So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[HanauMan]

A couple of unidentified bodies washed ashore here in early 1942, and despite the fact that no official confirmation has ever been found as to their identity, it was believed at the time, and is still widely believed, that they were German submariners. They were buried in a local cemetery and for many years after the war a West German flag (the red-black-gold) appeared on their grave on Memorial Day. Which I thought was kind of presumptuous, they might have been from Magdeburg.

The East German (German Democratic Republic) flag was the same as the West German flag, just with a Socialist emblem (state seal) in the middle. Anyhow, the West German flag (red-black-gold) came about in the revolutions of the 19th century and, as to your sailors coming from Magdeburg, the same flag was used during the Weimar Republic (in eastern Germany). So, I guess, they used the appropriate flag in your cemetery.

 

[p51]

You already know the answer to this. It's like any other personal interest - if someone doesn't share that interest, they just don't care and such details are ultimately unimportant to them. People who grew up watching Thomas get it because it's been explained to them; the vast majority of adults I know don't even think about trains until they're stuck at a crossing waiting for a slow-moving freight train to get out of their way.

The annoying part of this is that the same people who will poo-poo your interests will declare their interest(s) as something that can't be dismissed.
Reminds me of a line for a sci-fi event I was once in, and a sports event line at the same venue was right next to our line. A baseball fan, painted in team colors, actually told a guy dressed as a Star Trek character to 'get a life.'
People in my line were aghast at the hypocrisy of that statement. Nobody in the sports line could see how dumb that comment was.

 

[tonyb]

The annoying part of this is that the same people who will poo-poo your interests will declare their interest(s) as something that can't be dismissed.
Reminds me of a line for a sci-fi event I was once in, and a sports event line at the same venue was right next to our line. A baseball fan, painted in team colors, actually told a guy dressed as a Star Trek character to 'get a life.'
People in my line were aghast at the hypocrisy of that statement. Nobody in the sports line could see how dumb that comment was.

Sounds like the guy had some inner need to feel superior or something. And we all know what's at the heart of that.

I might think that a grown person in a Star Trek character costume or with his face and torso painted in his favorite professional sports team's colors is kinda silly. But my opinion doesn't matter. And I wouldn't wish to deprive such folks of their harmless fun. Different strokes, and all that.

I don't disregard the possibility that people "get" things that are entirely wasted on me. Certain "art forms" bore me to tears. Yet I find beauty in the works of Paul Klee and Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg and any number of other modern artists where others are left shaking their heads and muttering "my 5-year-old grandkid could do that." No, he couldn't, Pops, but I ain't gonna argue about it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it'd be kind of a fun thing to go out in public in my Red Sox jersey and my Spock ears, just to see the heads explode.

 

[sheeplady]

I think it'd be kind of a fun thing to go out in public in my Red Sox jersey and my Spock ears, just to see the heads explode.

You must wear saddle shoes, seamed stockings, and roll your hair to complete the look.

 

[p51]

I might think that a grown person in a Star Trek character costume or with his face and torso painted in his favorite professional sports team's colors is kinda silly.

Yeah, but the idea that one of the two is going to tell the other to 'get a life' and not see that he also needs one, that was more than I could handle. My point was that sports fans go way further than a sci-fi fan might in some cases, and feel their interest is so mainstream in nature, that whatever silly things they do are also mainstream.
They aren't.

I find beauty in the works of Paul Klee and Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg and any number of other modern artists where others are left shaking their heads and muttering "my 5-year-old grandkid could do that." No, he couldn't, Pops, but I ain't gonna argue about it.

Yeah, I was a pro commercial artist for a while and still do illustrations/cartoons from time to time. I wince every time I hear that about modern art. That kid of stuff isn't my bag, but I recognize the talent it takes to come up with stuff like that. Yeah, your 5-yr-old grandkid could copy something like that already painted, but he sure couldn't come with the initial idea. Neither could most other adults.
People generally can't see the difference between technique and talent to create. A lot of people could do a semi-crude pencil drawing on a photo, re-creating it exactly, but most couldn't come up with new concepts. Most people, generally, aren't creative. They're more imitative, adding stuff to something someone else already did or copying it 100%. There's very little creativity in that. If I had a nickel for every person who's asked me to draw a photo they already have or copy someone else's idea fully), I would be rich today. Heck, it happened just the other day.

