School leavers should know how to cook a meal, handle domestic finances, take part in a debate, enjoy the theatre and use the internet.

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centuries old

more than half the operas in the standard repertoire are less than 150 years old, and about 30% are from the 20th century

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Right, so attendance for an entire category of music barely exceeds sales of albums for four particular pop artists out of a freaking zillion.

that's attendance in one year compared to sales over as much as 40 years

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link

(and some of the biggest pop phenomenons of all time)

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link

opera is not exactly the dominant form of modern-day American pop music

well no, the whole point of high culture is that it isn't pop

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay, whatever, Gabbneb, clearly opera -- with a yearly concert attendance double that of the Canadian Football League! -- is the dominant form of American music-making in the 21st century, dominating the radio airwaves, inevitably taking the Grammy for Best New Performer, inextricably entangled with the social development of teenagers, its catchphrases acting as a kind of lingua franca (oops, Italia!) through the US and the world, and scaling heights of cultural influence unthinkable in the age of Verdi. My bad.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:18 (seventeen years ago) link

P.S. -- sarcasm aside, the difference between "high culture" and "popular culture" needn't simply be a matter of format, with something like opera roped off into "high" and something like pop music roped off elsewhere. (I'd actually suggest that the socioeconomic dynamics that made that possible have crumbled too much for it to still be the case.) Film is probably a good example of how a given medium can span all uses. (And film is a medium that -- for both high and low applications -- I'd describe as not being archaic, as a format.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:24 (seventeen years ago) link

a yearly concert attendance double that of the Canadian Football League!

more than triple, actually, but CFL attendance was more than three times that of Canadian opera attendance

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:29 (seventeen years ago) link

that's attendance in one year compared to sales over as much as 40 years

'experience', actually, not attendance

― nuneb (nuneb), Friday, 1 December 2006 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link

i've never seen an opera nor has anyone I know (that I know of)

― Ms Misery (MsMisery), Saturday, 2 December 2006 04:44 (seventeen years ago) link

you have the opportunity to do so in Austin (which is premiering a Philip Glass opera this year), San Antonio, El Paso, McAllen, Houston (which has one of the best companies in America), Galveston, Fort Worth, Dallas, Garland, Amarillo or Abilene

― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:31 (seventeen years ago) link

The problem with theatre these days is that it isn't serious or elitist enough. If I had a dollar for every christ-awful "modern" re-telling of Shakespeare I've ever seen, I'd have enough money to see a psychologist enough times to get me over all that.

YES, WE KNOW SHAKESPEARE MADE A FEW KNOB JOKES. GET OVER IT.

― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:34 (seventeen years ago) link

there's all sorts of 'serious' and 'elitist' theatre

― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:39 (seventeen years ago) link

or you can see america's best opera company this year at your local movie theatre

― nuneb (nuneb), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes but it doesn't cost 5 bux!

I WANT CHEAP SERIOUS ELITIST THEATRE!!

― [electric sound of] esteban buttez (Estie Buttez), Saturday, 2 December 2006 05:44 (seventeen years ago) link

let's bring ILX to the stage!

er, nothing else to add, really. other than "nabisco OTM", but i feel such truisms should be banned from the sandbox and indeed from nuILX :)

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link

i am able to do all of these things, so i left school.
now just gimme a desk job with benefits you fucks.

― ian (orion), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link

how about change a flat? do CPR? write a résumé?

― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:15 (seventeen years ago) link

i can change a flat and write a resume.

― ian (orion), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't do either but I can do CPR. :(

― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:19 (seventeen years ago) link

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