Thursday, December 04, 2003 :::
 
Dear friends: A More Serious Post will follow later today, but Jonah Goldberg has a very interesting piece on TV commedy on today's National Review Online. This inspired a response from A Mind That Suits, which follows immediately.

Dear Mr. Goldberg:

What you said about kids living off old entertainment is true, and something I noticed about music quite a while ago. I teach English, but my office used to be across the hall from the freshman studio for (Catholic University's) world class architecture department. Alums from that period still tell me that they remember me as the teacher who thought they were funny. Lots of grammar teachers sniff and growl when they come into work and find the furniture suspended from the ceiling. Not me. My general attitude towards administrators who got all huffy was "creative teenagers with large cutting tools....WHAT do they expect?"

The point being that as someone who, in his salad days, lived with the bouncer of DC's 9:30 Club, I also VALUED having all those kids around because I knew for sure that I was hearing the coolest music. And while I am grateful for certain discoveries (such as Radiohead), I found I wasn't learning as much as I wanted to, because there wasn't that much to learn. After about 6 months, the freshman all started playing music that either came out when I was in high school and college (Pink Floyd, e obvious g), or was already old by the time I left home (the Beatles, the Stones.) And these days, it is even more pronounced. There is a hip-hop hit that begins with the strings from 'The Theme from Midnight Cowboy," which, while beautiful, sounded old fashioned when it came out, when I was 12 or something.

I dissent on Lucy and the Honeymooners, because they benefit greatly from their restored versions on Nick at Night, and probably Sgt. Bilko. The only really great commedy from the Seventies was Mary Tyler Moore. I suspect I would find All in the Family unwatchable now, just to mention two that (I think) you left off from my childhood.

All the best,



::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:18 AM


0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.