Falling Behind

[poliphilo]

I do try to keep abreast of the culture, but it's hard: so much product, so little time- not to mention the huge backlog of older stuff I've never got round to grappling with- Beowulf for instance. Right now I'm trying to catch up by reading some modern novels. I just read The Kindly Ones and The Ghost- both excellent in their different ways. Next up I'm going to nibble at some Donna Tartt.

I try to watch the happening TV shows, but I seem to have lost touch with the cinema. I read the reviews, but I don't go to see the movies. I like to think it's a blip- and somewhere down the line I'll lay in a store of DVDs and get myself back up to date- but I suspect I'm kidding myself.

One area in which I've long since given up is music. Music- and I mean popular music of course- is made for the young by the young- and I'm in late middle age and just don't care any more. I'd like to care, but I don't. Of course I hear tunes I like in passing but the last time I felt involved with the scene was when the Sex Pistols gobbed all over it- and the only artist whose albums I regularly attend to is Bob Dylan.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Maybe because I was in the business, but I still try to keep up with modern artists, especially the Swedish ones. A lot of it I don't like, not necessarily because I'm too old, but it's bad music no matter what, but there is quite a bit of newer stuff I quite like as well.

Now for the movies and TV programmes, I don't even recognise most of the names any more.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In every generation most of the music is bad. I'm sure the good stuff is there as well, but....

[kinderheldin.livejournal.com]

I like the Sex Pistols.

Speaking of someone who is around those of this generation (adolescents) near-constantly -- it's too hard to keep up with current trends -- movies, music, you name it.

I joked with students recently -- that ten years from now, my upcoming students wouldn't know who Britney Spears is (when my current students didn't know who Wynona Rider, 1990's hearthrob/It-girl is) the other day. No way, they told me.

Yes way.

It's pointless to keep up, I feel. I'd rather immerse myself in the depths of what I like/appreciate. However, sometimes, (as recently, I was introduced to John Cale's music) something "new" (even it's it's old) revitalizes my world.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

All things must pass.

It annoys me how people think the movies began with Star Wars and won't watch anything in black and white and know nothing of the history of rock and roll- but that's how it is and how it's always been...