Would you recognize genius?

....and after a couple of edits

It was not that the performer wasn't any good. The commuters hear mind blowingly talented street performers all the time.
 
Last edited:
All I can say is I'm dissapointed, apalled, and sadened by the fact we ignored thsi fellow, however I know I would've stopped so I feel better. I wish I was him :(
 
A japanese woman and a former musician were the only ones who appreciated him or had an inkling.

LOLOL, Americans hate, hate, hate, hate their false self-portrait blown--they are not cultured.

I was once in a public arena listening to classical music and americans looked at me queerly as if to say 'what else is there besides eating, sleeping, etc'.

Pathetic
 
He's standing in a fairly small space, beside a door. People are in "get into work" mode. They have it down to a science and not much will get in the way.

I doubt I'd recognise genius in the length of time most people spent walking through there. Unless I loved violins, and just had to listen for a minute, and then discovered he was great. People walked through for 10 seconds at most. Open door - noises outside, noise of the door. Your breathing. A sigh of relief. One step closer to your desk. A few paces. Oh, there's a guy playing a violin. A few chords/notes/strings/whatevers in the time it takes you to walk across the plaza/foyer/from door to door.

If I was sitting in a cafe or if I was walking around in my leisure, I'd pay more attention. Otherwise, getting to and from a job is a mission - as quickly, painlessly and efficiently as possible. If I wake up mid-morning, I'm doing well.
 
phonetic said:
He's standing in a fairly small space, beside a door. People are in "get into work" mode. They have it down to a science and not much will get in the way.

I doubt I'd recognise genius in the length of time most people spent walking through there. Unless I loved violins, and just had to listen for a minute, and then discovered he was great. People walked through for 10 seconds at most. Open door - noises outside, noise of the door. Your breathing. A sigh of relief. One step closer to your desk. A few paces. Oh, there's a guy playing a violin. A few chords/notes/strings/whatevers in the time it takes you to walk across the plaza/foyer/from door to door.

If I was sitting in a cafe or if I was walking around in my leisure, I'd pay more attention. Otherwise, getting to and from a job is a mission - as quickly, painlessly and efficiently as possible. If I wake up mid-morning, I'm doing well.
Click to expand...

Exactly the points that I would make. The people who give a dollar are "Give-a-dollar" people. They do this every day. They would give a dollar to the guy with the band-on-his-back.

For the classical music snobs to pretend that a passerby could possibly determine the worth of a song in 10 seconds sells their own art and craft extremely short.

This is a stunt to prove a preconceived point. It is biased and worthless. If the European street performers rake in more cash than the Americans, it has more to do with their treatment of street performers, and little to do with a comparison of classical-music knowledge. If there is a dig to be made here, it is a different, and perhaps more sinister one.
 
I agree, both the location and the timing were not ideal. Rush hour in between doors, not the best.

They should have had it over the weekend when people more likely to stop and enjoy music.

I think I would have recognized that he was very good, but depending on my schedule, I am not sure I would have stopped...

They should have the same experience let's say in San Franciso and in a few cities in Europe...
 
It's not necessarily about genius but art. There was an Ad Council spot a few years back supporting arts in education. The scene depicted a young man in a proper shirt and slacks walking through the park. He stops, puts down his case, and and removes a violin, whereupon he begins to play brilliantly. A mother and child are walking through the park. The mother pauses, looks at this young musician with a look of amazement and appreciation. Her son, all of five or six, walks up to the violinist, looks him up and down, shouts, "Get a job!" and stomps off. Cut back to the mother, who looks absolutely horrified.

It's not a matter of recognizing genius. It's a matter of Americans, who just don't seem to care. We don't just avoid great artists, we tend to revile them. For instance, watch the old South Park Christmas episode when the town eliminates religious symbols. The school hires Phillip Glass to compose the students' pageant. I think it's hilarious,too: "Hover, hover hover, everybody hover ...." But it reflects Glass' place in the popular culture. He's a snotty prig minimalist who makes bad music to annoy everyone, or something like that.

