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RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper!
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Subject: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:24 AM I thought that this was a place where I could rant about this, feel good among the dwindling numbers of what I assume are sympathetic souls, and maybe achieve some group solidarity. I am now constantly finding myself in places -- including upscale restaurants -- where crappy music is being piped in, and when I ask them to turn it off or down they look at me as if I had woken them up out of a trance. I was in one elegant bar the other night, and the music was from a local crappy radio station, and no one seemed to notice. If I walked in there and started spraypainting the place, they would notice -- yet the music is like mental graffiti. Orwell, in his pre-1984 days, predicted that humankind would need to have piped in music to cope with the emptiness of modern life. Boy was he right. And they have no idea. Even when they play non-crappy music, they have no idea. People are playing Beethoven's 7th symphony as background dinner music! Anyone who has the slightest musical sensitivity has to be totally distracted -- it is like someone standing up in the middle of the restaurant and beginning to read War and Peace! My musical sensitivities may not be up to some Mudcatters, but it drives me crazy! I know, I know, this has been said a million times, and I have ranted about this before here too, but I felt I had to get it out of my system again. Thank you for your time. AAAAARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: katlaughing Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:26 AM Absolutely, Peter! What bothers me the most if the kids who have to have something on, no matter how crappy the music, just to have noise. Orwell was spot on! kat |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: LR Mole Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:48 AM Well, I seem to be able to ignore most of it. I can't abide genre fascism: there's a record store near me that ALWAYS has reggae on. Out of some interest/assumption of its merit/guilt, I try to listen and appreciate it, only to go through fading enjoyment to irritation. The same would probably happen to me with (gasp) bluegrass, which after 100 measures all sounds like deedle-deedle-deedle. Taste and choice are owned. Exploration is good.Down with eyrrany! (Did I just write a bumper sticker?) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: CarolC Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:01 PM In the grocery stores near where I live (Shepherdstown WV, USA), they pipe in country music. It makes going to the grocery store an ordeal. I was just wondering whether or not the music in the grocery stores here in Orillia, Ontario, Canada has been bothersome to me. I realized that I can't remember hearing any music being piped into the stores here. This is a great country. Carol |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Mrrzy Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:14 PM And I thought this was going to be a computer thread! I have wallpaper on mine that talks, and a screen saver that plays the airport scene from Casablanca, and people are forever closing my door. I've had to turn the volume way way down to avoid bothering people, which is after all not the intent, I just like that movie! But back to the thread. It bothers me if they are playing music I don't like in a store. It bothers me if they are playing music I do like, and interrupt it for announcements. They can't win. Unfortunately, there are scores upon scores of data that indicate that shoppers BUY MORE if there is music than if there isn't. We do not a population make, in other words, unfortunately! |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Morticia Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:15 PM I've always wondered where they churn the wretched stuff out? My pet peeve at the moment is the music played whilst you are put on 'hold'.....twice today I got the same piece of tinkly, tuneless crapola.....from two different places.Did they bring the 'stylophone' out of retirement for this stuff? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jande Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:18 PM I can't agree more with you Peter! Beethoven's 7th as background music??? I coudn't even concentrate on the menu, let alone *eat* anything. I've never been able to mix my passions. ::grin:: But Lord, how I dislike that constant noise pollution. Down here in NY state they have piped-in crappy music and _advertising_ in some places where you get gas for your vehicle. Carol, I do hope Canada stays free of that sort of thing! (but I don't feel hopeful that it will) Orwell was right on so many counts that it really worries me sometimes. I guess the only thing we can do is keep making the good music and making it available for people whenever we can, eh? Draw them out into the streets if we must, heheh... ~ Jande |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: LR Mole Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:32 PM Styrophone? For light music lovers? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:45 PM I'm a cretin......I admit it. I couldn't tell you what any store or restaurant plays. I just don't pay attention to it. Loud bothers me because its an aggravation, even things I like. It doesn't matter what is on if it isn't getting through. Besides, White Castle doesn't have much atmosphere anyway. Truthfully, I don't play the radio in the car or much here at home and when I put on a CD or tape, I focus on it and don't do anything else. I rarely play anything around home just for background. When I wash the dishes I occasionally put on a favorite CD to sing along with, but I never do when I cook. Anything that requires the least bit of thought or creativity, I kill background music. Like I said, I'm a cretin who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I've had the Muzak stuff tuned out so long I have no idea who uses it. The phone hold things are beginning to reach the same "tuned-out" level and I'm grateful to my pissant mind that it has made the adjustment. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jande Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:49 PM OOps! Forgot to put in the tag after background. sorry! But I also wanted to say that this reminds me of hothouse tomatoes. The kind you purchase in the regular gocery stores. They look like pink golf balls and taste pretty much the same, like pink golf balls. I was raised on those things. I din't like 'em much at all, but I thought they were *tomatoes*! Until, at the age of 18 someone gave me a tomato from their garden. I never looked back. :`) What I'm getting at is that people are raised to accept a certain thing as if it were real when it isn't. Music is like that. People aren't born insensitive. They are molded that way by their parents, schools, The Media, etc.
