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High and Low Culture
Jul. 11th, 2011 11:24 pmFollowing up on the previous post, Misattribution of Arousal. Aron and Dutton showed when you feel aroused, you naturally look for context, an explanation as to why you feel so alive. This search for meaning happens automatically and unconsciously, and whatever answer you come up with is rarely questioned because you don’t realize you are asking. . . [t]he source of your coursing blood is more ambiguous if you just drank a Red Bull before heading into a darkened theater to watch an action movie. You can’t know for sure it if it is the explosions or the caffeinated taurine water, but damn if this movie doesn’t rock.
Sometimes it's the raging feminist, sometimes it's the rage. Either way, approach with courtesy and respect.
Yesterday the San Francisco Symphony performed in Golden Gate Park. Set list:
Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"
Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, with pianist Valentina Lisitsa
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Encore: Tchaikovsky, Overture from the "Nutcracker Suite"
I was not particularly interested in "Night on Bald Mountain" or the Beethoven, both of which suffer from overexposure. The Rachmaninoff was stunningly beautiful, and broke me a bit. However, who does the Nutcracker in July? Every red-blooded American knows that the 1812 Overture is summer music, fog or no fog.
Over Independence Day weekend, I caught up on the fourth, fifth, and sixth Harry Potter movies, which I'd missed in theaters. I thought I hadn't seen any of them, but Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gave me deja vu in several spots, so perhaps I caught part of it on cable at some point. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 is waiting at the library. I might pick it up tomorrow, but with Inception waiting as well, it's unlikely I'll pop it in the DVD drive before Friday.
Essays on San Francisco radicals of bygone years are no good for me; my first reaction to protesters disrupting public transit should be "and what train did you get to the BART station, anyway?" not, "and why am I not down there?"
Sometimes it's the raging feminist, sometimes it's the rage. Either way, approach with courtesy and respect.
Yesterday the San Francisco Symphony performed in Golden Gate Park. Set list:
Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"
Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, with pianist Valentina Lisitsa
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Encore: Tchaikovsky, Overture from the "Nutcracker Suite"
I was not particularly interested in "Night on Bald Mountain" or the Beethoven, both of which suffer from overexposure. The Rachmaninoff was stunningly beautiful, and broke me a bit. However, who does the Nutcracker in July? Every red-blooded American knows that the 1812 Overture is summer music, fog or no fog.
Over Independence Day weekend, I caught up on the fourth, fifth, and sixth Harry Potter movies, which I'd missed in theaters. I thought I hadn't seen any of them, but Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gave me deja vu in several spots, so perhaps I caught part of it on cable at some point. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 is waiting at the library. I might pick it up tomorrow, but with Inception waiting as well, it's unlikely I'll pop it in the DVD drive before Friday.
Essays on San Francisco radicals of bygone years are no good for me; my first reaction to protesters disrupting public transit should be "and what train did you get to the BART station, anyway?" not, "and why am I not down there?"
