What modern invention/innovation do you wish had *never* been developed?

[LizzieMaine]

I could empty a slopjar out my bedroom window, and I guarantee that my act of doing so would provoke thoughts and emotions on the part of the viewer, especially if he wasn't wearing a hat. But that wouldn't make it art.

 

[nick123]

I could empty a slopjar out my bedroom window, and I guarantee that my act of doing so would provoke thoughts and emotions on the part of the viewer, especially if he wasn't wearing a hat. But that wouldn't make it art.

I'll let the viewer make that distinction.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Or as somebody once famously said, "anyone who would paint a sky green and grass blue should be sterilized."

 

[Dragon Soldier]

I think you all missed my point above. This is what the old fogey critics in the late 19th century said about this form of young people dance. Now, it is considered a beautiful form of dance, very conservative. How does that old saying go? "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

I prefer it in the French...

 

[Dragon Soldier]

Brother Powers will strenuously disagree, but I'll say that Lennon and McCartney wrote some good songs. I don't care for all their stuff, especially not the hippie-dippie stuff, but some of their individual songs show real craftsmanship. But Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin wrote more -- and better -- songs over a much longer period of time.

"Yesterday" may well be a very fine song. But "All The Things You Are" is a better song on just about every level -- and the tragedy is that the gigantic distended amoeba that is the Baby Boom Generation has so completely engulfed the world's consciousness that the latter is completely unknown to anyone under seventy unless they've among the few to have had any exposure to pre-rock music. An entire culture has been completely wiped out of the popular consciousness, and frankly, those of you who don't realize that have missed out on more than you can ever possibly understand.

I honestly can't agree with that, U.S. popular music of the 1920's & '30s is recognised by todays youth. From it's role in the soundtrack of video games to the preponderance of "Gatsby Parties", "Glamour Balls" & "Speakeasy Nights" amongst the student set to those who follow Nucky's fortunes on Boardwalk Empire.

They just don't attach the import to the era that an enthusiast may. It's "the old days" to them, lumpen along with everything prior to the mid '90s.

 

[Dragon Soldier]

And although you'll have to take my word for it, I'm currently watching "The Chase" a UK quiz show, a contestant has just been asked to "Complete the title of the Cab Calloway composition, Minnie the ......." and, after a pause he answered correctly. I'd say he's in his 30s.

So the knowledge, superficial though it may be, is there.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And although you'll have to take my word for it, I'm currently watching "The Chase" a UK quiz show, a contestant has just been asked to "Complete the title of the Cab Calloway composition, Minnie the ......." and, after a pause he answered correctly. I'd say he's in his 30s.

So the knowledge, superficial though it may be, is there.

When the average 30 year old knows who Jerome Kern or Harry Warren was, then I'll be impressed. I suspect a lot of people in their thirties know Cabell mostly as "that cool old guy that did that Janet Jackson video."

 

[Dragon Soldier]

When the average 30 year old knows who Jerome Kern or Harry Warren was, then I'll be impressed. I suspect a lot of people in their thirties know Cabell mostly as "that cool old guy that did that Janet Jackson video."

Quite, but then it is a case of simply not being fascinated by an era rather than being unaware of it or having had it wiped from their consciousness.

As far as the 60s go, younger folk will know the Beatles and the Stones, maybe not John's Children or The Mannish Boys, same for any other era.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But in the '30s, for example, every American knew who Stephen Foster was, who Joe Howard was, who Gus Edwards was, and on and on. Every American schoolchild in the '30s knew "Old Folks at Home" or "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" or "Look Out For Jimmy Valentine" or any of dozens of other songs written many decades before they were born. The old culture didn't exist merely as a throwback or a curiosity -- it was still a part of the working language of everyday life for just about every literate person. It wasn't the exception, it was the rule.

Why should young people know who John Lennon was but not know, or have only a vague idea, of who George Gershwin was? That's the question I'm getting at.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

But in the '30s, for example, every American knew who Stephen Foster was, who Joe Howard was, who Gus Edwards was, and on and on. Every American schoolchild in the '30s knew "Old Folks at Home" or "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" or "Look Out For Jimmy Valentine" or any of dozens of other songs written many decades before they were born. The old culture didn't exist merely as a throwback or a curiosity -- it was still a part of the working language of everyday life for just about every literate person. It wasn't the exception, it was the rule.

Why should young people know who John Lennon was but not know, or have only a vague idea, of who George Gershwin was? That's the question I'm getting at.

Because the Cultural Mafia had decided that anything before 1965 was ancient history. :doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

Them and the Boys.

 

[Dragon Soldier]

Why should young people know who John Lennon was but not know, or have only a vague idea, of who George Gershwin was? That's the question I'm getting at.

