I don’t get the enormous, best-albums-of-the-past-twenty-years reverence accorded to radiohead. Maybe not so much right now, but a few years back it was common to see OK Computer and KidA bandied about at the top of best album of all time lists. They’re definitely spoken about as being on a different level, usually in a tone of po-faced solemnity.
I don’t get it on a couple of levels. First, their stuff just sounds like an adequate stab at progressive rock for the 00’s to me - Not bad, a bit more interesting than your average indie band, but very pious and anally-retentive. Their first album doesn’t even aspire to adequacy tbh, extremely weak early 90s UK indie fare.
Second, given that I completely misunderstand **radiohead **and that everyone else hears clearly what I do not. It still seems an odd, surprising sort of sound to be so successful in the US. I have no problem with whiny, droning music myself, but I wouldn’t have thought it would get mainstream success. Someone mentioned Pink Floyd upthread, another desperately overrated band IMO, but at least I can understand their appeal.
This is pretty embarrassing, but … classical music. Yes, all of it. Basically, if it doesn’t have lyrics or a recognizable beat, it all sounds the same to me – kind of nice as background music, but nothing that really engages me.
I don’t really get a lot of modern and contemporary “literary” fiction either, despite having multiple degrees in English – I’d much rather read genre fiction by an author who can turn a good story and has some facility with the language.
I don’t get Survivor at all. I tried watching it three times. Each time I got so bored that I quit watching and went to do something I’d been putting off doing (once it was a take-home exam, once it was my taxes, and once it was putting together a new laundry hamper).
I don’t get why so many people seem to want big lawns. I can kind of see it if you have kids who will run around and play there, or if you enjoy playing volleyball or badminton or something like that. But other than that, it just seems like a lot of work for nothing.
People who enjoy driving. For me, driving is at best a quicker and easier way to get somewhere than other methods, usually it’s boring and something I’d rather not be doing, kind of like washing dishes or other household chores, and at worst it’s scary.
Cars as status symbols. You can get from Point A to Point B much cheaper in an economy car, you worry less about dings or paint scratches, and it’s easier to park because your car is smaller.
Same here. If it has a catchy melody (like Eine Klein Nachtmusik (spelling approximate), for example), I might like it, but other than a catchy melody, I don’t get much out of it.
Of course, a lot of classical music was supposedly intended to be background music, AIUI…
Lots of money for not very much pompous food. I don’t see the point of going to a restaurant if I’m still going to be hungry afterwards…
You’re welcome, though that’s generally a pretty low bar to clear – one reason I bailed out of a Ph.D. program in English lit is that I couldn’t stomach the prospect of having those people for colleagues the rest of my career.
*I like poetry occasionally in certain novels, when it’s explained right there and has a connection to the novel. I love prophetical poetry which comes true within the course of the novel, for example.
When it comes to classical music, I find that most of it won’t appeal to everybody. I think if there is a particular instrument you like, you may find pieces that display that particular instrument to be to your liking. For example I am fairly meh on classical music except for solo or duet violin pieces. Now there’s something that touches my soul.
About Romeo & Juliet - I think this play appeals to the masses, and that’s why it’s so popular. I know all of Shakespeare is supposed to, but I think this one is the common denominator of common denominators. I also prefer Much Ado about Nothing or Midsummer Night’s Dream, or even Hamlet.
I completely don’t get modern art. Surprisingly, I do find Mona Lisa appealing. It’s that mysterious hint of a smile that the artist caught.
We’ve begun getting a new station on the dish lately called Ovation, which is devoted to the “Arts.” Last week they had a series of one hour programs about various artists and Pollak was one of those featured.
Like both of you, I had previously just kind of scratched my head and said, “Well, that doesn’t look too hard - so I guess I could technically do it. But what’s he trying to say?” Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any more enlightened at the end of the hour in that regard.
Pollack had little in the way initial training or talent (he was no child prodigy). Instead, he convinced himself early on that he wanted to be an artist, a GREAT artist, and then through sheer force of will he learned his craft. His first works were really derivative and he didn’t meet with any sort of success. He was loner, an alcoholic, and lots of people described him as socially retarded. He wasn’t able to play the art game to the extent others were and his works didn’t make much impact at first.
Then he made his first drip paintings and things took off for him. He got written up in Time and Life and was called “The Greatest Painter of Modern Times” or some such. He then felt he had to live up that the hype, couldn’t do it , and slowly drank himself into oblivion. He ended up killing both himself in an automobile accident (some people think it was suicide, others just an accident).
He was the very model of the Tortured Artist and while I have a little more respect for his technique (he actually went to great lenghts to get each drip, line, and splatter just “right”), his works still don’t resonate with me.
Not at all! He’s easily one of the most popular, deeply respected public figures on the boards. Perhaps only President Bush himself, or possibly Anne Coulter, is more widely revered by the posters of the SDMB.
Citizen Cane
E.T.
Titanic
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
The Rolling Stones
Motzart
Beethovan
Nirvana
The Mona Lisa
The Great Gatsby
Pablo Picasso
Poetry
But I’ll add a new one: Philosophy and Philosophers. It’s just mental masturbation, totally meaningless in any way. Some guy sits around contemplating his navel for a few years and then extolls on the meaning of life. What the hell makes his ramblings any more meaningful than anyone else’s? Ooooo, what is the nature of reality? Cosmic, man. Are we really here, or just disembodied brains in a jar? How can I know if you’re real or just a figment of my imagination? Who the hell cares, and what difference does it make that you pontificate on questions that are totally unaswerable anyway? If I can touch it, it’s real. If I can talk to you, you’re real. Beyond that is just, as I said, mental masturbation; it might make you feel good, but it’s completely unproductive.
I do read with an mental (internal) narrator and I still don’t care for 99.99% of all the poetry I’ve ever read. I’ve heard poetry read and hated it even more.
Add me to the crowd who thinks most of abstract art is an elaborate whoosh.
