Posts by Danielle
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Smokers are now pariah
I am hugely uncomfortable with this analogy. And I was so all "yeah boyee!" about the rest of your post, too!
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I hope we're not going to be horrible to country music just because Karl du Fresne likes it. That would make me sad.
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Hard News: The Future of Television, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
They want to be entertained without having to engage much.
This is a fairly common theory of television, but ever since I started thinking about this stuff I've always been pretty suspicious of it. As a theory it often has some weirdly classist undertones (not necessarily in this thread, though). I think that television audiences even before this brave new timeshifted/ad-removable world of ours have both deliberately engaged with what's on screen - MST3K is a perfect sort of meta-example - and rejected advertising as best they could. (At our house we always turned the sound off when the ads came on, for example, before we had the technology to record and fast-forward through them.) I should also note that the curation of one's own collection of things to watch isn't necessarily a young, media-savvy person's thing. My mother and my uncle, both in their 60s and legendarily non-techy - the sorts of people I imagine being dismissed by media researchers as "passive" - easily mastered MySky as soon as I showed it to them and now spend a lot of their time deliberately choosing their own programmes from TV listings.
In other words, I get a bit twitchy and bah-humbug about how now TV is all revolutionary! and amazing! In many cases I think it's plus ca change. The one thing I will concede is the second-screening - I suppose it's taken the place of something like, say, sewing or knitting, although probably way more people do it. (I do it myself.)
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It's not exactly crazy to note that people often do prefer "the earlier, funnier movies".
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Hard News: The Future of Television, in reply to Jason Kemp,
I think mainstream TV is mostly for passive viewing.
What does "passive" mean in this context? People don't think about it? People don't discuss it? People don't deliberately seek it out? People who watch mainstream TV aren't very bright?
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That Jean Knight rework isn't TOO hugely different from the original, which just goes to show that Stax was pretty much The Greatest Label in the World Ever Amen. I don't wear band tees often anymore but I'll still break out the Stax label shirt every now and then.
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Hard News: Friday Music: I like your old…, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
It’s a bit prog.
Oh goodness, you had me worried there. I thought we were going to have a million time signatures and lots of "virtuosity". But it's... huh. I think it might be all right. A bit bombastic though.
Nik, I too bought Magic & Loss when it came out but haven't listened to it for years. I imagine it will continue to resonate though, now that I'm staring 40 in the face next year. "Life's good, but not fair at all."
In more cheerful news, I am STOKED about Dolly Parton coming to town and I intend to be there with bells on. Not merely for the kitsch value (although that is certainly part of it) but because she's a great songwriter and singer. I have been fond of her since childhood and have grand dreams to visit Dollywood one day.
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Jerry Springer in its heyday was WAY more entertaining than Whaleoil could ever hope to be.
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I adore Brainfreeze so much. (Although the last time I saw DJ Shadow there were some pretty ropey vocalist spots that made me cringe a bit. Was that the Powerstation show? Probably.)
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Speaker: Ed Kuepper: a legend interviewed, in reply to Alan Perrott,
loved Jim Bolger’s younger brother on bass
I thought he looked like Bob Odenkirk from certain angles. :) Better call Saul!