I used to think I was *strange* (well, I am, but not for being normally sensitive)
~ Jande |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Shall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:59 PM I was at the dentist early this morning,playing in the Lobby, soft rock, not bad, Sting, Crosby, Stills and Nash. The computer screensaver in my room was playing the theme song from WVU along with new age background guitar music accompaning a lovely video of the WVU campus.At the other end of the office I could hear Nat King Cole singing Unforgettable. Glad my visit was not complicated by "The Buzz of the Drill". I left the office singing "You can't always get what you want......." |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: MMario Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:04 PM Jande - those aren't just "hothouse" tomatoes - those are "factory" tomatoes. Hothouse tomatoes can be pretty da*n good, in fact - ours were usually better in flavour and texture then our field grown tomatoes -we had better control over water, temperature and insects. 'Course we also let them ripen FULLY on the vine. very few companies producing tomatoes for market do that. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Homeless Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:32 PM Be happy if you have only background music. My ex and I once got tickets well in advance for a ritzy wine tasting. When we got there they had music playing so loud that we could not stand next to each other across the room from a boom box and hear one another talk. Twice we asked them to turn it down, which they did - barely enough to notice the volume change. The third time we asked for our money back and left. Other places we've been we have asked to have the music turned down and someone in authority has been willing to do so. Research may show that people spend more if music is playing, but a customer saying they'll walk out if the music isn't changed has a lot of weight to those in charge. What bothers me even more than background music tho is the sudden proliferation of television sets blaring in all places - fast food joints, hospital waiting rooms, division of motor vehicles, mall rest areas, department stores. How do people keep from having sensory overload? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: kendall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:33 PM This is one of my most peevy pet peeves. I've tried different approaches to the management..the one that works best is: "Would you please turn that racket down while I'm here"? sometimes I add, "It is not soothing to me..it is an intolerable annoyance, and it makes me want to break things or, hurt someone." They will turn it down if you ask. Usually. I had dinner at Jeds Restaurant in Belfast last Saturday. The only one in the dining room, silence. I thought, "Great, a quiet dinner." Next thing I knew there was a loudmouth waitress going full speed, saying nothing. That was bad enough, but, the manager turned up the radio. Jazz and commercials. I complained, but, he was locked into this robotic thinking. I paid and was leaving, he asked how everything was, and, I told him, "Fine except for the muzak" I dont (like jazz) He said "Everyone has to have music." I asked "Why"? he looked at me with a blank look and I left. Where the hell do they get the right to force their lousy taste in music on me? My favorite restaurant has muzak, that screeching kind. In spite of requests to turn it down, they are too locked in, so, I take my walkman with me. I've reached the age where I will not put up with that kind of crap. Well, you said, rant |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:00 PM Kendall, that's exactly my point and I'm glad to have heard you say it. I feel as though I am being a real cretin, but I don't want an accompaniment to everything!!!! Can we be cretins together? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Pseudolus Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:01 PM I'm really confused. Who determines "crappy"? And are you forcing your musical tastes on someone if you play music you like, in a public place, that YOU own, where customers are free to come and go as they please? I will leave a store, restaurant, or mall if the music is too loud or truly distasteful to me but if these places would only be allowed to play music that I think isn't "crappy" then am I not forcing MY musical tastes on them? BTW, I'm not trying to start an argument with this post, just trying to understand your point of view..... Frank |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:01 PM ...........on the other hand, I do like jazz, but like I said in my post back up there, it really doesn't matter what it is.....just turn it off. