Post a controversial opinion

One of the things I like about my daughter's school is that everybody learns an instrument. All third-graders start on recorder, and every fourth- and fifth-grader plays an instrument (either band or orchestra). Everybody. I like it; it's something I never had.

We were never rich but my family runs a ballet school, my mother's the concertmaster of an orchestra, I can play four or five instruments passably well. (Still have never had lessons, and still can't read music. It's all a vast tapestry.) Enough about me tho

haha the recorder put me off learning an instrument for a few years! Hated the recorder.

Audiences were all 50+ except for the smattering of conservatory students and other musicians.

Was about to say, in my experience of attending (contemporary) classical music concerts, that anyone 25 is almost certainly a music student.

... under 25. As these concerts are often at music colleges, I suspect students are encouraged to go to make the audiences seems larger.

Yeah, if we're talking about contemporary compositional music, a basic issue with marketing/outreach would seem to be that virtually anyone who has chosen that career path has more or less fundamentally decided that appealing to popular taste is (at most) a secondary concern. Unless you're Eric Whitacre or someone.

Generally speaking, kids who choose to go to a music college are going to go to the concerts held there because A) they are interested in that type of music, and B) their friends will be performing.

Tbh, in many university music courses, a certain small percentage, e.g. 5%, of your grade is given for proof of concert attendance.

^^^ that too

Backing up a bit, I've seen one opera live, it was Peter Grimes, and it was very impressive and I didn't enjoy it. Enjoyed all sorts of other live classical stuff.

Opera. In English. I think I'll pass.

you can’t walk outdoors or flush a toilet or do anything without relying on the work of people who had really backward social ideas, just reconcile yourself with it and try not to support people living off of a base of misogyny or homophobia or exploiting others in the present

Not controversial

support people ACTIVELY living

Yeah. Who knows how Thomas Edison viewed women. Probably not as equal to men. Yet, we watch movies, listen to recorded music and use electric lights without guilt. Amazing!

Probably used MANY slurs

Murdered some elephants

His actions directly caused the execution of innocent people

I feel a little guilty about the lights tbh

So much pollution affecting the migratory patterns of birds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPze305aBdA

pie charts are worse than useless for everything ever

the baffler is not a good magazine

Corn is revolting in any form

So is coffee

Corn sucks. but coffee?? nooo

Corn is worse in it's unadulterated form because you just shit it straight out, and it looks the same. It reminds you of death, and the whole grim eating/shitting cycle that is keeping you alive!

The estate tax is immoral and wrong.

Estate tax should be 100%

You guys have heard of chewing, right?

"The Tax Policy Center estimates that the estate executors for only 11,000 people who die in 2017 will end up having to file for the estate tax and that only 5,200 of them will end up having to pay anything."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/26/heres-how-many-people-have-to-pay-the-estate-tax-that-trump-wants-to-dump/?utm_term=.e5829a1b17b2

I just drove my car a bunch of miles on fuel that’s 10% corn alcohol then drank some corn alcohol after eating some animals that ate mostly corn

what about popcorn

love too pop the corn

corn is in so many ways a surprise fruit

it’s a grain we did funny things with

Ok brimstead, I DO eat popcorn. I meant like canned corn, creamed corn, frozen corn, corn on the cob

The thousands of times I was forced to eat it as a kid I swallowed the kernels whole, with water, like terrible pills of terribleness. So it was definitely not chewed.

I felt it was controversial bc everyone is always fuckin raving about fresh corn on the cob

I ate your share and my share of corn on the cob this summer.

fresh corn on the cob is just ok, I am fine cutting the kernels off

I mean it’s a ridiculous thing to eat a lot of because it’s so sweet, but we have events called “sweet corn feeds” in this part of the country right during that season, where it’s the main thing and you have sides, but just eat as much sweet corn as possible. I still have the baggage of having braces on my teeth for years as a kid, and no corn on the cob

it’s wild because people think of that as corn but the corn you eat as “corn” typically is like 1% of corn grown. it’s all field/seed corn

the baffler is not a good magazine

True. In its own way it was as bad as Answer Me!, and the current revival is even worse than the 90s version.

sorry, I get all cranky-ass after working in the main corn business too many years

Grilled corn on the cob really can be the best

What's wrong with the Baffler? I've read some good articles in there.

it's certainly got me flummoxed

you could have just said baffled

I love every era of Saturday Night Live

Piscopo thanks u

ha the "classic" era of SNL veers wildly between genius and tedious one, and probably more the latter

one should read ime

BB King sucks and ruined the blues

The only people who watch Saturday Night Live are in media or the entertainment biz