The Masters

Corny vs. Ironic

I saw this clip at a blog called Big Hollywood.

The author, John Nolte,  makes the point that it can be harder to do corny than ironic.  True, I'm sure. 

Perhaps a better point was made by someone in the comments.  PERFECTTOMMY writes,

I think the preference for “irony” over “corny” is an issue related to Dallas Jenkins recent post on the lack of religous faith in today’s Hollywood. “Cool” is preferable to “Good”. What a horrible thing for friends in the media to find out that you’re impressed by an ability to dance or sing or by simple acts of faith.  Smirking beats a soft shoe or an act of kindness every time in that crowd.

Le French

I had never been to Europe before our recent trip. We went to France to spend time with our daughter. I have always wanted to see Spain, Italy and the British Isles, but I have never had a hankering to see France.

I have to admit that I have a strong Anglo-Saxon bias against French philosophy and I guess I was influenced by the stereotype of the rude Frenchman. However, the first person we met when we came up out of the subway in Paris was an old French gentleman who looked like he should have been the spokesman for the French ministry of tourism. He just needed a beret. In perfect French-accented English he told us that he had lived in the Latin Quarter for forty years. And then he made sure we knew how to find our hotel.

We never did meet a rude person. Most were very gracious. We saw a couple of pickpockets (one of which got busted by about 10 cops who surrounded him as he got off the train). And we were only 2 blocks from the riots around the Sorbonne. But we came away with a higher opinion of the French in general. So, Vive la France!

C. S. Lewis Panic

The Chronicles of Narnia hit the big screen soon.  From all I have read the story hasn’t been neutered.  Frankly, I had a hard time getting into the series so I never read them.  I much preferred the Space Trilogy (whoever borrowed my set please return it – all will be forgiven). 

Certain members of the cultural elite are in a tizzy over the film.  They apparently fear that some one might realize the story is Christian.  Expect more articles like this one and this one.  When you get sick of ignorant, bigoted, ad hominem attacks read this more balanced article by Michael Medved.

Telenovelas

The Washington Post has an article on Telenovelas (Latin soap operas).  I can’t stand them, but they are an interesting cultural phenomenon. The first paragraph reads:

Telenovelas come and go.

Unlike American soap operas, which can drag on for decades, the Spanish-language melodramas usually get just six months to tell their tales of steamy betrayal, class conflict and tragic love before moving on to someone else's problems . (And not to start a culture war, but any channel surfer can see that Latino prime-time dramas have more oomph than that yanqui "Days of Our Lives" fuss.)

Beyond the “steaminess” I don’t care for the melodrama.  But I have been a little more sympathetic to Telenovela viewers since it dawned on me that sports might be the male equivalent of soaps.  Neither have much to do with real life, but we get all involved in the twists and turns of fortune in the lives of people we will never meet.

I don’t remember how long ago it was but there was a Telenovela called Betty la Fea.  Great title.  Betty the Ugly One.  Or in more idiomatic English:  Ugly Betty.  Betty was quite unappealing at the beginning of series but by the end, after considerable suffering and tears, became beautiful.  I didn’t watch it so I don’t know how she got so beautiful.  This was before all of those gross extreme makeover shows so I am sure it was just her nobility of character that eventually came to the surface.

Check out the WaPo article here.

Cross-Cultural Chimeras

A moment’s reflection is enough to see that national cultures are not static.  If you derived your idea of culture from Disney’s Epcot Center you might think that national cultures were forever locked in certain immutable patterns.  Of course, the truth is that national cultures are always evolving as they are influenced by innumerable factors.

Globalization increases the pace of mutation.  Cable television is a big factor.  I am guessing more so than the internet.  Right now I am watching Argentina play Nigeria in the final for the FIFA world cup for players under 20.  At half time Argentina is up 1 to 0 (Much better than the senior national team that got killed 4 to 1 by Brazil in the final of the Confederations Cup this week).  The game is carried by Fox Sports.  The cameras scan the crowd and focus in on Nigerians playing African drums.  The announcers in Spanish are not from here.  I can’t place their accent.  I much prefer Argentine announcers.  They have their own style. 

Lining Out

I am adding a new category to my blog archives for things about culture.  This will be the first post.  I found an interesting article in a Scottish newspaper about Scotch influence on black music in the American south.  It is worth going to the original site to listen to the sample of a Western Isles congregation “lining out”.  Here are a few paragraphs that begin with a reference to Dizzy Gillespie:

Gillespie often regaled his friends with stories of how the Scots had influenced the blacks in his home state of Alabama. He spoke to his long-time collaborator, Willie Ruff, a bassist and French horn player, about how his parents told of the black slaves who spoke Gaelic, the tongue of their masters.

Ruff - a professor of music at Yale University, a musicologist and jazz man who played with Duke Ellington and Miles Davis - was struck by the words of Gillespie, and some years after the trumpeter's death set out to investigate connections between the Scots and the blacks of the southern US.

"For Dizzy, there was no doubt about the connections. He'd talk about the Gaelic speaking blacks and spoke of his love for Scotland. He'd often tell me to get over to Scotland because the people were so friendly and the love of the music so warm," says Ruff.

A chance visit to a black Baptist church in Alabama led Ruff to discover that some congregations were still "lining out" in the Deep South. This is a call and response form of worship where a precentor sings the first line of a psalm and the congregation follows.

Read the rest.