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First chance to see...
Aug. 5th, 2014 10:13 amI was reading the Times on Saturday. I know, I know, but I was in a pub and there weren't any other newspapers so you'll have to forgive me this once. It's not actually a very good paper these days. There's not a great deal by way of reporting or news in there (although there was a lot of sports), and the rest of the space was made up with comment and opinion pieces. in other words, people who Rupert Murdoch was paying to do what I'm doing here for free. It's not a fair world.
Anyway, one piece was called something like "Being original is a sin", and was all about how when the author was a lad pop stars, comedians and other celebrities (like chefs....er, celebrities?) were exciting and original but they seem ever so samey these days, like unimaginative clones.
In other words, the piece might as well have been titled "Middle-aged man complains how much more exciting things were the first time he encountered them", but despite it being a desperately un-self-aware piece it still got me thinking. In this case about originality.
It's part of the experience of getting older, you see. As you age, you encounter more and more ideas and as a result fewer of the ideas you encounter seem interesting or exciting or original. You'll see connections or references or resonances or direct copies from other places, and it's really easy to get jaded. The books and films you read when you were a teenager and encountered ideas for the first time will always be the ones which stay with you, and twenty years later when you encounter something similar elsewhere you'll yawn and point out that everything was so much more original when you were young. It can be hard to see anything you haven't seen before in one form or another.
Over the weekend I did two things worth talking about; I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy , and I went to the circus (obviously I did loads more than that, but those are the only interesting things). A lot of my friends have raved about Guardians and I can see why; it's a very slick piece of entertainment with high production values, a witty script (once it gets going, it's a bit slow for the first half hour or so), beautiful effects and design and so forth but there's precisely nothing you've not seen before in one form or another. If you ask me in about two years " Do you remember..." about it I'll have to think for a few moments before acknowledging that yes I have seen it because there aren't any sufficiently original or striking features about it to really stick in my memory*. It was slick entertainment, nothing more.
There's little original about the circus, either; in fact the structure of a circus act has remained pretty much unchanged in centuries (aside from getting rid of the wild animals**) with tumblers and jugglers and a clown (who reduced the small child just over me to helpless fits of laughter, which really must make all the clown-training worthwhile) but there was one moment which genuinely caused my jaw to fall open; when a petite but impressively toned Chinese girl went up on point, ballet style, and turned a neat pirouette. Nothing overly unusual about that, you might think, until you consider that she did it on top of someone else's head.
And do you know what? I'd never seen that before.
So; question for the day: what's the most original thing you've seen recently?
*Except perhaps towards the end when the Nova Corps spaceships interlock to make a gigantic gridwork forcefield and I found myself wondering why they didn't form into hexagons or triangles instead as that'd be a more stable configuration.
**Circuses no longer seem to have a strong man either, which I suppose is due to modern diets, steroids and protein shakes devaluing being a strong man; anyone can be one if they really want to be. Being an acrobat still takes not only hard work, but flair, elan and a lack of fear of heights.
Anyway, one piece was called something like "Being original is a sin", and was all about how when the author was a lad pop stars, comedians and other celebrities (like chefs....er, celebrities?) were exciting and original but they seem ever so samey these days, like unimaginative clones.
In other words, the piece might as well have been titled "Middle-aged man complains how much more exciting things were the first time he encountered them", but despite it being a desperately un-self-aware piece it still got me thinking. In this case about originality.
It's part of the experience of getting older, you see. As you age, you encounter more and more ideas and as a result fewer of the ideas you encounter seem interesting or exciting or original. You'll see connections or references or resonances or direct copies from other places, and it's really easy to get jaded. The books and films you read when you were a teenager and encountered ideas for the first time will always be the ones which stay with you, and twenty years later when you encounter something similar elsewhere you'll yawn and point out that everything was so much more original when you were young. It can be hard to see anything you haven't seen before in one form or another.
Over the weekend I did two things worth talking about; I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy , and I went to the circus (obviously I did loads more than that, but those are the only interesting things). A lot of my friends have raved about Guardians and I can see why; it's a very slick piece of entertainment with high production values, a witty script (once it gets going, it's a bit slow for the first half hour or so), beautiful effects and design and so forth but there's precisely nothing you've not seen before in one form or another. If you ask me in about two years " Do you remember..." about it I'll have to think for a few moments before acknowledging that yes I have seen it because there aren't any sufficiently original or striking features about it to really stick in my memory*. It was slick entertainment, nothing more.
There's little original about the circus, either; in fact the structure of a circus act has remained pretty much unchanged in centuries (aside from getting rid of the wild animals**) with tumblers and jugglers and a clown (who reduced the small child just over me to helpless fits of laughter, which really must make all the clown-training worthwhile) but there was one moment which genuinely caused my jaw to fall open; when a petite but impressively toned Chinese girl went up on point, ballet style, and turned a neat pirouette. Nothing overly unusual about that, you might think, until you consider that she did it on top of someone else's head.
And do you know what? I'd never seen that before.
So; question for the day: what's the most original thing you've seen recently?
*Except perhaps towards the end when the Nova Corps spaceships interlock to make a gigantic gridwork forcefield and I found myself wondering why they didn't form into hexagons or triangles instead as that'd be a more stable configuration.
**Circuses no longer seem to have a strong man either, which I suppose is due to modern diets, steroids and protein shakes devaluing being a strong man; anyone can be one if they really want to be. Being an acrobat still takes not only hard work, but flair, elan and a lack of fear of heights.