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: GUEST,Melani Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:02 PM I live in a very noisy environment at home, so I can tune things out very easily. Every now and then, I hear something really nice being played as background music. But volume can be very important. I heard Luka Bloom on the radio, loved his guitar playing, and was very excited to have tickets to see him live. To my extreme dismay, the volume was so loud that I had to spend the whole concert with my fingers in my ears to screen out the bass, just so I could hear the melody at all. Even worse, the opening act was group called the Bedlam Rovers, who were even louder. I hated it and thought they were dreadful. A week later I was in a bookstore where they were playing a tape of really great Celtic music at normal volume. When I asked with enthusiasm what group it was, I was told, "The Bedlam Rovers." |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Ebbie Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:20 PM I've been making the point for some time that just as a couple of hundred years ago, in the days before sanitation systems, the 'elite' classes carried nosegays in the street to block out the odors, today people are trying to block out extraneous sound. I think it does have to do with overload. Soon we will all have our ears plugged into the sound we want at the same time that establishments, buses and subway systems assail the unprotected with the sounds they want. It's like going in and out of stores in a t-shirt in the middle of a blizzard. And I will never understand the need for a Walkman in the forest. Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Bardford Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:03 PM I'm with you on this one, Peter T. At a local gas station there is a speaker right in the gas pump/console/thingy that blasts not-my-choice-of-radio-station right in the ear as I pump the gas. I asked the clerk if there was anyway I could turn it off while pumping gas. Nope. I told him I wouldn't be buying my gas there anymore. You know what he said? "Okay." That's what he said. And, hey, Carole C., this happened in Canada. Noise is everywhere. And it's mediated through wire. Bardford |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jon Freeman Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM As a general rule, background music doesn't really bother me and I don't think that the owner of an establishment should be criticissed for playing music he/she likes. I can appreciate that background music can form part of the experience of going out for a meal, etc. but as with the food itself, if you don't like it, you are better off going elsewhere. Music in supermarkets has been mentioned and I find that slightly more worrying as I believe that music is used to some degree to control the flow of customers - you want the customers lingering and lookimg around, play something slow - you want them out because the store is going to close, play something quick... at least that's the theory. Jon
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Hollowfox Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM It can be amusing, occasionally. I was having a working lunch with about half a dozen ladies, in a fairly upscale restaurant. The background music was light-weight sorta-Celtic, and nobody was paying attention to it until I said, "Who would have ever thought that people would pay this much to eat while being seranaded by bagpipes?" I agree about sensory overload, though. And I've found that if I'm lucky, I can sit under the TVs in a waiting room, or at least with my back to them, so the flickering screen doesn't distract me from my reading, or whatever else I'd rather have in my brain. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: kendall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:36 PM Let me try to explain.. I would be glad to avoid places that play annoying muzak. Problem is, they play the same shit EVERYWHERE! You cant get clear of it. I dont care who owns the store, if he wants my business, he had better be willing to at least compromise. (Turn it down, if not off). I would never play my music in public, and I really resent those who do. I must shop for groceries, but, every store has the same thing in muzak, it reminds me of that Hollering Contest in, I think, Tennessee. My motto: If you cant improve on silence, shut up. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:40 PM Oh, I forgot that problem. That is even worse: whoever thought about having TVs on in airports all the time should be hung. This is to give everyone entertainment, and prevent them thinking about air crashes -- but what if you want to read, or pray, or think about something other than air crashes. I THINK THIS HAS NOW BECOME A CLASS THING. If you go into First Class lounges, you get silence. The plebs are presumed to be restless and in need of doping. Don't even get me started on radio in intercity buses. The one place you used to get quiet, and time to think. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Clinton Hammond Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:41 PM i was wandering though the grocery store on day not too long ago when the urge to sing "Really don'tmind if you sit this one out, Your words but a whisper, my deafness a shout" came over me in front of the meat counter... The wife returned from the veggie section to me singing "And your wise men don't know how it fee-e-e-e-e-els... To be thick as a brick" "What brought that on", she asked... "I donno", I said... and I didn't until I listend and heard on the piped in music, the orcestral version from "A Classic Case"... they played nearly the whole CD and I've never had so much fun shopping fer groceries... I like background music... even if it's not something I'd listen to regularily... Hell, that's how I prefer my Beethoven... WAAAAAAAY in teh background!! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jimmy C Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:49 PM I worked for a while in a hardware store, in Ontario. They had muzak all day long, even in the mornings before the customers would come in we had to listen to the same stuff for a whole week before they changed it. After a while I just tuned out. What bothers me about some people who listen to music is that they don't really know what they are listening to. The following is a true example of what I mean. We were driving into Toronto one day with my son and one of his pals. A certain song came on the radio, his friend exclaimed " Oh I love this one ". I couldn't understand the lyrics so I asked them what the song was about " Oh I don't know" was the answer ?. go figure. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: kendall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:49 PM Spaw, I would be honored to have you as a cretin associate. Major Winchester on M.A.S.H. referred to Hawkeye and B.J. as "Cretinous yahoos" I think I'd like to be one of those. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: wdyat12 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:51 PM Peter, Ever visit a shipyard where every welder, shipfitter, and burner has a differnt radio station on and the sound of welding, gouging, and banging on steel is permeated with everbody's taste in music at maximum volume? I'll take the soft obnoxious elevator music, thank you. Peter |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: grumpy al Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:51 PM I agree entirely with Peter T and all the others who hate, loath, and detest musical wallpaper. However I would like to add a question to the rant, why is it that modern society (as a generalism) is so afraid of peace and quiet??? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Pseudolus Date: 13 Feb 01 - 04:04 PM Kendall, "they play the same shit everywhere"? I've heard several types of music mentioned here as distasteful so I assume to be considered NOT the same shit, it must be something you like. Now it seems like I'm hearing, "If you're gonna play stuff I don't like, play it low or don't play it at all". Do you know for sure no one is enjoying it?
Jimmy C,
Peter T, It has become a class thing?????? Are you now saying that if someone watches TV in an airport they are lower class??? Seems a little harsh to me. I don't mean to push the issue since I'm not exactly fond of everything I hear in stores, malls, and restaurants but I also don't feel like I'm being intruded upon and I certainly don't feel outclassed by the folks who hate it. Truly, I'm trying to understand and I fear I'm now sounding argumentative. I also think we're heading down the old "agree to disagree" highway.... Still trying.... Frank |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Big Mick Date: 13 Feb 01 - 04:06 PM I guess it depends on why I am in the place. If I am in a very nice restaraunt with friends, I don't want a lot of bullshit to contend with what I hope will be enjoyable conversation........engaging banter.......rousing discussion............or just plain communing with a kindred spirit. And I will choose the type of place that allows that. It occurs to me that some folks wouldn't like my musical style........and that means they shouldn't come to the pub where I am playing. All of this is not to say that I don't agree with Peter. It is a sign of our times, and not a very good one, that one cannot escape the feckin' madness. I have to listen to it in cabs, on buses, in every public place. It is so bad that when I am out fishing on the lake I live in which is located in a supposed State Game area, I have to listen to it from the radio's on the boats and snowmobiles. I am sitting on the ice a few weeks ago, it is 12 degrees out, I am on a huge lake in the middle of the woods and I hear the sound of a snowmobile in the distance. And I hear the bass speakers...........sure as hell a kid on a snowmobile, towing a sled with huge bass speakers like they put in the cars these days goes by. Drives me nuts...........The end is near.......repent. All the best, Mick |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: CarolC Date: 13 Feb 01 - 04:10 PM I'm sure you're right, Bardford.