To the other, though, is the Kronos Quartet's recording of five string quartets penned by Phillip Glass. Watch the South Park episode, chuckle at the joke, and then try to smirk about what a prig Phillip Glass is while smoking a joint and listening to the Kronos recording.

Phillip Glass really is that good. It's hard to hold him in such superstitious scorn when one hears what he's capable of. Then again, it's not a bouncy teenager singing, "Oops, I did you again", or a macho "working man" whining, "Don't you break my heart, stupid aching heart," so people don't seem to care.

If, instead of a virtuoso casually dressed and playing genius music on a legendary instrument, the "art" was a couple of strippers rubbing their groins together while blowing discordant notes out of oboes, people would have stopped. Lesbians with oboes? Hey, now that is art!

At such a level of generality, Americans are like the guy at the party talking about the Catalan masters, but who wouldn't recognize a Dali without a sign. ("Sylvester's Deli? Where's that?")

If a great musician plays great music and nobody hears, it's because nobody's listening.
 
swivel said:
For the classical music snobs to pretend that a passerby could possibly determine the worth of a song in 10 seconds sells their own art and craft extremely short.

This is a stunt to prove a preconceived point. It is biased and worthless. If the European street performers rake in more cash than the Americans, it has more to do with their treatment of street performers, and little to do with a comparison of classical-music knowledge. If there is a dig to be made here, it is a different, and perhaps more sinister one.
Click to expand...

Haha-- agreed
 
tiassa said:
It's not a matter of recognizing genius. It's a matter of Americans, who just don't seem to care. .....

If a great musician plays great music and nobody hears, it's because nobody's listening.
Click to expand...

No, it is about conservative snobs who can't get with the times.

And oddly enough, these conservative snobs are usually political liberals. Go figure. They are stuck in the past, thinking that old art is the only good art, and that we should force the rest of the population to subsidize art which only a minority of people like.

Opera is 400 years old. When it was at its height, opera was just like today's IMAX theater. And yet, conservative art snobs treat opera like it is art, and IMAX like it is brain-rot. Rubbish, I say.

Today's art is in movies, TV shows, popular music, comic books, video games, etc... These endeavors fulfill the same human desires as Shakespeare's plays and Mozart's Operas and Picasso's artwork. But, AH, if you are a conservative art snob, only the "classic" stuff is art, and the contemporary stuff is brain rot. What assholes.

That would be like living in Mozart's time and ridiculing him (which some snobs did!) because he wasn't doing the crap people were doing 400 years ago. It would be like telling the French expressionists that they had it all "wrong". It would be telling Picasso that his early work was his best work, because it conformed.

Art snobs are surrounded by today's Mozart's and Picasso's, but they can't see with their heads up their own asses. The videogames of Will Wright and Atsushi Inaba, the comic books of Todd McFarlene and Jack Kirby, the movies of Sam Mendes and Terry Gilliam, the TV works like the current Planet Earth.

The fact that these jerk-offs are SURROUNDED by such beauty, and don't see it is far, far more striking to me than the gimmick posted above. And the evil they display, by guilting people into supporting artistic styles of the past, disgusts me.

And guess what? I say this as someone who studies opera. Who listens to nothing but classical music and jazz. As someone who collects art, old books, and wine. But I appreciate these things without letting them make me feel superior. Because I am tickling a fancy that a prime-time TV watcher tickles. The desire to be entertained, to have someone else fire our neurons in ways that they have never been fired. I get the same pleasure out of listening to Cosi fan Tutti, that my wife gets from watching American Idol. And only the TRULY ENLIGHTENED understand that neither of us is better than the other for experiencing the same thing via different mediums.
 
