<p>We were at the Mall today and a random senior citizen was on a rant that “no one today knows who Bing Crosby is”. DS said “who’s that?” my jaw dropped. Then I asked DS if he knows who Fred Astaire is - “No”. He DID know who Louie Armstrong was.</p>
<p>Then we came home and there is a special on public TV about Bing Crosby. DS refused to watch it though : He asked was Bing was famous for and I cited “White Christmas” but he was not impressed and quickly turned the channel back to the World Cup.</p>
<p>I grew up on old BW movies and love all the old Hollywood history so I took it for granted that everyone else did too. I guess I should have rented more old movies while the kids were younger besides the Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ???</p>
<p>I’m tempted to order a boatload of movies from Amazon starting with “How Green is your Valley” (I know BC wan’t in it but I loved the move) However, I would like to know your opinions first.</p>
<p>Fourty years from now, our kids will be on a rant becuase the “young people these days don’t know” about Metallica or Snoop Dogg. Every year they will take a pilgrimage to Branson, MO to see their favorite “yesteryear” acts at the Alanis Morisette GoodTime Theatre, by gum.</p>
<p>My S likes Frank Sinatra. When he was taking speech in Jr. Hi, they showed “Singing in the Rain” in class, so he knows who Bing Crosby is.</p>
<p>I’ve always listened to “oldies” in the car so my kids are familiar with hits of the 60’s and '70’s. My oldest S’s HS history teacher used to play some old songs in class and would give the kids money if they could identify the singer. S won $5 for identifying ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.”</p>
<p>I watched many wonderful old movies with my parents and grew to love actors like Jimmy Stewart, June Allyson, William Powell, Myrna Loy, etc. We also played cards, sang songs on road trips, and did many old-fashioned things that are now past history in this modern-day world of DVDs, iPods, and TiVo. In a way, I’m sorry my children and I won’t be able to share these moments but we have other special moments we have shared. After all, I never would have watched a silent movie with my parents no matter how much nostalgia it may have generated for them.</p>
<p>One summer when my kids were still young enough for me to have some control over their time, we had a weekly family night movie that I rented, with the idea that I wanted them to see some of the movies I loved. It was a great summer, and they still talk about some of the movies, and have bought some on DVD. S especially loved Jimmy Stewart’s “Harvey” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” D loved all the musicals. So they do know many of the great oldies.</p>
<p>I am not a TV/movie person (can’t sit still that long), so I do not know many current stars. My H and kids know a lot more. It has nothing to do with age, but how much current stuff we watch or listen to.</p>
<p>We have family movie nights also. It’s been a while, but if I get the father’s day gift I’ve been hinting towards (Godfather trilogy on DVD), we’ll have another one. If not, I’ll buy it myself and we’ll have one anyway.</p>
<p>You can definitely get the kids interested in your old favorites by bringing up contemporary references (e.g. “Did you know Stella McCartney’s dad used to be in a popular band when I was a kid?” ). On our last flight together, they were showing "Rumor Has It’, a recent film with Jennifer Aniston which has “The Graduate” as its backstory. My older daughter and I had already watched The Graduate together, but younger one had the wife put it on her Netflix cue when we got home.</p>
<p>Question about the Graduate: I’ve never seen the movie or read the book. My D is reading the book for her English class at school. (English is a foreign language here, remember.) She hates it. She complains every time she has to read it. I think she is shocked by it - she hasn’t said why she hates it, just that it’s “disgusting.” Is this a book anybody has ever “had” to read in HS in the US? Is it any worse than the things they DO have to read? (They pick the strangest things to use to teach American culture and language in the German schools.)</p>
<p>I haven’t seen a US high school assign The Graduate for required reading. I both read the book and saw the movie many years ago. I don’t know what’s to hate. I liked them both. The main difference that I recall between the two is that in the book Elaine leaves her fiancee at the church just before the ceremony and runs off with Ben - rescued in the nick of time so to speak. In the movie she runs off with Ben just AFTER the ceremony - she dumps her new husband and runs off with Ben almost immediately after having been pronounced man and wife.</p>
<p>Other than that major detail, the book and movie tell pretty much the same story.</p>
<p>some of my daughters favorite movies are old ones
some like it hot & the Lady Vanishes just for two
BUt it behooves us to know what they are listening to
some of the hip hop artists my daughter likes are pretty borderline in taste and while I realize I can’t police everything she is exposed to, I can make it clear what my guidelines are.</p>
<p>A lot of students expand their horizons in college, so I wouldn’t be too disheartened at this point. </p>
<p>I’m a bit of a music enthusiast (I debated writing fan, freak, and snob there). I keep a list of musicians mentioned in application essays each year and I assure you that some students are already aware of musicians that we’d consider “classic”. Some of the artists mentioned surprise me (rappers and “pop” princess types) and other references make me very happy (Buddy Holly, Miles Davis, Dylan, Janis, Jerry…just to name a few off the top of my head). </p>
<p>As for a love of classic movies, I don’t think that hit me until I was in grad school. Give it time. I bet it will come eventually.</p>
