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Puny Express
2 years ago
General
"Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! I have a self-inflicted concussion!"
The "Woody Woodpecker and Friends" block of cartoons on ME-TV's Saturday morning lineup is only two weeks old, and watching these...things is a reminder that Walter Lantz Productions couldn't make a funny cartoon to save their lives. Woody's evolution from a grotesque, grinning lunatic into a smaller, cuter public nuisance -- an irresponsible man-child -- only underscores his fundamental blandness, his acts of random idiocy, his brainlessness -- and the sense that if you were to pit him against Daffy Duck or Tweety, Woody Woodpecker wouldn't stand a chance.
Ugly Men Make Beautiful Music
The classical music megabox set -- a 13-pound doorstop packed with CDs, usually in drastically improved sound -- is marketed squarely at the aging boomers who used to own the original vinyl LPs. I broke down and bought the sets devoted to conductors George Szell, Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, and -- a real discovery for me -- Dmitri Mitropolous, who led the New York Philharmonic prior to Leonard Bernstein, and who was, weirdly, largely forgotten in the decade after his death in 1960. Mitropolous favored brisk tempi; his version of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony scarcely pauses for breath, letting those glorious melodies shine without wallowing in them. His electrifying performance of Schumann's Second Symphony won't give you time to notice the antiquated sound -- which is still pretty good for 1940 -- and the slow movement will melt your heart.
No matter how long you've been listening to this music, there's always something new to hear.
The "Woody Woodpecker and Friends" block of cartoons on ME-TV's Saturday morning lineup is only two weeks old, and watching these...things is a reminder that Walter Lantz Productions couldn't make a funny cartoon to save their lives. Woody's evolution from a grotesque, grinning lunatic into a smaller, cuter public nuisance -- an irresponsible man-child -- only underscores his fundamental blandness, his acts of random idiocy, his brainlessness -- and the sense that if you were to pit him against Daffy Duck or Tweety, Woody Woodpecker wouldn't stand a chance.
Ugly Men Make Beautiful Music
The classical music megabox set -- a 13-pound doorstop packed with CDs, usually in drastically improved sound -- is marketed squarely at the aging boomers who used to own the original vinyl LPs. I broke down and bought the sets devoted to conductors George Szell, Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, and -- a real discovery for me -- Dmitri Mitropolous, who led the New York Philharmonic prior to Leonard Bernstein, and who was, weirdly, largely forgotten in the decade after his death in 1960. Mitropolous favored brisk tempi; his version of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony scarcely pauses for breath, letting those glorious melodies shine without wallowing in them. His electrifying performance of Schumann's Second Symphony won't give you time to notice the antiquated sound -- which is still pretty good for 1940 -- and the slow movement will melt your heart.
No matter how long you've been listening to this music, there's always something new to hear.
The same applies to books and movies and TV series, too. Having those DVDs on your shelf means you don't depend on the benevolence -- or continued existence! -- of the copyright holders and streaming services.
It's really a tradeoff: physical media = clutter as opposed to streaming = what happened to my shit? But you're absolutely right about the value of ownership.