career now.

MILES DAVIS
Famous for: presiding over the birth of cool; playing trumpet with back to audience; going electric
Length of hiatus: five years between albums (1975-80)
Reasons for break: constant touring and a car accident left him in ill health and needing a hip replacement
How he used the time off: “Sex and drugs took the place that music had occupied in my life until then,” Davis wrote in his 1990 memoir Miles, “and I did both of them around the clock.” No slacker here.
The return: Released The Man With the Horn album and began touring again a year later. Lambasted for going pop and covering Cyndi Lauper, Davis died before having to tour with Sting.

Photo Steve Finn/Getty Images.

QUENTIN TARANTINO
Famous for: making the jump from mouthy video-store clerk to celebrated auteur with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, thereby inspiring the getting of medieval on asses
Length of hiatus: six years between movies (1997-2003)
Reasons for break: The subtle charms of his laidback film Jackie Brown were largely lost on audiences. Plus, he may have been as sick of himself as we were of him.
How he used the time off: Appeared in the 1998 stage production of Wait Until Dark and made a cameo in the equally ill-fated film Little Nicky. Spent several years writing the WWII screenplay The Inglorious Bastards before deciding to write something for Uma Thurman.
The return: Two bloody volumes of Kill Bill earned Tarantino even more geek love (and Sofia Coppola’s phone number). He then presided over the Cannes jury that awarded Fahrenheit 9/11 the Palme d’Or, put his name on the Chinese action epic Hero and directed a few minutes of Sin City. Still can’t get enough attention.

AXL ROSE
Famous for: being taken down to Paradise City, where the grass is green, the girls are pretty and reconstructive surgery is competitively priced
Length of hiatus: eight years between tours (1993-2001)
Reasons for break: After the covers album The Spaghetti Incident, the Guns N’ Roses leader busied himself with the task of replacing every other member of his band. As to why, only his psychics know for sure.
How he used the time off: Only one new song (the instantly forgettable Oh My God) surfaced from sessions for Chinese Democracy, the still-unfinished album that now carries an estimated price tag of over US$15 million.
The return: With a new lineup of GN’R and a creepy new face, Rose returned to the stage in Las Vegas. The subsequent tour is remembered chiefly for its spate of cancelled shows, including one that caused a riot in Vancouver. Kicking Rose while he was down, punk pranksters The Offspring nearly named their own album Chinese Democracy: You Snooze, You Lose.

Photo Carlo Allegri/Getty Images.

JANE FONDA
Famous for: spending time in Hanoi; faking an orgasm in Klute; sweating in stretchy fabrics
Length of hiatus: 15 years between movies (1990-2005)
Reasons for break: Despite strong critical notices for her ‘80s work, Fonda claimed her acting career had become “agony.” She neglected to explain how living with Ted Turner could be considered an improvement.
How she used the time off: She moved to Atlanta, started programs in support of reproductive health and launched an art-book imprint. Fonda inadvertently became involved in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign when Republicans released doctored photographs portraying Senator John Kerry onstage with her, disproving the Washington adage that nothing ruins a political career faster than being caught with a dead girl or a live boy.
The return: Her appearance in Monster-in-Law prompted speculation over “J-Fo vs. J-Lo” real-life confrontations. Yet Fonda’s comeback was largely free of incident until a man in Kansas City, MO spat tobacco juice in her face at a book signing for her memoir My Life So Far. He was arrested before a pack of very fit women could kick him to death.

THOMAS PYNCHON
Famous for: writing extremely big and complicated books; not having his picture taken
Length of hiatus: 17 years between books (1973-90)
Reasons for break: The mystifying Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) made Pynchon a literary giant, but he was determined to frustrate journalists’ attempts to learn about his private life or even what he looked like.
How he used the time off: Busied himself with writing another book as big and complicated as Gravity’s Rainbow, which turned out not to be 1990’s Vineland, but 1997’s much-longer-in-the-works Mason & Dixon.
The return: After Vineland, Pynchon became marginally less media-hostile, writing liner notes for alt-rock band Lotion, lending his voice to a Simpsons episode and being caught on camera (albeit in a street scene) by CNN. He explained to the news channel that “recluse” is a journalistic code word for “doesn’t like to talk to reporters.”

TERRENCE MALICK
Famous for: crafting two of the most mystical and gorgeous American films of the ‘70s, Badlands and Days of Heaven
Length of hiatus: 20 years between movies (1978-98)
Reasons for break: largely unknown, though spending two years editing a Richard Gere movie may have pushed him to the breaking point
How he used the time off: lived in France, ate baguettes, wrote an unused screenplay for the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire
The return: Despite the presence of nearly every major Hollywood actor from Sean Penn to John Travolta to future messiah Jim Caviezel, Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ WWII novel The Thin Red Line divided critics and audiences. His take on the Pocahontas story, The New World, is out in December — maybe.

Photo Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

VASHTI BUNYAN
Famous for: becoming the cultiest of cult artists to emerge from the same British folk scene that spawned Nick Drake
Length of hiatus: 35 years between records (1970-2005)
Reasons for break: the descent of 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day into oblivion put Bunyan on a less vocal life path
How she used the time off: raised children and chickens in rural England and had no idea that her music was so coveted until she looked herself up on the Internet
The return: Responding to the enthusiasm of young acolytes like Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, Bunyan released her second album, Lookaftering, in October — which sounds like she still believes in the existence of unicorns.

Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images.

J.D. SALINGER
Famous for: writing about loquacious youngsters in seminal novels of ‘50s and early ‘60s; being so press-averse he makes Pynchon seem like a Hilton sister
Length of hiatus: 40 years between books (1965-2005)… and still counting
Reasons for break: Salinger resented fame so much he did his best to avoid garnering any more. “A writer’s feelings of anonymity-obscurity,” he once wrote, “are the second most valuable property on loan to him.”
How he used the time off: suing potential biographers, having desultory affairs with much younger women (like Joyce Maynard, who later put his letters up for auction) and, according to his daughter, drinking his own urine
The return: Not yet. It remains to be seen whether Salinger’s death will yield an unfinished work like Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth or Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden or 194,329,992 pages filled with the phrase “All work and no play makes J.D. a dull boy.”

Jason Anderson is a Toronto writer.