That would be like living in Mozart's time and ridiculing him (which some snobs did!)
Click to expand...
This reminded me of a Mark Twain quote about one of his celebrated contemporaries; "Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds." :)

People don't have this biological urge to enjoy classical music. I enjoy some of it, even if I can't tell you the name of the piece or the composer, and if some dude was "sawin' on a fiddle" in a doorway like this guy was and I was on my way to work, I might look up in passing and think 'not bad', but stopping and listening won't put food on the table. If I had time, I might pause and listen. In fact, I might even ask after the performance was over (as a joke) if he knew "Foggy Mountain Breakdown".

Put this scenario on a weekend or any other time when people are in a relaxed mindset. Put this guy out there where people are on their lunch break. Bet you get a different result.

There's also the question of what you would consider appealing to your senses. Would the person who wrote the article, or the people who criticize those who didn't pay any attention, appreciate a finely tuned V-8 purring away in a by-the-numbers restored '56 Buick? Would they ooh-and-aah at a finely carved, completely hand-made ladderback chair? Would they go all misty-eyed over the delicate stitching in a Worth gown? Beauty, art, and genius, is in the senses of the beholder.
 
Last edited:
Oxygen said:
Put this scenario on a weekend or any other time when people are in a relaxed mindset. Put this guy out there where people are on their lunch break. Bet you get a different result.
Click to expand...

exactly,put this guy in a park on a sunny day and there would be a massive crowd.
 
swivel said:
No, it is about conservative snobs who can't get with the times.

And oddly enough, these conservative snobs are usually political liberals. Go figure. They are stuck in the past, thinking that old art is the only good art, and that we should force the rest of the population to subsidize art which only a minority of people like.

Opera is 400 years old. When it was at its height, opera was just like today's IMAX theater. And yet, conservative art snobs treat opera like it is art, and IMAX like it is brain-rot. Rubbish, I say.

Today's art is in movies, TV shows, popular music, comic books, video games, etc... These endeavors fulfill the same human desires as Shakespeare's plays and Mozart's Operas and Picasso's artwork. But, AH, if you are a conservative art snob, only the "classic" stuff is art, and the contemporary stuff is brain rot. What assholes.

That would be like living in Mozart's time and ridiculing him (which some snobs did!) because he wasn't doing the crap people were doing 400 years ago. It would be like telling the French expressionists that they had it all "wrong". It would be telling Picasso that his early work was his best work, because it conformed.

Art snobs are surrounded by today's Mozart's and Picasso's, but they can't see with their heads up their own asses. The videogames of Will Wright and Atsushi Inaba, the comic books of Todd McFarlene and Jack Kirby, the movies of Sam Mendes and Terry Gilliam, the TV works like the current Planet Earth.

The fact that these jerk-offs are SURROUNDED by such beauty, and don't see it is far, far more striking to me than the gimmick posted above. And the evil they display, by guilting people into supporting artistic styles of the past, disgusts me.

And guess what? I say this as someone who studies opera. Who listens to nothing but classical music and jazz. As someone who collects art, old books, and wine. But I appreciate these things without letting them make me feel superior. Because I am tickling a fancy that a prime-time TV watcher tickles. The desire to be entertained, to have someone else fire our neurons in ways that they have never been fired. I get the same pleasure out of listening to Cosi fan Tutti, that my wife gets from watching American Idol. And only the TRULY ENLIGHTENED understand that neither of us is better than the other for experiencing the same thing via different mediums.
Click to expand...


You're missing something. i don't prefer opera, i prefer classical and some new age. Not all conservative snobs are closeminded, some genuinely prefer older genres, but then there are other people who are closeminded towards classical or it just doesn't appeal to them. Some of the styles of the present i like but some of it i won't find appealing even if it is new. rocknroll etc does not appeal to everyone. Nor is 'shoot your mama' rap to 'you gave me a woody' rocknroll automatically good art just because its new. Comprende?

heh, i'm a serious online gamer and into many new things but i still make a discernment on what appeals to me and because i separate the wheat from the chafe doesn't make me a snob anymore than forcing myself to listen to something that does not inspire me or gives me a headache.

Still, the fact is if you can't make a distinction that some music or pieces are objectively more aesthetically cleaner and requires subtle but active participation than just music that has to scream at you to get your attention, then there is no way you'll see it.

