Re: GG Radio documentaries a failure?

[Elmer Elevator <bobmer@javanet.com>]

Okay, let's put this in perspective.

Who is Glenn Gould? Have any of you ever heard of him? Why? For what?

Who is Michael Tait? Have any of you ever heard of him? Why? For what?

How long will Gould's achievements last? How long will people desire and
enjoy them?

How long will Tait's achievements last? How long will people desire and
enjoy them?

The point that Solitude may be commercial radio failure is well taken.
Commercial radio success: Howard Stern.

> And while we're here, I must comment on Mr. Tait's remark about Glenn
Gould's humor.
> He said that "To call his sense of humour sophomoric would be to
insult sophomores
> everywhere." Well, OK, GG's sense of humor, or humour, was goofy and
childlike.
> You mean there's, like, something wrong with that? :->

Yes, yes! There are lots of styles of humor -- but when did we ever
laugh so hard as when we were in junior high? And what a rare, wonderful
gift when some child-like, sophomoric adult can re-kindle that kind of
rib-aching. I think I'll pass on making a special trip to have this Mr.
Tait amuse me. The portents for belly-laughs do not look promising.

Is the process of "maturity" a disguised plan for slowly, sytematically
murdering the child in all of us? How doth it profit us in art, in
music, in literature, to have our born love of bright, garish colors, of
loud bangs, clamors and explosions, of cackles of glee, of misbehavior
extinguished from us? Great art, music, literature, humor are subtle
constructs, but that is not the same as saying great art is the perfect
banishment of the loud, the rude, the vulgar, the goofy, the bizarre,
the unexpected. (In humor alone, where would that leave the Marx
Brothers and W.C. Fields? Could Lewis Carroll survive?) Gould stands out
because so much of his child lived on and because he wasn't ashamed of
it. Tait sounds thoroughly adult and mature, a credit to tedious,
unadventurous people everywhere. He's a critic. Gould created.

Bob Merkin
Elmer Elevator's Discount Prep:
http://www.javanet.com/~bobmer/

"Viaduct? Why not a chicken?" -- Chico Marx