<p>As a fellow music “enthusiast” (really “nut” applies more to me), it has given me great pleasure to expose my kids to my favorites. The car is generally a great place to do this to your “captive” audience. They learned to sing along to the Beatles, Paul Simon (“You Can Call Me Al” was one of the ones I had to play over and over), The Ramones, etc. They have seen McCartney, Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., John Fogerty, and others in concert (of course, I had to suffer through The Backstreet Boys, 98 degrees, etc.-only fair). My selling point is usually “this is one you can tell your future grandchildren about”. I have fourth row tickets to see Phil Lesh & friends next week. Wife will be out of town with younger daughter (wife wouldn’t want to go anyway since she doesn’t share my musical tastes) so I’m going to try to convince my older daughter to accompany me. Here’s how the pitch will go: “You know how you like Dave Matthews, O.A.R., and Ben Harper?. Why don’t you come with me to see a member of the one of the original Jam bands?”</p>
<p>Is that going to be a hard sell? I think not. Your daughter is probably going to be bragging about going to see Phil Lesh to all of her friends!!</p>
<p>I hope you have a great time at the show! It should be great.</p>
<p>I hope you’re right, but I really don’t think she or her friends would know the name. Of course, they know Jerry Garcia, but mostly from the Beanie Baby and Ben & Jerry’s flavor ;)</p>
<p>But audiophile, those are acts from way after the point in time the OP was referring to. So a lot of it has to do what is consdiered “vintage”, I suppose.</p>
<p>If you can remember back 30 years ago (1976), a lot of the pop and rock music back then has a lot of similarities to what is popular today, but if you traveled back another 30 years (1946), it was a whole different scene.</p>
<p>To put it another way, the crooners and big bands were already passe thirty years later but a lot of the old rock and pop still endures. Not that it’s necessarily better music, but we have the huge population demographic of the baby boomers that is still impacting popular culture today as they did back then.</p>
<p>I have the Sunday LA Times in front of me, let me see who’s coming to town in concert in the near future…</p>
<p>Earth Wind & Fire
Linda Ronstadt
Hall & Oates
Boz Scaggs
Ted Nugent</p>
<p>Wait a minute … let me check, oh, OK yeah, this is not the paper from June 18, 1976.</p>
I think this is an accurate portrayal of one of the differences between 30 and 60 years ago. In our parents’ day, popular culture didn’t seem as critical to their sense of selves. Oh sure, I grew up listening to Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and watching Fred & Ginger movies with my parents, but after some point, they stopped playing/watching them, as if it was “time to grow up and leave that part of popular culture behind”. Our generation doesn’t seem to feel that way. Many of us still listen to the same music we listened to 30+ years ago (although I <em>HOPE</em> we’ve also opened our ears some in the meantime, too!). Is this another instance of the Boomer generation refusing to “grow up”? Or are we redefining what it means to value what you see as important parts of your popular culture and pass them along to future generations?</p>
<p>At my house we still listen to what we consider great music from the past ~40 years, but not much from my parents’ time. As a result, my 16-yr-old can pick out a Jimi riff when it hits the radio and sings along with Pink Floyd and can tell you which of the four Beatles is singing any particular tune and reveres Led Zep. (I love getting into the car after he’s been driving it and finding a LZ or Zappa CD blaring from the speakers when I turn the car on. ) But I am also willing to listen to their Prodigy and Chemical Brothers CD when they’re playing them in the car, and we talk a lot about current popular music. (They rolled their eyes when I bought the new Death Cab CD, but hey, I’m a girl, y’know? And it’s catchy tunes with bizarre lyrical treatments, so sue me.) Maybe this sharing with our children musically is part of what we did not experience with our parents: I know mine just assumed we would not be interested in their music, and only talked with us about it when we insisted or asked outright. And they NEVER talked about music I was making part of my life, except to tell me to turn it down or take off that noise. My kids never had a choice, I was ALWAYS talking with them about my music and encouraging them to share their music with me. They don’t know anything else. Music seemed to be a much more important part of my youth than it was for my parents, or more important in a way that made me want to preserve its influence perhaps.</p>
<p>Eh, Dadguy, I don’t think I’d want to see any of those concerts. But my entire family foursome has tickets to the reunion Steely Dan concert in July. And we expect to go to Neil Young’s The Bridge School concert this year if there is one, and we went to see Beck last summer, so we’re not totally focused on old moldy music. (Hmm. Maybe our music really <em>was</em> more timeless?)</p>
<p>As for movies, we’ve embarked (at the request of my 19-yr-old) on a summer campaign of watching everything we consider “classic” – yay for Netflix!</p>
He asked was Bing was famous for and I cited “White Christmas” but he was not impressed and quickly turned the channel back to the World Cup.</p>
) But I am also willing to listen to their Prodigy and Chemical Brothers CD when they’re playing them in the car, and we talk a lot about current popular music. (They rolled their eyes when I bought the new Death Cab CD, but hey, I’m a girl, y’know? And it’s catchy tunes with bizarre lyrical treatments, so sue me.) Maybe this sharing with our children musically is part of what we did not experience with our parents: I know mine just assumed we would not be interested in their music, and only talked with us about it when we insisted or asked outright. And they NEVER talked about music I was making part of my life, except to tell me to turn it down or take off that noise. My kids never had a choice, I was ALWAYS talking with them about my music and encouraging them to share their music with me. They don’t know anything else. Music seemed to be a much more important part of my youth than it was for my parents, or more important in a way that made me want to preserve its influence perhaps.</p>
(Hmm. Maybe our music really <em>was</em> more timeless?)</p>