freshcutgrass
Senior Member
You're giving yourself away now...discos didn't play Air Supply!! And Air Supply weren't even close to top 40 in 1977....they are more of an 80's band.
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You're giving yourself away now...discos didn't play Air Supply!! And Air Supply weren't even close to top 40 in 1977....they are more of an 80's band.
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
The evidence suggests this is not a skill that has yet been mastered. Everyone just has ADD now (the medical term for "multitasking). Plus they can't spell. Texting and walking without something bad happening to you is a case of luck...not skill.
"Multitasking" while performing a business transaction is not a "skill"...it's just f'ing rude behaviour.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
You're the one who put them on the list of definitively excellent bands of 1977. Along with April Wine.
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
Who said everything on the list was excellent? Stop texting and pay attention hairdo.
And now it's April Wine?
What do have against them...they play instruments?
[video=youtube_share;l38CIbuOPHw]http://youtu.be/l38CIbuOPHw[/video]
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
Back to Yonge Street and the Gasworks. Turns out there is a documentary in the works...didn't know that.
[video=youtube_share;Uo7OGchbRh0]http://youtu.be/Uo7OGchbRh0[/video]
[video=youtube_share;Uo7OGchbRh0]http://youtu.be/Uo7OGchbRh0[/video]
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freshcutgrass
Senior Member
Something else about another legendary Yonge St rock venue....
[video=youtube_share;tebGH6pNDRI]http://youtu.be/tebGH6pNDRI[/video]
[video=youtube_share;tebGH6pNDRI]http://youtu.be/tebGH6pNDRI[/video]
MisterF
Senior Member
You know, you say that your claim is tongue in cheek but I think you genuinely believe it. And for your own personal tastes, there's nothing wrong with that. But to state it as objective fact and call everyone who disagrees ignorant is simply foolish. I could claim that I had lunch with bigfoot and expect you to present evidence that I didn't. But I don't do that because the burden of proof is with the person who makes the claim in the first place. If you claim that A is better than B, you have to objectively compare A and B if you want to convince anyone. If you spend all your time building the case for A without doing the same for B, nobody is going to take you seriously.
So no, I'm not going to spend hours assembling a list of music from the 21st century, or researching genres that I pay no attention to or typing it all out just to refute your point. But I'll give you this: in my own music collection I have well over 200 bands that have made music since 2000. Most of them have released multiple records, so using the same standard that made you list Genesis twice you could triple that number. Plus it's music that's actually good, so no Air Supply. Almost all of it is from a few subsets of one genre, with nothing that could be considered pop, hip hop, country, or whatever. In other words, a tiny fraction of the music industry in that period...the amount of good music that I have no personal interest in vastly outnumbers what I own. You can do the math.
That's kind of a sad point of view to be honest. Times Square is one tiny corner of New York. If you want the specific type of vibrancy that suites your taste, there are plenty of other neighbourhoods that you can visit. Those types of neighbourhoods are almost never in the hearts of major world cities. That's not a bad thing. By the way, Times Square is every bit as busy and much, much safer now than it was. It's a different kind of vibrant, but it's not less vibrant.
Consumerism doesn't define the urban experience any more now than in the 70s. Think about how many more people are in urban squares now. Art galleries, museums, free festivals, and performing arts spaces are all in greater number now. Are people socializing in coffee shops and tapas bars in 2014 being more consumerist than people browsing records in the 70s? I'm not buying your argument (pardon the pun).
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Tewder
Senior Member
Bingo! I've not been suggesting there is zero vibrancy, I've agreed several times that the city is bigger now, busier, has more stuff etc., and likewise with NYC. Even if I would 'concede' that the city is no less vibrant today - or even more vibrant today than in the past - I would still argue that the parameters are quite different, that the kind of vibrancy now is overwhelmingly consumerist, gentrified and within the interactively diminished context of the digital era, which ultimately creates a less vibrant vibrancy, relatively speaking... so if Times Square isn't an engaging example for you just pick one, it was fairly 'off the top of my head' anyway.
Well yes, as I mentioned before: though buying records was a consumer activity, the shopping experience wasn't a consumerist one. Record shops were where people went/gathered to discuss music, learn, discover new bands, meet people and interact. I'm not suggesting every trip to the store was this way, sometimes you just wanted to grab something, but that the larger urban stores or smaller niche stores were often destinations within their cities and for very non-consumer reasons... ditto with book shops.
I find it very difficult to accept that the urban experience is not more consumerist today than in the past, we live in a global consumerist world after all and so it follows. Also, i'm not convinced there are more performing arts spaces/public hang out spaces today than prior to the millennium, and in fact I can't help but feel there were more and that they were more vibrant (heck, if only for there being less entertainment options in the home)
I grant you that the city is growing in real terms so a bigger population today means bigger crowds today but if Toronto in the 70s or 80s had the population and density it has today it would be a very different place and have a different kind of vibrancy, which is very telling in and of itself.
