Pomp and circumstantial evidence of the lobomization of readers' brains

Yesterday I went to the Night at the Proms which was an interesting experience. Usually when I go to the symphony, everything is pretty sedate, since, as we all know, sophistication can only be expressed by a total absence of emotions. But this was a pops concert so I thought it would be fun - which became obvious when the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir started doing the wave during Fantasia on British Sea Songs. Scratchy violin music, this was not.

Our conductor was a stand-up comic, doing everything from heckling the latecomers to commenting on Paris Hilton's legal troubles. But my favourite part of the night was listening to his puns. Such as, after playing a march from Pomp and Circumstance, he said that last week was Sir Edward Elgar's 150th birthday. Or it would have been if he were alive, but he died in 1934. So right now, he's an active decomposer. I decided to bold and italicize it because it was just too funny. I'm sure classical music snobs would lift up their nose at this type of thing, but I think that popularization is important: not only to reach out to new audiences, but to show that, at its basic level, art is about entertainment and enjoyment, and there's no shame in having fun.

And on that note...I just finished that horrible James Patterson book. It was, literally, the worst thing I've read for years. And apparently Patterson is a big name author--Wikipedia (a trusted academic source) says that he has sold an estimated 130 million books and has been #1 on the NYT bestseller's list. What's wrong with the world?! I'm fine with fluff, not everything has to be great literature, but this read like a bad Nancy Drew novel. I'm thinking of reporting the librarian who recommended it to me. People like that have no business working with books. Shouldn't there be a similar law against that type of thing, like what stops pedophiles from working in daycares?

Anyway, here are a couple pictures from convocation at U of T. Look at the little undergrads, so excited to graduate, blissfully unaware of the dangers that await them in the real world. Not that I know either--I'm a student 4 life, baby!