Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Five Things
List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over.
Which circle? My family, my parish, my professional colleagues, my neighborhood, or St Blog's? I might have a different list for each. I think I'll list one in each of five categories:
1. Sport: NASCAR. It seems random to me. Lots of potential for fixing races or damaging the outcome either intentionally or through stupidity. One on one racing: that might be interesting.
2. The arts: Classical Music from about 1750 to 1900, especially of German or Austrian lineage. Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, even Beethoven. I don't get these guys. Chopin, Dvorak, and Liszt, yes. And of course, pretty much everything before 1750 and after 1900: pop or classical.
3. Pop culture: network television. I watch very, very little of it. When Anita and I sit in the living room at the tv is going (usually some mystery), my sharp-minded wife has usually figured out who did it by the first commerical break, though Law and Order has a surprise a fraction of the time. She prefers cable fare, which is sometimes better, but not always. Television strikes me as stupid, and that was before reality tv.
4. Home & Garden: putting effort into your lawn beyond mowing the grass and occasional seeding. Here's a shocking admission: I haven't watered the grass since my mother asked me to when I was home from college. If I want to pamper plants, I'll start a garden. Otherwise grass is tough stuff: I say let it alone.
5. Books: Anything DaVinci Code. Pro or con. Dan Brown is an author of fiction with a PR machine behind him. Maybe there are some people who really believe Middle Earth happened; Tolkien wrote the books to create a modern mythology after all. But he didn't use or need a publishing house whipping things up into a frenzy. And maybe the anti-DVC crowd needs a piece of the action, and they have a point that gullible folks treat this fiction as fact. Given the history of the Catholic hierarchy, Brown has plausibility on his side. But I can't see the point in encouraging the guy or his publishers.