However, if my memory is correct and there wasn't any muzak in the grocery stores I've visited here in Orillia, that would make this the first time in my entire life that I've been in grocery stores that didn't have muzak. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jim Krause Date: 13 Feb 01 - 04:26 PM Mind you I am a pretty peaceful sort of guy. But one evening I had had just about all I could take. After the gig, the band and a few of our pals, wives, and husbands went out to our favorite watering hole. We sat, trying to have a conversation, when I turned to one of the guys nearest me, and said "This is the only time I seriously consider changing my position on Conceal Carry law." I said as I pointed to the speaker mounted on a ceiling beam which was blaring out really bad, head-bangin' stuff. BTW for those who don't know, Conceal/Carry is local slang for carrying a concealed sidearm on one's person. Jim |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: RichM Date: 13 Feb 01 - 04:52 PM Alright, there must be some way to sabotage these annoying public earworms...maybe some kind of glue sprayed in the speakers? Would crazy glue work?
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Bert Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:05 PM The answer is to sing louder than the music being played. Something like "When you pickle glows at night" By Amos should do it. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: katlaughing Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:09 PM I felt physically ill this past Christmas season when we had to go to Wally World. Normally we avoid it like the plague, but they had moving bins on sale and we were moving, so...anyway, they had on some woman screeching at the top of her lungs and I just looked at Rog, told him I had to get out of there and we did. I really felt it physically! Peter, I forgot to mention an article I read yesterday. Industry is working on packaging which will talk to us, or sing to us when we shop! That's right, that little bottle of whatever, when it senses you are near, might strike up it's well-known jingle or start relating the merits of buying that product! THIS SHOULD BE STOPPED IN ITS TRACKS! Whatever happened to Silence is Golden? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Bill D Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:14 PM many years ago, a Pizza Hut in my home town had a juke box with one blank track..for 5› you could buy 3 minutes of silence...they made a fortune! I carry a tape of bagpipe music in my van...just for those occasions when I am in traffic beside some cretin with bass speakers blaring rock or, worse...RAP!.....a good pipe melody will penetrate..and sort of make a point... |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: katlaughing Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:21 PM Here's that article: "What if the next time you walked into a music store, a compact disc sang to you? Or you reached for some beauty cream at the department store and the package began to glow, enticing you with a tiny video invitation to rediscover lost youth? Wouldn't you at least stop and think about buying those products? International Paper Co. is betting you would. The Purchase, N.Y.-based company has signed a licensing deal with an Israeli firm, Power Paper Ltd., that soon could bring light, sound and other special effects to the packages of some consumer products. The key is new ultra-thin flexible batteries that can be "printed" on packages like ink. Both companies expect the disposable batteries to help product manufacturers use packaging more effectively to entice consumers. "The No. 1 reason (for using the batteries in packaging) would be the marketing advantage that would allow you to reach consumers one more time with an advertising or marketing or promotional message," said Jenny Boardman, an IP spokeswoman. The batteries might potentially be used in CD packages wired to play song samples when a customer picks them up, or to enliven game cards handed out at fast food restaurants. Packages powered by the new batteries could show up on store shelves by late summer. Boardman says International Paper is running trials, but has not yet signed deals with any customers. Power Paper says it is readying to start Hong Kong-based production later this year. Neither company would comment on the terms of their agreement. While the new battery will be used first in novelty items, the idea is rooted in practicality. It began taking shape seven years ago when Power Paper cofounder Baruch Levanon was hired by a medical supply company to help develop a stick-on device to deliver insulin through the skin of diabetics. The challenge was to find a power source strong enough to push large insulin molecules into the skin, yet small enough to wear comfortably. That half-inch-thick miniature battery will soon be on the market, said Levanon, though he wouldn't provide further details. But Levanon and his partners didn't stop there. They kept working on their own, developing a battery only about half a millimeter thick composed of five layers of zinc and manganese dioxide. The material can be printed on an ordinary press, and is safe for disposal, said Levanon, whose privately held company and is based at Kibbutz Einat in suburban Tel Aviv. International Paper, whose packaging business accounts for 27 percent of industry sales, has tried to add zip to product boxes by adding holograms, embossing or die-cutting packages so that they're not always square. The creation of e-packaging, complete with light and sound, continues that evolution, Boardman said. The newfangled containers are