Thought for the Day (Sept 20)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Allan C.
Date: 21 Sep 99 - 07:45 AM

Mian, I like your points.

"Admiration makes a thing beautiful in a way..." An idea or a work (such as a work of art) takes on a life of its own when someone other than its creator admires it.

Your second note about repetition reminds me of a man who said that if he had just one wish, it would be to read Mark Twain's "Life On the Mississippi" again for the first time. I guess if there was as, Dante suggests, "ecstasy" in the first time then it would be reasonable to think that it should be pleasurable (heaven) to have that moment repeated. My friend's idea of hell was based on an initial less-than-pleasurable experience. I suppose that Dante's point was along the lines of: too much of anything - even too much water - can be a bad experience. Moderation in all things, I guess.

And Jack (WICJ), I would like to do a similar thing. I would like to show some of those great old composers and some of the newer (deceased) ones that their music is still alive. But that makes me wonder whether they would be more flattered than appalled at some of the forms in which their music now appears.

Allan C. (whoissinging"howgentleistherain"underhisbreath)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Mían
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 05:53 PM

I think Beauty more basic a drive in the modern world - would not the person who creates something "cutting edge" think of his own creation as a thing of beauty? Admiration makes a thing beautiful in a way...

As to a dillema of replaying a moment in time - if that each time would be exactly as the first time, and so would BE the first time truly, and would not be a repetition - and therefore would be perfect every time.

Heaven.

doo wop doo wop

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Bert
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 02:42 PM

Hmmm, sounds kinda like traditional square dancing.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From:
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 02:35 PM

..or Patsy Biscoe to Shubert

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 02:33 PM

Don't be so ready with the white bread and nostalgia characterizations. That stuff was as revolutionary in its day Dylan was in his, and the genius behind does not diminish down the ages.

Here's a companion thought though. The modern world is so obsessed with breaking down convention and creating revolutions, that it tends to hold contempt for the old as a matter of principle. The drive to be cutting edge supercedes the drive to create beauty. Yet in our hearts the yearning is for the latter, and in the end we can't help but return to it.

I have several music fantasies, but by far the most prevalent is the desire to be able to travel in time, so I could take samples of different kinds of music to great musicians of the past and get their impression of it. To play Ellington to Motzart or Monk to Beethoven.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Allan C.
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 11:27 AM

And one person's heaven might be another's hell. A friend of mine has always described hell as being locked in a room forever with nothing but a phonograph and a stack of Wayne Newton albums. I fully agree. But I have to wonder...would it be any less of a hell if it were Woody Guthrie or Glen Miller or Mariah Carey or Tony Rice or Los Indios Trabajaros?

Subject: Thought for the Day (Sept 20)
From: Peter T.
Date: 20 Sep 99 - 11:01 AM

Out big band dancing over the weekend, and was reminded of the strangeness of a musical form that is terrific, but (except for a few daring practitioners) essentially frozen in time. At one point, the band tried to play something from the 1970's, and everything ground to a halt. Everyone went to the bar, started talking to each other, and so on. As soon as they went on to "Satin Doll", everyone headed onto the dance floor again. I talked to the singer, and she said to me, Oh, yes, if I try and sing something out of the period, it dies: the bubble bursts. And this was in a hall full of teenagers as well as somewhat older people, none of whom were alive for this music the first time around. Something similar infects concert halls (still churning out Beethoven 200 years later), people with hit records (Don McLean and the umpteenth "American Pie"), and most musical forms that somehow captured a moment and are forever tied to that moment by the style, the nostalgia, the audience demand. It is a strange fate, reminiscent of characters like Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Inferno, locked together in their moment of ecstasy forever, the moment endlessly replaying horribly for them as the most terrible punishment. Still, one marvels for the 1,000 time over the intricate beauty of that most white bread of all big band songs -- "In The Mood" -- and heads out onto the dance floor, swing steps at the ready. (p.t.)