When i was much younger I LISTENED to this type of music but it was not something i could listen to honestly with love. But as I got older I switched to music that I could genuinely listen to and liked and not become bipolar. For instance, I love violin concertos over piano. If I'm in a lighter mood, i prefer new classical or new age. Many times I listen to movie soundtracks. I myself, prefer music without the intrusion of words as I feel I'm listening to someone's personal id, and i don't see it any different than if someone had me as a captive audience ranting their personal thoughts and feelings. It's not true that those who fall toward the conservative tastes in music are snobs. Only the minority keeping the music appreciation of the genre alive. Also, the people who drive their vehicles blaring their music which i've noticed is never classical are fuking snobs and rude.
 
Last edited:
LOLOL, Americans hate, hate, hate, hate their false self-portrait blown--they are not cultured.
Click to expand...

LOLOL. All French people stink. All Mexicans are lazy. All Polish people are stupid.

I can make sweeping generalizations as well.
 
BenTheMan said:
LOLOL. All French people stink. All Mexicans are lazy. All Polish people are stupid.

I can make sweeping generalizations as well.
Click to expand...

Go ahead, generalizations in general are made for a majority. Looky here, I can do one about my own race, 'asians have slanted eyes'. Doesn't bother me because we do, albeit with our own variations. It's a fact.

So americans are stupid and uncultured is a generalization as well because its generally correct. Though what I perceive or identify as uncultured is technically correct, the interpretation could be argued. But its still an opinion based on a set criteria of judgement.

Another one 'asians are ants', when meant as derogatory it means a group mentality or lack of individuality. Though its cooperative industriousness or cohesion. This generalization though is less accurate because all groups are like this. It's perception.

I could say 'americans' are like dogs, swiss poodles, french swans etc
 
Last edited:
So americans are stupid and uncultured is a generalization as well because its generally correct. Though what I perceive or identify as uncultured is technically correct, the interpretation could be argued. But its still an opinion based on a set criteria of judgement.
Click to expand...

How can one argue that one's owns perceptions of an inerintly ill-defined notion are "technically correct"? You have imposed some arbitrary definition, decided that a large class of Americans don't satisfy that criteria, and passed judgement based on whatever limited experiences you have. Saying "Asians have slanty eyes" is not a damaging stereotype---it is a characteristic of Asian people. Saying "Americans are stupid and uncultured" is a damaging stereotype, and should be recognized as such.
 
iam said:
So americans are stupid and uncultured is a generalization as well because its generally correct.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

Hmmm. The United States is number 1 in the world in literacy rate, tied with 20 other countries at 99.9%

There is only ONE *expletive deleted* country in the list, the one that the United States destroyed with their superior technology in WWII, and the one that the United States rebuilt with their superior technology afterwards.

The rest of the *expletive deleted* are down the list quite a ways. So, it seems as if Americans are the smartest people on the planet (tied, of course, with 20 other countries), while people with *expletive deleted* appear to be pretty *expletive deleted*


Your generalizations and racism come from your ass. Mine come from graphs. Another point in favor of me being an intelligent American, and you being an *expletive deleted*. :p
 
Last edited:
swivel said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

Hmmm. The United States is number 1 in the world in literacy rate, tied with 20 other countries at 99.9%

There is only ONE chink country in the list, the one that the United States destroyed with their superior technology in WWII, and the one that the United States rebuilt with their superior technology afterwards.

The rest of the chinks are down the list quite a ways. So, it seems as if Americans are the smartest people on the planet (tied, of course, with 20 other countries), while people with slanted eyes appear to be pretty stupid.


Your generalizations and racism come from your ass. Mine come from graphs. Another point in favor of me being an intelligent American, and you being an ignorant chink. :p
Click to expand...

HAHAHAHAHA, Swivel, are you a real retard or did your mother fuk her cousin to give birth to you, the inbred bastard?? Hey, Pink Nazi Cow, convenient graph for YA.

