What food do you think of when you think of Beijing?

The distinction between people who listen & like to rap/rock versus
people who listen to and like opera -- and I mean people who truly
LISTEN and LIKE (not just people who pretend to like) -- is age and
education.

"Lottery asians", e.g., rich asians who got their money by luck (real
estate speculation) adore opera, not for opera, but for the status
symbol. They can't appreciate opera since they are essentially
uneducated naives. They are the asians that richasiankid grew up
with. Frankly, those people don't really like or understand anything
except money. To them, everything is just a money/status symbol. They
have no intellectual or cultural life outside of status symbols.

But there are sophisticated, educated people who really like music,
whether its opera or rap. Since opera is more sophisticated than rap,
usually it's the older "PhD" types who like opera. The young'uns like
rap since it is very elementary music. After those rap musicians grow
older and wiser, they will become bored with rap and move to more
sophisticated musical forms like rhythm and blues and jazz, and
classical music. Note that there are no old rappers still rapping teen
rap.

I know I'm a brute.
Yes, what you exhibit here is that, first, you come from a
non-intellectual family with parents who are probably college grads or
lower in educational level. second, you yourself are either a high
school kid or a college student. In other words, your educational
level is sub-college based on your thinking and the way you talk.
Definitely not grad student.

I think that being young is a good thing. In fact it's a **blessing**.
I'm not ashamed of it. One day, I know, we all grow old but then the
young ones still have their chance. There's life ahead of us, see,
unlike some decrepit Viagra-dependent retirement-home bound geezer
swooning over Lehar. Yeah, even for a guy. OK OK, women too, women too.
I'm not sexist

Read through some of the threads here...but didn't you say somewhere
that you couldn't understand a word of opera but nevertheless went in
with a 6-pack or something? Tell me that I'm wrong...I am often wrong
so...

Ira Humperdink MD wrote:
The distinction between people who listen & like to rap/rock versus
people who listen to and like opera -- and I mean people who truly
LISTEN and LIKE (not just people who pretend to like) -- is age and
education.

"Lottery asians", e.g., rich asians who got their money by luck (real
estate speculation) adore opera, not for opera, but for the status
symbol. They can't appreciate opera since they are essentially
uneducated naives. They are the asians that richasiankid grew up
with. Frankly, those people don't really like or understand anything
except money. To them, everything is just a money/status symbol. They
have no intellectual or cultural life outside of status symbols.

But there are sophisticated, educated people who really like music,
whether its opera or rap. Since opera is more sophisticated than rap,
usually it's the older "PhD" types who like opera. The young'uns like
rap since it is very elementary music. After those rap musicians grow
older and wiser, they will become bored with rap and move to more
sophisticated musical forms like rhythm and blues and jazz, and
classical music. Note that there are no old rappers still rapping teen
rap.

Ira Humperdink MD wrote:
I know I'm a brute.
Yes, what you exhibit here is that, first, you come from a
non-intellectual family with parents who are probably college grads or
lower in educational level. second, you yourself are either a high
school kid or a college student. In other words, your educational
level is sub-college based on your thinking and the way you talk.
Definitely not grad student.

Why is being intellectual important?

J.Venning wrote:
"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
oups.com...
I know I'm a brute. I've been told that many many times from the older
gen. I don't really love people who sentimentally gush over just how
they want how their Australian Shiraz should smell like etc etc. I
prefer Burger King and beer actually. But that's me. It may even be
biologically driven, who knows.

But anyway. Opera or this sissy or rather this 'classy' music stuff is
for degenerates (no pun there!! hahahaa) anyway. I just don't think
that, say, Puccini's Turandot speaks to the modern generation. He may
be gay anyway I don't know, like Oscar Wilde. Wagner, on the other
hand, has some masculine appeal. Yet he's easily labelled racist and/or
anti-semite too.

You just can't win. As they say choose your heroes carefully.

Oh and BTW people will say you're discriminatory against rock/rap -
you're saying that even stupid people will understand them?

I think you have described yourself rather clearly here, and no one will
try to change your mind or opinion about opera or anything else. If you
don't think that "Turandot" speaks to the modern generation, you will need
hearing aid. Puccini was not a homosexual, but even if he were, does that
make his music less good? I am sure you have chosen your heroes very
carefully. Yes, I am very discriminatory against rock/rap, so? Am I not
allowed to have my personal values? Stupid people will not understand
anything - not even rock or rap - but they will follow whatever the media or
salesmen tell them what to buy and listen.
J.

It's more a generation gap perhaps - I read somewhere that opera was
used to scare young people away in subways/undergrounds??!!

Besides in the dating scene - opera for guys, perhaps only 2nd to
ballet - is a red flag - from a gf of mine who studied music. Do you
expect a high school bully who loves hunting to be a vet?

Hmmm. Perhaps, maybe that is why you guys have such great problems
reaching out to younger audience? Example: if ngs are correct which
they often are not, I read just the other night on another newsgroup
that some guy was playing his Lehar and Dvorak - and his middle aged -
MIDDLE AGED - son - cringed everytime. So tell us how you will convince
us to join the grandfather generation - two wongs do not make a white
in jokespeak, sorry, two wrongs do not make a right (am I really this
bad) - i.e. rebelling against the middle-aged crowd doesn't
automatically make us 'hip' - afterall isn't music an ornament (is that
a half pun too?)

Why is being intellectual important?

did i say that was important?
If I say you are blue, does that mean I think being green is
"important"?
No, it just means I just want to accurately characterize you.