part of a broad trend known as "smart packaging", using technology to allow products to communicate with manufacturers, retailers and consumers, industry consultant Mark Niemiec says. Companies already use packages equipped with small devices to sound an alarm if an item is being stolen. In the future, such devices could be widely used to track movement of products or allow a home refrigerator to detect and respond to items placed inside, he says. While innovations like e-packages will be costly at first, he says the expense will decline over time and could make sense to consumer products companies who spend big on marketing. "We are clearly at the doorstep of this new interactive type of smart packaging, and I think in the next decade we're going to see tremendous developments in this area," said Niemiec of Global Packaging Innovations in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The new thin battery also fits into an industry trend, with manufacturers continuously miniaturizing products and looking for ever smaller power sources that fit inside, said Tom Chesworth, president of Seven Mountains Scientific Inc., the Boalsburg, Pa.-based publisher of Advanced Battery Technology magazine. Chesworth says the new battery is the first flexible power source he's seen, but that it's not clear yet how useful it will be: "When I saw it, it was a solution looking for a problem and it may still be." But Levanon said there are myriad uses for his company's batteries. Eventually, he says, it could be used to power smart tags on products, allowing companies to track individual items as they are shipped, and when they reach the store shelf. It might also be used for disposal products for medical diagnosis. "Once you have a power source ... that is thin and flexible, then it opens a whole range of microelectronics uses," Levanon says. Such utility will come at a price. Equipping packaging with a battery and the microelectronics for simple audiovisual effects will add 20 cents to $1 to the cost of each item, Levanon says. That is substantially more than most packaging costs, but perhaps reasonable if seen as part of a company's marketing budget, he suggests. © Copyright 2001 The Associated Press |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: mousethief Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:21 PM There is a semi-famous story of a client of Carl G. Jung, the famous psychiatrist. He told this man that his "homework" between sessions on the couch was to go home and be alone, by himself, for an hour (each night). The man came back to his next appointment, and Dr. Jung asked him how it went. "Just fine," the man said. "At first I played the piano, then when I got bored of that, I read a book, and then I wrote some in my diary." "No no, you don't understand," said Dr. Jung. "I want you to be alone. Doing nothing. Just being." The man's face became a picture of horror. "I couldn't do that!" he said. "And yet," said Dr. Jung, "this presence which you can't bear for one hour, you inflict on hundreds of people all week long!" Alex |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: wdyat12 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:22 PM Hey Folks! Speaking of Muzak, check out the yellow "Handy" thread for a minute. Don't get lost in there though. wdyat12 |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: GUEST,bflat Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:24 PM I had been the owner of a small store in a hamlet, which I sold recently. For many years, I tuned the radio into folk music, bluegrass and old country tunes or selected a tape or CD from my collection, when I wasn't playing my guitar in the store. If it were the radio, it never failed but a customer wanted to know the station name and number so that they could tune their car radio to the same. Some folks would begin a discussion about the music and often it was most pleasant and entertaining. People would comment about the unique and "best" music that I would have on and that they looked forward to what was playing when they came to shop. I never once had a request to change the music or to stop playing the guitar. Lucky I guess. bflat |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: blt Date: 13 Feb 01 - 05:30 PM It's impressive to me how very sensitive folks are to music--I agree that muzak is annoying and really loud muzak really annoying, but in general it doesn't bother me too much. I kind of get an existential kick out of seeing what sort of music is being played at the grocery store--when I go into the up-scale "natural foods" store in my neighborhood, the music playing is apt to be an eclectic but always self-consciously tasteful mix: Enya followed by tejano followed by Dave Brubeck. Starbucks drove me a little nuts this winter when they began playing Christmas music the day after Halloween (I know, that's what I get for going into Starbucks)--it was all 50s and 60s stuff. I have asked to have the music turned down in restaurants when it was so loud it was oppressive, and sometimes it was actually turned down. Recently, I ate at a restaurant where the person waiting on me was deaf and I realized afterward that perhaps she had the music up loud because then she could feel the bass--it was the middle of the afternoon and I was the only person in the place. However, I would like to suggest that as a group, musicians and afficianados are more attuned, as it were, to how music affects them--it's both a blessing and a curse, I think, to be so exquisitely wired that any sound registers as either pleasure or pain. Just realize that not everybody is wired this way--incredible as it may seem, not everybody