Another fine example of american stupidity and overblown ego. The fact is (again) in comparison to the resources of other countries, AMERICANS ARE BONAFIDE FUKING STUPID. EAT THAT AMERICAN NAZI SHIT!

Intelligence:

World IQs

Hong Kong 107 20,763 19,817
South Korea 106 13,478 19,298
Japan 105 23,257 18,779
Taiwan 104 13,000 18,260
Singapore 103 24,210 17,740
Italy 102 20,585 17,221
Austria 102 23,166 17,221
Germany 102 22,169 17,221
Netherlands 102 22,176 17,221
Sweden 101 20,659 16,702
Switzerland 101 25,512 16,702
Belgium 100 23,223 16,183
China 100 3,105 16,183
New Zealand 100 17,288 16,183
U Kingdom 100 20,336 16,183
Hungary 99 10,232 15,664
Poland 99 7,619 15,664
France 98 21,175 15,145
Australia 98 22,452 15,145
Denmark 98 24,218 15,145
Norway 98 26,342 15,145
United States 98 29,605 15,145
Canada 97 23,582 14,626
Czech Republic 97 12,362 14,626
Finland 97 20,847 14,626
Spain 97 16,212 14,626
Uruguay 96 8,623 14,107
Argentina 96 12,013 14,107
Russia 96 6,460 14,107
Slovakia 96 9,699 14,107
Portugal 95 14,701 13,589
Slovenia 95 14,293 13,588
Israel 94 17,301 13,069
Romania 94 5,648 13,069
Bulgaria 93 4,809 12,550
Ireland 93 21,482 12,550
Greece 92 13,943 12,031
Malaysia 92 8,137 12,031
Thailand 91 5,456 11,512
Peru 90 4,282 10,993
Croatia 90 6,749 10,993
Turkey 90 6,422 10,993
Colombia 89 6,006 10,474
Indonesia 89 2,651 10,474
Suriname 89 5,161 10,474
Brazil 87 6,625 9,436
Iraq 87 3,197 9,436
Mexico 87 7,704 9,436
Western Samoa 87 3,832 9,436
Tonga 87 3,000 9,436
Lebanon 86 4,326 8,917
Philippines 86 3,555 8,917
Cuba 85 3,967 8,398
Morocco 85 3,305 8,398
Iran 84 5,121 7,879
Fiji 84 4,231 7,879
Marshall Islands 84 3,000 7,879
Puerto Rico 84 8,000 7,879
Egypt 83 3,041 7,360
India 81 2,077 6,322
Ecuador 80 3,003 5,803
Guatemala 79 3,505 5,284
Barbados 78 12,001 4,765
Nepal 78 1,157 4,765
Qatar 78 20,987 4,765
Zambia 77 719 4,246
Congo 73 995 2,170
Uganda 73 1,074 2,170
Sudan 72 1,394 1,651
Jamaica 72 3,389 1,651
Kenya 72 980 1,651
South Africa 72 8,488 1,651
Tanzania 72 480 1,651
Ghana 71 1,735 1,132
Nigeria 67 795 -944
Zimbabwe 66 2,669 -1,463
Guinea 66 1,782 -1,463
Congo 65 822 -1,982
Sierra Leone 64 458 -2,501
Ethiopia 63 574 -3,020
Equatorial Guinea 59 1,817 -5,096
 
iam said:
HAHAHAHAHA, Swivel, are you a real retard or did your mother fuk her cousin to give birth to you, the inbred bastard?? Hey, Pink Nazi Cow, convenient graph for YA.
Click to expand...

Yo,*expletive deleted*. That is a sample of people that take IQ tests. Does everyone in China take an IQ test? Didn't think so.

Open up your *expletive deleted*


Edit: Oh, and you refer to your evidence as a "graph". If your *expletive deleted* could see straight, you would know that what your provided was a "list", and not a "graph". Go take an IQ test and let me know what you score you *expletive deleted*

:)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top