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High Culture, Pop Culture, Nerd Culture
Sep. 12th, 2022 10:32 amA series of cultural events dominated my weekend; on Saturday I spent a good period of time with Mel S., at the NGV (our regular haunt, apparently) to see "The Picasso Century exhibition, which consisted of a pretty impressive collection of works, not just by Picasso, but also those associated with him (e.g., Braque, Lam, Masson, Metzinger etc) and spanning his Blue and Rose periods, cubism, surrealism, and more, and spanning medium as well with painting, sculpture, ceramics, and short films (the interview with surrealist André Breton was particular welcome). Overall, it was really quite an impressive collection of works, highly evocative for what were troubled and violent times, and also touched deeply upon my desire for another visit to Paris which I have not done for almost three years.
Following this relatively high culture event, I followed a different path in the evening taking Miriam R, out to see the appropriately-named Pop Will Eat Itself at The Corner Hotel. These scruffy lads were doing what was meant to be the 30th Anniversary tour of their famous genre-mixed LP "This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!", but due to the pandemic the tour was cancelled twice - my tickets dated from early 2020! Unsurprisingly as a shared pop-cultural point, I ran into several friends at the show and spotted several others. Despite an enthusiastic band and enthusiastic crowd, the show was marred by some very poor sound quality, something that happens too often at The Corner. Whilst putting on a good visual show, support band Snog is well and truly in my bad books as well; in the 1990s I was quite a fan of their work, but in more recent years they have gone down an alt-right conspiracy rabbit-hole, spreading complete nonsense about vaccinations, 9-11, the Sandy Hook massacre, etc. Oh, and anti-semitism, of course. It would have been a better show if they weren't there.
The final cultural event was a playtest roleplaying session for the long-awaited "Gulliver's Trading Company", written by Karl B, set a few years after the famous Swift novel. I have been a playtester for this FATE-derived game for more than ten years and it's great to see that it's now in its final stages. Also, it was excellent to catch up with Liz and Karl, and meet some of their friends and was delighted after the game to visit "The Raccoon Club" afterward. To give a cultural theory twist, one may note that whilst Swift's Gulliver's Travels was popular culture at the time (almost three hundred years ago), it became high culture having survived aesthetic criticism. This probably can be said for almost all high culture - and it is something that can be distinguished from low culture (junk food, fast and mall shopping, sportsball, gossip magazines) which doesn't make the cut.
Following this relatively high culture event, I followed a different path in the evening taking Miriam R, out to see the appropriately-named Pop Will Eat Itself at The Corner Hotel. These scruffy lads were doing what was meant to be the 30th Anniversary tour of their famous genre-mixed LP "This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!", but due to the pandemic the tour was cancelled twice - my tickets dated from early 2020! Unsurprisingly as a shared pop-cultural point, I ran into several friends at the show and spotted several others. Despite an enthusiastic band and enthusiastic crowd, the show was marred by some very poor sound quality, something that happens too often at The Corner. Whilst putting on a good visual show, support band Snog is well and truly in my bad books as well; in the 1990s I was quite a fan of their work, but in more recent years they have gone down an alt-right conspiracy rabbit-hole, spreading complete nonsense about vaccinations, 9-11, the Sandy Hook massacre, etc. Oh, and anti-semitism, of course. It would have been a better show if they weren't there.
The final cultural event was a playtest roleplaying session for the long-awaited "Gulliver's Trading Company", written by Karl B, set a few years after the famous Swift novel. I have been a playtester for this FATE-derived game for more than ten years and it's great to see that it's now in its final stages. Also, it was excellent to catch up with Liz and Karl, and meet some of their friends and was delighted after the game to visit "The Raccoon Club" afterward. To give a cultural theory twist, one may note that whilst Swift's Gulliver's Travels was popular culture at the time (almost three hundred years ago), it became high culture having survived aesthetic criticism. This probably can be said for almost all high culture - and it is something that can be distinguished from low culture (junk food, fast and mall shopping, sportsball, gossip magazines) which doesn't make the cut.