Just to ratchet myself yet one notch further down by relaying this not
related to opera but closely related to the 'classical music' aura --
after a not so exhaustive yet convergent search:

http://www.youtube.com/w/Jay-Chou?v=...rch=jay%20chou

Hmmm, a real real popular music vid over in Asia actually. So soul (so
so) I guess.

But that's as close as classical music will get to the middle/lower
class East Asian psyche.

But wait, that's what's important, right? Audience. Audience! Will
classical music carry broad, uniform, visceral appeal? That is what
music should be like. It's supposed to be that universal lauguage
afterall. Now classical music being the appendage of some Asian R&B vid
is not flattering. Title was November's Chopin? But non-purists think
opposite: what if there wasn't any representation? Wouldn't that be
worse?

wrote:
J.Venning wrote:
"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
oups.com...
I know I'm a brute. I've been told that many many times from the older
gen. I don't really love people who sentimentally gush over just how
they want how their Australian Shiraz should smell like etc etc. I
prefer Burger King and beer actually. But that's me. It may even be
biologically driven, who knows.

But anyway. Opera or this sissy or rather this 'classy' music stuff is
for degenerates (no pun there!! hahahaa) anyway. I just don't think
that, say, Puccini's Turandot speaks to the modern generation. He may
be gay anyway I don't know, like Oscar Wilde. Wagner, on the other
hand, has some masculine appeal. Yet he's easily labelled racist and/or
anti-semite too.

You just can't win. As they say choose your heroes carefully.

Oh and BTW people will say you're discriminatory against rock/rap -
you're saying that even stupid people will understand them?

I think you have described yourself rather clearly here, and no one will
try to change your mind or opinion about opera or anything else. If you
don't think that "Turandot" speaks to the modern generation, you will need
hearing aid. Puccini was not a homosexual, but even if he were, does that
make his music less good? I am sure you have chosen your heroes very
carefully. Yes, I am very discriminatory against rock/rap, so? Am I not
allowed to have my personal values? Stupid people will not understand
anything - not even rock or rap - but they will follow whatever the media or
salesmen tell them what to buy and listen.
J.

It's more a generation gap perhaps - I read somewhere that opera was
used to scare young people away in subways/undergrounds??!!

Besides in the dating scene - opera for guys, perhaps only 2nd to
ballet - is a red flag - from a gf of mine who studied music. Do you
expect a high school bully who loves hunting to be a vet?

Hmmm. Perhaps, maybe that is why you guys have such great problems
reaching out to younger audience? Example: if ngs are correct which
they often are not, I read just the other night on another newsgroup
that some guy was playing his Lehar and Dvorak - and his middle aged -
MIDDLE AGED - son - cringed everytime. So tell us how you will convince
us to join the grandfather generation - two wongs do not make a white
in jokespeak, sorry, two wrongs do not make a right (am I really this
bad) - i.e. rebelling against the middle-aged crowd doesn't
automatically make us 'hip' - afterall isn't music an ornament (is that
a half pun too?)

Ira Humperdink MD wrote:
Why is being intellectual important?

did i say that was important?
If I say you are blue, does that mean I think being green is
"important"?
No, it just means I just want to accurately characterize you.

I value everyone's input. That's the privilege of being seen as 'rich',
see?

wrote in message
oups.com...
It's more a generation gap perhaps - I read somewhere that opera was
used to scare young people away in subways/undergrounds??!!

Correction - classical music, not just opera, is played on
subways/underground, because it has an effect of driving away hobos and
lay-abouts that hang around these places. They somehow connect classical
music to the upper class people with whom they do not mix.

Hmmm. Perhaps, maybe that is why you guys have such great problems
reaching out to younger audience? Example: if ngs are correct which
they often are not, I read just the other night on another newsgroup
that some guy was playing his Lehar and Dvorak - and his middle aged -
MIDDLE AGED - son - cringed everytime. So tell us how you will convince
us to join the grandfather generation - two wongs do not make a white
in jokespeak, sorry, two wrongs do not make a right (am I really this
bad) - i.e. rebelling against the middle-aged crowd doesn't
automatically make us 'hip' - afterall isn't music an ornament (is that
a half pun too?)

I don't know from where you get your information, but classical music
does not have "such great problems reaching out to younger audience". 3
years ago, I went to a performance of Buz Luhrman's production of "La
Bohème" on Broadway. There were young people lining up inside by the box
office every single day, waiting for returned tickets, because most of the
performances were simply sold out. We had to book ours months in advance
before we made the trip. My wife and I attended the matinee, and when we
came out, there were a group of about 100 teenage school children who came
out with us, and they were in 7th Heaven. They were so thrilled that tears
came down the eyes of their teachers who took them there. Having learned
that I am an opera singer they asked me to give a short talk about the
performance, which I did, and told them that they should visit "the bigger
house up the road", which of course is the Metropolitan Opera House at the
Lincoln Center.
Which works of Lehar and Dvorak were played to make this "middle age
son" cringe? There are pieces that make *me* cringe, specially when played
or sung badly.
I don't think I would care to waste my time - and yours - to try and
convince you to join "the grandfather generation". If you've got a problem
with your grandfather, that is something you have to take up with him. As
for your taste in music, stick to the pop and rap - they suit you.
J.

you are as "rich" as you are "brilliant."

I will believe you are rich when you tell me something only a rich
person would know. Where have you travelled? have you skied in the
Italian alps? A rich person would know the best place to say in the
alps. Where is that?