 

[tonyb]

Yeah, but the idea that one of the two is going to tell the other to 'get a life' and not see that he also needs one, that was more than I could handle. My point was that sports fans go way further than a sci-fi fan might in some cases, and feel their interest is so mainstream in nature, that whatever silly things they do are also mainstream.
They aren't.
Yeah, I was a pro commercial artist for a while and still do illustrations/cartoons from time to time. I wince every time I hear that about modern art. That kid of stuff isn't my bag, but I recognize the talent it takes to come up with stuff like that. Yeah, your 5-yr-old grandkid could copy something like that already painted, but he sure couldn't come with the initial idea. Neither could most other adults.
People generally can't see the difference between technique and talent to create. A lot of people could do a semi-crude pencil drawing on a photo, re-creating it exactly, but most couldn't come up with new concepts. Most people, generally, aren't creative. They're more imitative, adding stuff to something someone else already did or copying it 100%. There's very little creativity in that. If I had a nickel for every person who's asked me to draw a photo they already have or copy someone else's idea fully), I would be rich today. Heck, it happened just the other day.

And let's remember also that "get a life" is so trite a put-down that it really tells us more about its speaker than its target.

There's often tremendous skill and discipline involved in the faithful reproduction of subject matter, just as there is in, say, committing to memory entire religious tomes. It's quite the talent, and I respect it. I doubt I could do either, even if I wished to, which I don't. I can snap a photo or pull a book off a shelf.

As you noted, though, there is precious little actual creativity in such disciplines. A relative by marriage, a retired high school art teacher, still picks up a few extra bucks painting murals. He's good at it. But I've yet to see anything in his portfolio that I'd call inspired. But even he isn't an automaton. He still chuckles at the times he's been asked to paint murals of poker-playing dogs.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I think it'd be kind of a fun thing to go out in public in my Red Sox jersey and my Spock ears, just to see the heads explode.

Don't think that my head would explode, but I might ask for a tour of your hollow tree and a few sample cookies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's nothing inherently wrong with what gets dismissed as "commercial art." Pretty much everything about which we wax rhapsodic on the Lounge was mass-produced product manufactured by workers-for-hire. The people who made the movies, the music, the fashion, and much of the other stuff that we relish from the Era were, in essence, just grinding it out for the piece rate. That a lot of so-called "commercial art" has endured and a lot of "fine art" has been forgotten has to tell you something.

 

[Fading Fast]

There's nothing inherently wrong with what gets dismissed as "commercial art." Pretty much everything about which we wax rhapsodic on the Lounge was mass-produced product manufactured by workers-for-hire. The people who made the movies, the music, the fashion, and much of the other stuff that we relish from the Era were, in essence, just grinding it out for the piece rate. That a lot of so-called "commercial art" has endured and a lot of "fine art" has been forgotten has to tell you something.

Sometimes I think it's a distinction without a difference. Everything has to be paid for someway or another. An artists has to eat, wear clothes (hopefully) and sleep somewhere and buy supplies. In the days of patrons - that was just a commercial transaction with one or a few customers. If it's gov't supported - it's still being paid for, just indirectly by the taxpayers; foundation supported, the donors.

If an artist is independently wealthy - well good for him or her, but we'd have a lot less art if that was the only legitimate art. As Lizzie noted about the era, the same could be said about art throughout time - sometimes it was obviously commercial, sometimes quietly and rarely independent of some form of paymaster. And time judges and re-judges art anyway - not everything beloved today (even things we consider today to be timeless from past eras) will be lauded the same way a hundred years from now and vice versa.

Heck - Shakespeare desperately wanted success so that he could live well and keep writing new plays. Sure, we can isolate out an artist who might have created more had he or she been freed of financial demands, but many have admitted that financial need drove them to work harder / be more prolific and some of their greatest creations resulted (maybe you don't think he's an artist, but we only have all those Fitzgerald short stories we read in high school and college because he needed money).

No one really gets a pass at life's constraints and realities - artists included. Be it a gov't program, a charity or the marketplace - the money comes from somewhere, which means it comes with strings. The great artists find a way.

 

[tonyb]

There's nothing inherently wrong with what gets dismissed as "commercial art." Pretty much everything about which we wax rhapsodic on the Lounge was mass-produced product manufactured by workers-for-hire. The people who made the movies, the music, the fashion, and much of the other stuff that we relish from the Era were, in essence, just grinding it out for the piece rate. That a lot of so-called "commercial art" has endured and a lot of "fine art" has been forgotten has to tell you something.

The distinction isn't nearly so neat as some would attempt to make it. Think Piet Mondrian, and all he "inspired." Think Braniff International and Alexander Calder back in the '60s and '70s.

As a huge fan of commercial art and a keeper of a modest but growing collection of it, I wouldn't take exception with your take on the lasting impact of it vs. "fine art." Fine artists (I'm tempted to put it in quotes) can be like would-be novelists: legends in their own minds. Some of the most creative, clever visual art has been made in service to commerce. Give at least a nod to the marketing department for that. And of course many high-brow arts were once popular entertainments. Shakespeare. Jazz.

