If you really want me to respond to your questions or comments, don't send them to me under a phony name and dummy e-mail address. Why should I take you seriously if you don't think enough of your own ideas to put your name behind them?
Colleague Mike Serres has forwarded this “Jargon Watch” item from Wired:
CLASSICAL CLUBBING n. A new trend in orchestral music, classical clubbing mixes woodwinds and brass with vodka and tonic. As concert hall audiences dwindle, young instrumentalists are moving the classical repertoire into bars and interlacing J. S. Bach with DJ beats in a mashup as cultural as it is musical.
Last night, after a long afternoon of radio fund-raising, I met my wife and two of our friends for dinner at a restaurant we’ve patronized for many years. The place has changed hands several times, although the food remains fairly consistent, and a new regime seems to be in charge. My guess is that it’s a family fairly fresh from the Old Country, given the tentative command of English a couple of them have. And, boy, are they eager to please. Too eager. Beginning about halfway through the meal, one or another of them would badger us literally every two minutes, checking on our satisfaction and offering us water. Lots of water. This was amusing at first, but before long I grew annoyed. We couldn’t carry on a conversation because the staff was intrusively attentive.
It’s strangely off-putting when someone is too eager to please, which is why, as an audience member, I don’t mind public-radio fund-raising drives but I find public-television pledge drives intolerable. In radio, we just do what we usually do, but less of it so we can fit in pledge breaks. Same mix of music, except that many of the selections are necessarily shorter (nothing more than 18 minutes long, because that’s the maximum time between breaks). Public television, in contrast, hauls out all kinds of special programming during its campaigns, in part to hold its regular audience with nifty, shiny things, and in part to lure non-viewers with specials that are totally unrelated to the PBS core mission but may dupe newcomers into phoning in a pledge. To me, that smacks of hypocrisy; isn’t the regular programming good enough to deserve support? That, rather than the pledge breaks, is what keeps me tuned out during TV campaigns. Radio fund-raising is much more agreeable; we aren’t trying too hard.
James Reel's cranky consideration of the fine arts and public radio in Tucson and beyond.
