Post a controversial opinion

in retrospect, some live shows I've attended really tried their best to recreate the aesthetic of listening to music at home alone in the dark

apparently, a controversial opinion: opera is just as immediate and relatable as popular music and people refuse to engage with it because they've been taught that it's Not For Them

I like viewing live modern dance more than I do broadway musicals

Mordy- really? I think it's easier to take in art, because with music you're probably doing a lot of other things on the computer.

Noodle Vague- there's a huge amount that never gets shown anywhere in the original, especially illustrative art. Of course digital art that thousands of people do now.

I take no position on reproductions vs live paintings but an ideal concert - seeing the right act at the right stage in their career, with the right audience at the right venue - is a wonderful thing.

i love opera DJP but a full performance is not exactly the same as a pop concert and requires a kind of different way of engaging

Robert i'm not an either/or guy with music or visual art but i think, broadly, it's fair to say that reproduction of visual art almost always falls short of experiencing the original and that the situation is much more complex with music, especially forms of music intended to be heard as recordings/reproductions

illustrative art doesn't usually suffer from reproduction or digital rendering. it was mostly made to fit that kind of distribution very well.

I've forced myself to allocate time for actual music listening, not staring at the computer

only listening to music while doing other things is a problem, everyone should be allowed time to just lay in bed or sit in a park with headphones on, or have a space where there are no distractions to just listen

don't think this is controversial but: "if you're not actively listening to music then you are experiencing it at a reduced level of apprehension"

I tend to avoid opera for the same possibly unfair assumption/reason I dislike most stage musicals:

The stories stink.

Private cars should be banned from city streets.

Civic celebration of Christmas is offensive.

Single-family homes are an inefficient use of urban land and should be phased out.

i agree w that

in major cities for sure

come on none of these are controversial

Well they're controversial in that there are evidently voters in my municipality who disagree with me. And they yell a lot at public hearings.

deep down they know we're right

Get paid for voting. Vouchers maybe.

Weed smells bad.

i think most people agree w that

they call it skunk, right?

I hate that stuff with a passion. But sometimes need to use it for research purposes.

I don't smoke weed but love the smell.

Work colleague smoking bifta in back of van at 6.30 am used to make me feel ill tbh. But on the return journey I'd always be happy for a toke.

when I say "happy", not if it was that really strong stuff that was akin to dropping a trip.

There's something unpleasant about the fact that you can smell someone who's been smoking it from miles away - as opposed to tobacco, say - rather than the actual smell itself.

I mean, you have to drink a lot of booze before you start stinking of it.

depends how much you spill

https://i.imgur.com/LyWZifO.gif

i completely understand the 80s revival hate but i'm so not over it!!

cured tobacco smells very nice just sitting there, cigarette smoke smells bad

mh is right; I love smelling tobacco drying; sometimes I'll happen across a pack of unfiltered Camels and just breathe over it for a while.

That said: Smokers in general can't smell what the nonsmokers around them are smelling. So their opinions of what is and isn't offensive are not generally a useful part of the discussion.

Not tryna be Judgey McJudgeypants but: If you set something on fire an inch and a half from your nose, your own olfactory receptors are quickly overwhelmed; you get noseblind to it. You cannot know what it smells like to other people, so your opinion of whether it's "not that bad" or whatever is inadmissible. And probably wrong. I don't ask a raging alcoholic to tell me whether my breath smells like vodka either.

I say this as a fan of some smoked things! I used to know some guys who weren't avid smokers but who liked the smell of pipe tobacco, so they took turns. One smoking, the other getting the full benefit of the smell. Not recommending that approach, just sayin' it's out there.

And calzino is onthemoneyest of onthemonies about Rothko. Rothko is frickin legit

childhood church had a deacon that smoked cigars. I generally enjoyed being an altar server because it made the tedium of mandatory Mass less painful. but you occasionally had to stand next to that deacon as he read the gospel and hold in the barf as you smelled his vile cigar breath.

I miss when there was a cigar store at the local mall because walking into the humidor room for a minute was kind of nice, just very mellow and the right humidity and tobacco smelling

cigar stores smell wonderful, it's true. other vivid tobacco memory is a classmate who could not give his loose oreos away at the lunch table in a trade because his parents' heavy smoking permeated all known man made wrappers and receptacles. that guy was badass, though, and wore sleeveless hooded sweatshirts with flaming skull print to Mass on the weekends.

oh god

I’m reminded of a date I went on where we briefly barhopped and had to take her car since she had been drinking, and insisted we take the car she could smoke in

i was not aware the human body could be permeated by cigarette smoke, but I figured it out

certain tiny liquor stores have a tobacco-ey smell that's very nice and nostalgic to me

Grew up in tobacco country, spent a lot of time hanging out in tobacco barns smelling dried tobacco.

Controversial opinion: these are some of the best smelling things you can buy at a gas station

https://assets.bestcigarprices.com/shopcontent/images/backwoods_original_pk40.jpg

what this country needs is a good 5 cent cigar

What this world needs is a good two dollar room
'N a good two dollar broom

i think i will always miss smoking, i liked it a lot.

"opera is just as immediate and relatable as popular music and people refuse to engage with it because they've been taught that it's Not For Them"

people are intimidated by it. same with classical music in general. and its one of those conundrums where you have to listen to a fair amount of classical/opera in order to appreciate/enjoy it and people aren't willing to take the time to do that. it's like learning a language. and the older you get, the less willing you are to learn a new language. (not that there isn't immediately enjoyable classical/opera, there is. which is why you hear the same pieces/arias in commercials and movies forever.)

99.99% of the people who buy records in my store don't buy classical records. and opera is even harder to sell! which is a shame. but what are you going to do?

Philistine comment: I generally don't like opera in English, because when you understand the words, you notice that they're often pretty dippy. In German or Italian or whatever I can more readily just hear the singing as musical parts.

Exception = Purcell.

I have a similar jones for religious services in Latin or Greek or Hebrew, even though I am not even remotely a believer. Incomprehensibility is more conducive to aesthetic and/or spiritual transport.

As a professional word-mover and occasional lyricist, I can't turn my brain off if I'm focusing on words. So the words either need to be very good, or somehow made irrelevant. I rarely like impressionistic/absurdist/imagist lyrics, or "voice as an instrument"-type singers.

Controversial opinion: these are some of the best smelling things you can buy at a gas station

after gasoline itself, i assume

*huffs petrol, dies*

apparently, a controversial opinion: opera is just as immediate and relatable as popular music and people refuse to engage with it because they've been taught that it's Not For Them

The more controversial take is probably that the government should spend much more money trying to convince people that opera is For Them - subsidising tickets, ensuring that it's covered at school, funding better public outreach programmes, etc - which inevitably gets seen as the rich diverting limited resources to their own niche activities.

Not opera, but chamber music: my mother runs a nonprofit orchestra with a lot of outreach/education activities. They do musical-instrument "petting zoos," they link up kids and retirees, they play for free in schools and museums and airports and oldster homes. She gets grants from various places for this.

I've seen various orchestras do similar things, most recently the Nashville Symphony.