There's footage of Charles Eames voicing his reluctance to characterize himself an artist. He thought it akin to calling oneself a genius -- immodest at best. But many wouldn't hesitate to call him both. If you've watched TV today, or entered an airport or an office building, chances are excellent you've seen examples of his work, some of which dates to the late 1940s.

 

[Harp]

It is possible and what I find interesting, as someone who has had a lot to do with University graduates in my work - some know about WW2 in theory but they have a tough time telling it apart from the Vietnam conflict...

It's one of my irritations. People can tell you all about postcolonial theory or deconstruct the foibles of Western culture but can't tell you anything about our history.

I habitually advise kids not to waste their college years and to read across a broad liberal curricula.
Take the most difficult courses under the most demanding instructors and hone your mind to a razor's edge. The past is prologue and Lady Philosophy lives.
Explore the whole breadth and scope of human experience, derived knowledge, discover yourself.
And, of course, they just stare back. Not all of them though.

 

[tonyb]

I habitually advise kids not to waste their college years and to read across a broad liberal curricula.
Take the most difficult courses under the most demanding instructors and hone your mind to a razor's edge. The past is prologue and Lady Philosophy lives.
Explore the whole breadth and scope of human experience, derived knowledge, discover yourself.
And, of course, they just stare back. Not all of them though.

A common gripe among the post-secondary educators I know is that the public higher education system is being increasingly regarded by many of those ultimately holding the purse strings (the elected representatives in the federal and state legislatures) as trade and professional schools and that funding shortages ought first sacrifice the humanities. Apparently a well-rounded liberal arts education isn't so highly valued.

It's darned nigh impossible to get people excited about things they've never been exposed to. Maybe that's the point.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing is, people can blame the Education System all they want -- but the best way to get kids interested in The Pleasures Of The Mind is to expose them to those pleasures when they *are* kids. If you want kids to be interested in serious reading, have serious books around the house. If you want kids to appreciate music, expose them to it. If you want kids to think, show them that you, yourself, think.

And don't be snobby about media -- there's a lot of good media out there. I didn't learn to enjoy opera, modern dance, and jazz because I took courses on them in college. I learned that they were enjoyable when I was five from watching "Mister Rogers."

 

[tonyb]

The thing is, people can blame the Education System all they want -- but the best way to get kids interested in The Pleasures Of The Mind is to expose them to those pleasures when they *are* kids. If you want kids to be interested in serious reading, have serious books around the house. If you want kids to appreciate music, expose them to it. If you want kids to think, show them that you, yourself, think.

And don't be snobby about media -- there's a lot of good media out there. I didn't learn to enjoy opera, modern dance, and jazz because I took courses on them in college. I learned that they were enjoyable when I was five from watching "Mister Rogers."

I was raised by people who knew little of "the pleasures of the mind." I'd bet that was typical.

And who's being "snobby about media"?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not referring anyone in particular here -- but I think we'd all recognize that it's often a theme among people who like to denounce the ignorant whelps of whatever generation: "If they'd quit wasting time at those devilish movies/turn off the radio/shut off the TV/put down those trashy comic books/shut off the computer once in a while, they might learn something!" You can learn an awful lot from media if you take the time to think about the media you're consuming, no matter what kind of media it is.

I wallowed in media as a kid -- absolutely reveled in it: radio, TV, movies, newspapers, magazines, comics, novels, trade publications, encyclopedias, you name it. Every serious interest I've ever had as an adult traces directly back to that experience.

 

[tonyb]

I don't dismiss the possibility that my views on the matter aren't commonly held. Still, a sort of know-nothing pride has descended upon the land. "Elites" is a common put-down of the educated (formally or not) and appreciators of "the arts." It's a sort of snobbery in itself. I mean really, just who is looking down on whom?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the real problem is the way we've made it an "either/or" proposition. It's entirely possible for one person to get equal enjoyment out of Chaucer, Anais Nin, and a Batman comic book, or Mozart, Fats Waller, and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. There is no such thing, really, as "high" and "low" culture -- the idea that there is is simply a means of artificial class distinction.

 

[vitanola]

I think the real problem is the way we've made it an "either/or" proposition. It's entirely possible for one person to get equal enjoyment out of Chaucer, Anais Nin, and a Batman comic book, or Mozart, Fats Waller, and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. There is no such thing, really, as "high" and "low" culture -- the idea that there is is simply a means of artificial class distinction.

Absolutely. The only distinction between that which is worthwhile and that which is utter dross is temporal. I'd say that August 1, 1942 is a reasonable cut-off, but some might possibly extend that to December 31, 1947, but that would be a stretch, I think.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I might push it back to December 31, 1940 -- with few exceptions, the advent of BMI was the downfall of the American Popular Song.