Saturday Open Thread
Bookworm on May 06 2011 at 8:57 pm | Filed under: Open Threads
I’ll be gone tomorrow from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., so blogging will be impossible. I did want to leave you with some food for thought, because I’d be interested in your comments on the two passages I quote below, both from James Kaplan’s Frank: The Voice
The first quotation describes trumpet player and band leader Harry James:
Musical gods were different then. For one thing, teenagers of that era didn’t demand that their musical idols be, or look like, teenagers. By the spring of 1939, Harry James was a very famous, accomplished and self-assured twenty-three-year old — and with his hawk nose, piercing blue eyes, pencil mustache, and big-shoulder suits, he didn’t remotely resemble any twenty-three-year-old we would recognize today. At twenty-three he looked as if he were well into his thirties. (p. 73, emphasis mine.)
Here’s is Harry James, fairly early in his career, when he would still have been in his early 20s:
The second quotation describes trombone player and band leader Tommy Dorsey:
He was just thirty, but thirty was more like forty in those days, and coming from where he’d come from, and having done what he’d done, Tommy Dorsey had a hundred thousand miles on him. (p. 85, emphasis mine.)
And here is Tommy Dorsey in the late 1930s or early 1940s:
Reading those passages, I was struck once again by the way in which we live in an era of perpetually extended adolescence, complete with chipmunk faced stars:
Biology (read: pregnancy) often forces girls to mature, and their slut clothes give them an aged aura. Too many modern boys, however, never seem to grow up, something manifest in the baby clothes they wear: backward caps; over-sized t-shirts; baggy, falling down shorts; and unlaced shoes. They go to school forever, they play computer games unceasingly, and, with the economy, they never leave their parents’ homes. If 30 was the same as 40 back 1940, then in 2011, for too many young man, no matter what age they are, they’re still 13.
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11 Responses to “Saturday Open Thread”
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I suppose it has to do with what sells. It used to be that maturity and sophistication sold, so I’m sure young men strove to look older and more sophisticated. Now, youth and vitality sells so actors try to look forever young. It’s a matter of what the society values. The question is why the values changed.
The Left’s primary strategic goal was to change the culture, not the politics of America. Once the culture turned, the politics would automatically become theirs.
Many of the people of that era matured quickly because of the reality of a ten year depression followed by a world war. It will be interesting to see if our economic problems end up having a similar impact on our youth if our economy remains in the tank for a long period.
On an aside, I had the good fortune, growing up, to have had the oppotunity meet Harry James on several occasions. I was a young trumpeter playing lead in big band gigs at the time. At any rate, after he saw and heard me playing a Bach, he ended up giving me one of his custom made trumpets and mouth pieces. What set him off? In his words - ”Bach are Nazis.” Lol. He was incensed, though I saw no reason at the time to defend Bach. The long and short is that I still have – and play – on the James trumpet and nouthpiece. They are my most prized possessions. Now if I could only play Flight of the Bumbelbee like him . . .
DQ
Good question and partially answered by VDH on another matter. Values and morals are being guided by the left default button. If those of us, who haven’t received the handy-dandy button, I guess we’re suppose to just ‘zip it shut’.
It’s a matter of what the society values. The question is why the values changed.
read it here.
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It’s also easier to conduct assassinations abroad if the Commander-in-Chief is liberal. This neutralizes criticism from the media, universities, the legal community, and Hollywood. Obama the law professor can assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, dump his body in the ocean, and with first-person emphasis boast of our brilliant mission in a way Bush the Texan could not get away with—
Sadie, the Leftist mob has been dumping bodies into the atlantic for awhile now.
Eco-terrorists.
The preference for more feminine men today has been linked to the birth control pill: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1218808/Contraceptive-pill-women-attracted-masculine-men–interested-boyish-looks.html
According to the article: “Scientists have long known that a woman’s taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle. During the few days each month when women are fertile – around the time of ovulation – they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive….On days when women are not fertile, their tastes swing towards more feminine, boyish faces and more caring personalities, researchers have shown.However, if women are taking the Pill they no longer have fertile days.
Libby, in addition to that, there’s also the possibility that the hormones excreted by those taking birth control medications may be entering the water tables and thence into our drinking water. Apparently some testing in England indicated unaccounted for levels of female hormones, which were thought to be affecting in utero development. Haven’t seen anything lately – this was at least a year ago.
How’s that for a happy thought!
I was listening to some Buddy Holly the other night and ran across one of his PR photos. Remember, he was 22 when he died, but, dang, he looked 15 years older than the infantile-looking teen heartthrobs that even then were coming out of the woodwork—Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka.
The need for pop stars to look infantile has been reinforced by the American Idol phenomenon. Looking back over the past few years, the winners have been boys with young faces and soothing ways—all the better not to threaten the female ‘tween voters who decide the winner. Even the exception proves the rule: Adam Lambert was a good-looking kid with a lot of talent. His drawback was that he was too sexy and out-of-the-box for little girls. They not only have a hard time dealing with their feelings for straight boys but simply, totally, like, cannot go there with a boy who isn’t.
Wow: Start with Buddy Holly and end with Adam Lambert. Ain’t America great?
Libby, the link got me thinking about post menopausal women and whatever the male equivalent is called.
Absence or varying degrees of estrogen and testosterone and the affects from choosing a candidate to second spouse in a kufir society. I was thinking about a friend of mine, who was widowed at 50 and when she married again ten years later, she partnered with someone who was the total opposite in many ways of her first husband.
American Idol uses the Chicago model of voting. Vote early and vote often.
So it doesn’t really matter what popular aesthetics are. Only what popular motivation is, for it will draw in the highest repeat voters. And that means the youngest love struck youths around, meaning girls on phones.