experiences music as an event or as something existing in space, as significant (hence the blank looks when one requests the sound to be lowered--the blank individual may think such a request is crazy because if the music were turned down no one would "hear" it). Oliver Sachs (of Awakenings fame) describes the sensitivity that music lovers have as being able to perceive musical notes in the same way that others remember faces--the notes have color, shape, personalities. blt |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: sophocleese Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:06 PM There is a bar near here where my father and I go once a week together to have beer and a chat. It plays background music and on a couple of occasions it has been too loud. However each time before we had a chance to ask the waitress to turn it down somebody else had already done so. My dad and I do keep apologizing though as our eyes flicker to the televisions hanging above the bar. The grocery store that I go to plays music in the background but I only really notice when I have a different tune in my head which the muzak interferes with. I get strange looks from people when I walk along the street or an aisle singing to myself but I figure if they're going to put canned stuff on in the stores I can sing if I feel like it. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: wdyat12 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:20 PM I do my grocery shopping after hours on my way home from work. I put up with isles closed off for floor waxing and pallets of boxed merchandise waiting to be shelved that always seem to be in my way. However, I never hear Muzak when I'm shopping because the shelvers pipe different FM stations through the PA system. The music depends on who's turn it is that night to control the station selection. I have shopped at night in this store for years and I rarely ever hear something really awful. wdyat12 |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Bill D Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:24 PM about 'that' article kat posted....I can just And ...*grin*...if those batteries really work, maybe that 'implant' for remote controlled "O"s wont be needed...just print a battery and ripple effect right on undies! ZAP!....(who says old curmudgeons have no imagination!?) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jande Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:29 PM MMario... Yum! Too bad you seem to be speaking in the past tense. ::sigh:: I think I would kill for nice juicy vine-ripened tomato right now --as long as I wasn't forced to listen to somebody else's idea of good music while I was trying to eat it! ;`) ~ Jande, (eyeing the side-yard to measure for a greenhouse) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Morticia Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:33 PM I find that in grocery shops I sing according to what I'm looking at rather than what's playing.....people at the fish counter are "treated" to 'Shoals of Herring', the cheese display often gets a minute or two of "Oh, the Hard Cheese of Old England" etc.Good God.....I'm a walking wallpaper supplier!! |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: menzze Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:48 PM I laid a wooden floor this afternoon and the lady had the TV running and the radio, we were talking and my machines were running too,her two dogs were barking and her two parrots squiecing and hustling and laughing and... She said she needs some life around her, some action all the time. She couldn't stand quietness. Her age: about 60. I nearly couldn't stand this hellish melting pot of noises. And she loved it. People are different(some are too different for me) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Homeless Date: 13 Feb 01 - 06:51 PM A couple have asked why this seems so prevalent in modern society. My personal theory is that it is because people don't know how to think or are afraid to think. Schools don't teach children how to think, they teach them to follow authority, believe everything they are told, and let the media dictate their opinions. They are raising a generation of sheeple - people who behave like sheep.
At the risk of tainting yet another thread with pop music, I am going to quote a line from an Alanis Morrisette song I think that the first and last lines of this pretty much sum up the situation. When was the last time that you heard a group of mainstream youths discussing some type of intellectual subject - theology, philosophy, even politics? My sister keeps a television set running literally from the time she gets out of bed until she turns in for the night. To keep her company, she says. The corollary to this is the so many 'Catters who find the muzak distasteful. From the threads I've read I would surmise that the average 'Catter, or maybe even Folkie, doesn't fit into the mold of sheeple. We do like to think for ourselves and don't like having unnecessary distractions forced onto us. Personally, I find disturbing that so many people are willing and even eager to give up their brain waves to even subconciously process this noise. I like to keep my full facilities to myself, thank you. My opinion, for what it's worth. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: hesperis Date: 13 Feb 01 - 08:31 PM Yeah. CarolC - Unfortunately, Superfresh plays background music. But at least it's not country. :shudder: Which store did you go to? Jande - What?! My music makes you cringe? Or did you mean trying to eat at the same time as my music... *g* |
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