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May. 28th, 2015
Pop culture references
May. 28th, 2015 12:18 pmOne of my betas suggested a Gilbert and Sullivan reference (with the name of the piece) was too high-brow and that a veiled Rolling Stones reference ("Please allow me to introduce myself.") was irrelevant to most of my readership, because the Stones are ancient.
It got me thinking about how thoroughly Boomer culture dominated my life. My music was made by Boomers: Boy George, Annie Lennox, George Strait. The music they listened to permeated my world. To me, Rock and Roll is the Holy Trinity of Elvis, the Beatles and the Stones, with Buddy Holly as a kind of early prophet. I watched the same TV shows (reruns) as my parents had. My kids watched some of the same (Star Trek). When you say Dracula, my first thought is not Gary Oldman, it is Christopher Lee. My Lone Ranger was Clayton Moore.
I grew up in a world where God sounded like John Huston, not Morgan Freeman. Where Jesus was Max von Sydow. Where music was ubiquitous and movies were a lot more lax in their ratings. (Never talk to me about smut in cinema unless you want my patented "female frontal nudity in PG movies" lecture) Where monsters weren't under the bed, they were living on Mockingbird lane, and where space was full of all kinds of ships.
I had someone my age, with an ordinary education, not know who Harriet Tubman was. I was gobsmacked.
Today, I got to thinking about how much pop culture of bygone eras I have acquired vis osmosis. (the G&S thing)
Pop Idols, off the top of my head:
Beau Brummel (1778-1840)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788)
Dick Turpin (1705-1739)
Jenny Lind (1820-1887)
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Harry Houdini (1874-1926)
Aimee Semple McPhereson (1890-1944)
Carrie Nation (1846-1911)
(After that we're getting into mass media, and the films are still very accessible)
Pop songs of bygone eras that I know most of:
much American folk music: Sweet Betsy from Pike, Roll on Columbia, Polly Wolly Doodle, Clementine
Roses of Picardy
Darktown Strutter's Ball
My Barney
Long Way to Tipperary
K-k-k-k-Katy
White Cliffs of Dover
And then we get into the 50s when radio became ubiquitous, and pop culture really took off. You can still get 1950s-1990s on the satellite radio, each with a dedicated channel. My car never gets much past 1989.
Thinking about opera.
I can recognize Mozart as opposed to others.
I know bits of "I've got a little list," "Three little Maids" "A wandering minstrel I" and "The lord high executioner" from the Mikado, Major general, the Pirate King and Poor Wandering one from Pirates of Penzance and A British Tar from the HMS Pinafore (although I only ever hear it in John Rhys Davies' voice)
All of that is pure osmosis, much of it through other pop culture.
TV:
I mentioned "Leave it to Beaver" as a basis for the media of my dystopian future, and my husband reminded me that nobody our kids' age has ever seen it. I keep thinking 50s and 60s television is in perpetual reruns somewhere.
I've gotten modestly fannish about shows that ended before I was born (Man from UNCLE), things I've never seen (Blake's 76, Red Dwarf), things I only caught bits and pieces of (Dr. Who). I claim the 3rd Doctor through the 5th as my doctors, even though 3 left in 1974. Again, osmosis.
I bumped my nose on my age a couple of times talking about The Mummy. My dental hygienist, age 19, commented it was kind of an old movie (1999) My immediate thought was "not compared to the Karloff one." Gabriel was getting confused by the idea in a fanfiction that Imhotep and Ardeth Bey were the same person. I reminded zir that in the '38 version, Bey is the alias Imhotep takes to move through the modern world.
To me, an old movie is pre-1950. Then I remember, that's 65 years old.
This is leaving me feeling hopelessly mired in the past and not at all up to date.
Millennium ended 16 years ago.
Buffy has been gone for 12
Smallville is 4 years over
Nimoy and Prachett and Lee all died this year. (I remember discovering Tanith Lee in the early 80s with a "Where have you been all my life?")
Lost track of where I was going with this.
Let's just go to Mount Pilot and eat Chinese.
It got me thinking about how thoroughly Boomer culture dominated my life. My music was made by Boomers: Boy George, Annie Lennox, George Strait. The music they listened to permeated my world. To me, Rock and Roll is the Holy Trinity of Elvis, the Beatles and the Stones, with Buddy Holly as a kind of early prophet. I watched the same TV shows (reruns) as my parents had. My kids watched some of the same (Star Trek). When you say Dracula, my first thought is not Gary Oldman, it is Christopher Lee. My Lone Ranger was Clayton Moore.
I grew up in a world where God sounded like John Huston, not Morgan Freeman. Where Jesus was Max von Sydow. Where music was ubiquitous and movies were a lot more lax in their ratings. (Never talk to me about smut in cinema unless you want my patented "female frontal nudity in PG movies" lecture) Where monsters weren't under the bed, they were living on Mockingbird lane, and where space was full of all kinds of ships.
I had someone my age, with an ordinary education, not know who Harriet Tubman was. I was gobsmacked.
Today, I got to thinking about how much pop culture of bygone eras I have acquired vis osmosis. (the G&S thing)
Pop Idols, off the top of my head:
Beau Brummel (1778-1840)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788)
Dick Turpin (1705-1739)
Jenny Lind (1820-1887)
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Harry Houdini (1874-1926)
Aimee Semple McPhereson (1890-1944)
Carrie Nation (1846-1911)
(After that we're getting into mass media, and the films are still very accessible)
Pop songs of bygone eras that I know most of:
much American folk music: Sweet Betsy from Pike, Roll on Columbia, Polly Wolly Doodle, Clementine
Roses of Picardy
Darktown Strutter's Ball
My Barney
Long Way to Tipperary
K-k-k-k-Katy
White Cliffs of Dover
And then we get into the 50s when radio became ubiquitous, and pop culture really took off. You can still get 1950s-1990s on the satellite radio, each with a dedicated channel. My car never gets much past 1989.
Thinking about opera.
I can recognize Mozart as opposed to others.
I know bits of "I've got a little list," "Three little Maids" "A wandering minstrel I" and "The lord high executioner" from the Mikado, Major general, the Pirate King and Poor Wandering one from Pirates of Penzance and A British Tar from the HMS Pinafore (although I only ever hear it in John Rhys Davies' voice)
All of that is pure osmosis, much of it through other pop culture.
TV:
I mentioned "Leave it to Beaver" as a basis for the media of my dystopian future, and my husband reminded me that nobody our kids' age has ever seen it. I keep thinking 50s and 60s television is in perpetual reruns somewhere.
I've gotten modestly fannish about shows that ended before I was born (Man from UNCLE), things I've never seen (Blake's 76, Red Dwarf), things I only caught bits and pieces of (Dr. Who). I claim the 3rd Doctor through the 5th as my doctors, even though 3 left in 1974. Again, osmosis.
I bumped my nose on my age a couple of times talking about The Mummy. My dental hygienist, age 19, commented it was kind of an old movie (1999) My immediate thought was "not compared to the Karloff one." Gabriel was getting confused by the idea in a fanfiction that Imhotep and Ardeth Bey were the same person. I reminded zir that in the '38 version, Bey is the alias Imhotep takes to move through the modern world.
To me, an old movie is pre-1950. Then I remember, that's 65 years old.
This is leaving me feeling hopelessly mired in the past and not at all up to date.
Millennium ended 16 years ago.
Buffy has been gone for 12
Smallville is 4 years over
Nimoy and Prachett and Lee all died this year. (I remember discovering Tanith Lee in the early 80s with a "Where have you been all my life?")
Lost track of where I was going with this.
Let's just go to Mount Pilot and eat Chinese.