Kristina- Page 3

[speedjeans]

Posted: 9/29/09 at 1:37am

Not knowing you at all, I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you
pointing me in the direction of a favorite blog of yours--or might this be some sort
of trip to the woodshed?

It wouldn't seem that it is any way associated with that comprehensively obscure
quote you find somehow compelling from Winston 89 or have I stumbled on an embarrassing irony: you find the quotes of others superfluous but your own pithy.

Of course, now I see it: you are one of those people who curl up with the Chicago Manual of Style and have a bloodhound's nose for the slightest violation of form.

I'll sleep better knowing that there are people standing on metaphorical walls to keep us safe from the dire threat of improper punctuation.
Updated On: 9/29/09 at 01:37 AM

[ShadOlsen]

Posted: 9/29/09 at 10:40am

What you saw was a concert and not the staged show with dialogue. Yes, it's long and will probably be cut further for the short attention spans of American audiences (though this 4 hour show ran for almost 5 years in Sweden). If you're not into it you're not into it, but there are those of us who would sit through it a hundred more times and love every last second. We're the ones who want some variety in NYC when it comes to musicals.

[speedjeans]

Posted: 9/29/09 at 11:48am

Shad,

Eventually people not particularly keen on the concert are going to have to come to terms with a simple fact: Benny and Bjorn have transcended the limits of being what many consider peddlers of tripe pop to international cultural icons. The last numbers I saw put the Mamma Mia! DVD as Amazon U.K's biggest selling product surpassing heavyweights such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Dark Knight.

Let that soak in for a second. A movie considered by a large assortment of critics
(Rotten Tomatoes) had a 53% approval rating. Dark Knight came in with a 94%.

The conclusion is obvious: the pundits--as they did with ABBA the group and Mamma Mia! the musical greatly underestimate the appeal of a considerable segment of the public for the music B & B produce.

Apparently, there's a plausible scientific explanation of this. Daniel Levitin, a professor at McGill wrote this:

"If you look at the evolutionary biology of the species and the chemical reactions we have to events in the world, for tens of thousands of years when we as a species heard music we heard groups singing it, not an individual and not an individual standing on a stage," says Levitin. "So the ABBA model of the multiple voices or the Edwin Hawkins Singers singing 'Oh Happy Day' is much closer to stimulating these evolutionary echoes of what music really is, fundamentally - closer than, say, Frank Sinatra or Miley Cyrus."

Perhaps the people who find B & B's music God-awful are simply more advanced in an evolutionary sense than those of us struggling to tame the inner caveman within
people like us.