essential poptimist reading

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

I was originally going to write quite a long bit about this book, but then I thought I might save that up and just ask YOU LOT if any of you have read it.

Not everything in it rings true, but the core observations (mass/pop culture is getting more cognitively demanding), and the fundamental inference (our brains WANT to be challenged) are things that everyone here will probably agree with. It's never a good thing to agree wholeheartedly with an argument/book, at least it feels wrong/uncomfortable to me, but my disagreements here are minor to trivial.

indeed the "mass/pop culture is getting more cognitively demanding" thing is so obviously true, but he actually goes into quantifiable specifics in a nice way. plus it's nice to have someone actually bloody well saying so forthrightly and in public, rather than the usual crap "going to hell in a lowest common denominator handbag"

he doesn't actually touch on music much at all (i'm going back to find that bit, cos there was something ironically slightly rockist about singles v albums he mentions) but it's still poptimism.

anyway. anyone?

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

something we were discussing last night re doctor who "second" series = the sheer intractability of the obstacle course of exploring subtleties of plot and possibility in character-growth over a 43-year (!) naraative arc versus NOT PUTTIN OFF VER KIDS w.yer CONTINUITY BACKSTORY 4RS3-TIGHTNESS

TV literacy now includes at least a basic* (haha hegelian) sense of the relationship between the history of the medium and the history of you the viewer -- simply negotiating the channelverse and speedreading the genre require a highly complex knowledge input from even a fairly rubbish and passive viewer

*i realise that this is most often expressed in the phrase "what were we thinking?" but this is still critical engagement of a kind