Okay, well then I would say that the currency of popular cuture is directly relatable to the speed and pervasiveness of the media which delivers it. The longer it takes for a critical mass of people to hear a tune the longer it will last in pop culture, the less that people are exposed to a tune the longer it will take for them to become bored with it.

Release a recording today and the bulk of the world's population may have heard it by tomorrow, by next week they'll have heard it.. As many times as they want to and will have been exposed to several newer recordings as well, so things are much more transient.

That's my take on it anyway.

 

[ingineer]

Dragon Soldier

Nihil novum sub sole

Somethings never die away, my Hippie neighbor's son (19)can play Django Rienhardt's instrumental jazz.
After playing my mandolin, he went out and bought his own.
There is no longer a Roseland, but Jazz clubs seem to flourish, at least here.

Richard

 

[LizzieMaine]

Okay, well then I would say that the currency of popular cuture is directly relatable to the speed and pervasiveness of the media which delivers it. The longer it takes for a critical mass of people to hear a tune the longer it will last in pop culture, the less that people are exposed to a tune the longer it will take for them to become bored with it.

Release a recording today and the bulk of the world's population may have heard it by tomorrow, by next week they'll have heard it.. As many times as they want to and will have been exposed to several newer recordings as well, so things are much more transient.

That's my take on it anyway.

And the question then becomes, "well, is that a *good* thing?" Is the only purpose of a culture to be "consumers of media," creating, swallowing, and excreting as fast as we can to make way for the next big thing? Is that the kind of society we actively *want?*

 

[Dragon Soldier]

And the question then becomes, "well, is that a *good* thing?" Is the only purpose of a culture to be "consumers of media," creating, swallowing, and excreting as fast as we can to make way for the next big thing? Is that the kind of society we actively *want?*

It's what we've always done with pop culture. It's the nature of the beast.
Since crude notation or "by ear" playing had to be delivered on foot across the known world, through industrial printing to the phonograph, AM radio, MTV to the internet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But as noted, it hasn't always been such a cycle of consume-digest-excrete the way it is now. The culture of a hundred years ago tended to stick to the ribs of its consumers a lot longer than today's. I submit that this was a *good* thing in that it allowed a real cross-generational appreciation for its products rather than the current everybody-in-their-niche thing we have today.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

When it comes to much of our culture today I think the order is excrete-consume-digest.

 

[Dragon Soldier]

But as noted, it hasn't always been such a cycle of consume-digest-excrete the way it is now. The culture of a hundred years ago tended to stick to the ribs of its consumers a lot longer than today's. I submit that this was a *good* thing in that it allowed a real cross-generational appreciation for its products rather than the current everybody-in-their-niche thing we have today.

It has always followed exactly the same pattern, pop culture moves as quickly as the means to provide something new and have it propogate allows.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But, again -- the overlap between generations of culture was far greater seventy or eighty years ago than it is today. The old was not immediately shoveled into a hole and forgotten as soon as the "new" came out. That pattern is very much an innovation of the postwar era. It may be technologically fueled or not, but I submit that it's not a healthy thing regardless of the "why" or the "how."

I forget who it was, possibly Gilbert Seldes, who once suggested that a thousand years into the future, the one -- and the only -- popular culture figure of the twentieth century who would still be recognizable to the public would be Charlie Chaplin. He was, as early as 1916, the single most recognized human being in the entire civilized world.

When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, I knew -- and had always known, it seems -- who Charlie Chaplin was. His image -- his mere silhouette was still instantly recognizable to everyone I knew, regardless of age. They might get the name wrong -- "Charlie Chapman" -- but they recognized the figure and what it represented. How many college kids today would recognize Charlie Chaplin on sight, with no prompting? I know quite a few who didn't when I showed them his picture.

Pretty sad, I think, that Mr. Seldes was short by about 970 years in his speculation.

 

[LuvMyMan]

When it comes to much of our culture today I think the order is excrete-consume-digest.

Yep, that is really how it is. Also, it is almost always about money, a fast buck. Many "entertainment" elements of today, is focused on the dollar sign. Hype of one person over the other, in the attempt of attracting record sales from a mostly too young crowd that do not "hear" the beauty of a instrument, yet rather the screaming of words god know what was being sung!

I do find that the real entertainers are for the most part, dead and buried..and it extends past just a music group or a singer. In todays world, a so called movie star, most likely has to be provided with a voice coach if they have a part to sing, a dance coach if they are to dance in a movie...but look back at some that could and actually did it all. Bing Crosby. Bob Hope. Judy Garland. Those stars could do so much, and had real talent. I have wondered if those stars were just coming into the "scene" today, if their talent would have been promoted or ignored by Hollywood of today? Even the "comedians" of our recent past, as Lizzie pointed to Charlie Chaplin.. Talent. Raw pure and simple.