Culture

[Waltzing]

It Appears that wait for it .... Classical music is making a come back....

First noticed something strange happening when school orchestra players started turning up on concert program.. And young 16 year old man turned up in northland saying he writes classical music announcing it with a very very plain kiwi voice....

something odd was afoot ... could it be that culture can be made by peoples all over the world no matter how they pronouced their vowels?

 https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230113-gen-z-and-young-millennials-surprising-obsession

[Waltzing]

As a half irish immigrant its almost sacrosanct not to listen to the pogues ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFarc3yjSC8&list=OLAK5uy_m2KrQXGEFRQIZqAWx3D47xt3EsZifBf1A

[Waltzing]

for a read this XMAS dont forget the Classics...

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/book-review-the-passionless-people-revisited/M53VUNAS2LWKDV4HGAXSBEBY5Q/

and the best of them all ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Half-Gallon_Quarter-Acre_Pavlova_Paradise#:~:text=The%20Half%2DGallon%20Quarter%2DAcre%20Pavlova%20Paradise%20was%20a%20popular,New%20Zealand%2C%20and%20Kiwi%20culture.

[arekaywhy]

speaking of culture and reading...might be opening up some Huxley this summer...

[Waltzing]

well its time to La bomba tomorrow in auckland ...

better brush up on how the pros do it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6Oa45HxtE

[Hectorplains]

As a half irish immigrant its almost sacrosanct not to listen to the pogues ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFarc3yjSC8&list=OLAK5uy_m2KrQXGEFRQIZqAWx3D47xt3EsZifBf1A

Sad to read of the passing of Shane McGowan. I met him of all places on the morning sailing of the Interislander on their aptly named "Fall From Grace" tour.   McGowan was already three sheets to the wind before we boarded.  He passed out about half way across.  Spider Stacy seemed to have drawn the short straw of playing his minder.  I had a long chat with Stacy - one helluva nice guy.  Saw the band at the Christchurch Town Hall.  They played a short set that was a bit flat.  McGowan was vertical and still drinking.  RIP Shane McGowan.

[Waltzing]

OH MY GOOSSH HP... you actualy met the man...

there was a great doco on him on ART channel recently and an interview with Gerry Adams....

The drink got him in the end ...

" three sheets to the wind"

classic ... thats a great saying...

[Hectorplains]

speaking of culture and reading...might be opening up some Huxley this summer...

It's officially summer today!  I just finished reading Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death."  If you enjoy Huxley, it's odds on that he'll float your boat too.  Published back in '85 but so, so prescient.

Here's the foreword:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

[Waltzing]

Is the world of instant social media the drug that will lead to a world where no one reads....

hence the ban at schools on phones for many reasons but wait till your watch can take a photo and make a call...

THE GET SMART WATCH!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eik96tIjAg

[Waltzing]

In  TV Land Get Smart set the standard on many levels including creating real world gadgets that the CIA began investigating....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngazWNQkzqA

[Waltzing]

some pretty cool ballroom dancing at the weekend at the Australian Dance champs... as stated recently by a dancing with stars winner... Dancing is dead in NZ... not so in AUSS and certainly still big in the US...

https://www.facebook.com/AustralianDanceSportChampionship/videos/879058197234202/

if your visiting the UK dont forget to get your drama booked for 24 ....

No Taming of the .... lined up but...

https://www.rsc.org.uk/news/new-season-of-delights-announced-for-winter-2023-24

[Waltzing]

Rialto Channel ... this summer "House of Splinters"

House of abandoned children in Eastern Ukraine...

Denmark 2022.

[Waltzing]

123 ... Waltz with me...

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67742576

[BlackPeter]

123 ... Waltz with me...

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67742576

Sad. Where I am coming from they say that people never get too old for dancing. However, they get old if they stop dancing.

[Waltzing]

One of New Zealand's top women Pro AM dancers in Auckland who dances overseas is nearly 80...

Very elegant performer with great DNA..