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AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
It's your list of the deeply talented.
M.R.Victor
Active Member
Tweder and fresh, it's a different kind of vibrant in the sense that you are not personally benefiting, participating and drawing meaning from it kind of vibrant. Which is why you don't like it, hence your senseless argument. Havana has a great deal of non-consumerist vibrancy, you know, vibrant vibrancy as you call it. If only Yonge of 1977 was more like Havana of 2014.
Seriously though, there are kilometers upon kilometers of art galleries on Queen Street, which cost absolutely nothing to wander into and absorb the art for the sake of having an artistic experience. The city is overwhelmed by creative and visually stimulating graffiti. On any sunny summer weekend, there are drum circles, tight-rope walkers, jugglers, dog-walkers and picnickers in Trinity Bellwoods, often by the hundreds. Same goes for Kensington Market. The major universities and colleges host free lectures on a host of topics, often free of charge. There is a strong culture of ravers in the city which host regular events, often in abandoned industrial spaces on the outskirts of the inner city. If you like Karaoke, you got Korea town for that. You like board games? Got that as well. You like Kathak dance, want to run a marathon, take kickboxing classes, or jam in a Brazilian drum session? Guess what, we got that too.
All of this is something Torontonians are actively participating in, right now. I could argue it's even better than browsing, talking and consuming the cultural products of other people and other cities, in a record store. Yes, none of this is taking place on Yonge Street, but is it not worth it because it happens to be a few blocks east or west?
Perhaps people are a bit more self-absorbed, a bit more scatter-brained, and a bit less outwardly social, mainly due to having other commitments and places to which to dedicate their attention. I personally don't miss the small-talk. Is that good, bad, or simply different? You're genuinely starting to sound nostalgic for THAT time on THAT Yonge Street, neither which are real any more.
Seriously though, there are kilometers upon kilometers of art galleries on Queen Street, which cost absolutely nothing to wander into and absorb the art for the sake of having an artistic experience. The city is overwhelmed by creative and visually stimulating graffiti. On any sunny summer weekend, there are drum circles, tight-rope walkers, jugglers, dog-walkers and picnickers in Trinity Bellwoods, often by the hundreds. Same goes for Kensington Market. The major universities and colleges host free lectures on a host of topics, often free of charge. There is a strong culture of ravers in the city which host regular events, often in abandoned industrial spaces on the outskirts of the inner city. If you like Karaoke, you got Korea town for that. You like board games? Got that as well. You like Kathak dance, want to run a marathon, take kickboxing classes, or jam in a Brazilian drum session? Guess what, we got that too.
All of this is something Torontonians are actively participating in, right now. I could argue it's even better than browsing, talking and consuming the cultural products of other people and other cities, in a record store. Yes, none of this is taking place on Yonge Street, but is it not worth it because it happens to be a few blocks east or west?
Perhaps people are a bit more self-absorbed, a bit more scatter-brained, and a bit less outwardly social, mainly due to having other commitments and places to which to dedicate their attention. I personally don't miss the small-talk. Is that good, bad, or simply different? You're genuinely starting to sound nostalgic for THAT time on THAT Yonge Street, neither which are real any more.
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Tewder
Senior Member
Your argument would have far more credibility if it didn't resort to making this personal about me, dismissing me as just being 'nostalgic' in other words...
Well I don't know about 'drum circles' specifically but you're making it sound like these things only exist today, that people didn't got to parks before the millennium or art galleries, which is absurd of course. Again, I agree there are more of these things today because the city is larger in real terms. I get it. In the end though you're reaching a little too far, and you're pretty much underlining how niche and rarified these interactive urban experiences have become... kickboxing? Really?? No, i'm talking about how the average Joe and Jane lived their life in the city, not just ravers and tight-rope walkers (and raving is like so 20 years ago by the way, just saying'):
You make it sound like the average person in the city is doing any of the things you mentioned. They are not! The average person is at home every night flipping through 3,000 channels on their flat-screen T.V. while surfing Eharmony or Grindr (depending on what they're looking for)... and I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population has stepped foot inside of an art gallery over the past year (adjusting for Nuit Blanche perhaps). No, the record shop experience was pretty universal and regular, as was going to the movies, out to dance, date, cruise Yonge, meet friends etc., things people had to do to interact before iPhones.
acornman
New Member
I remember going down to Sam, Music World, HMV etc to buy new cassette albums (I'm not old enough for vinyl) and while people looked forward to release dates and rushed to the stores after school it wasn't really some out of the ordinary social experience as far as I remember. Just walk into the store, flip through the albums, and get the one you wanted.
Yes people have become device zombies these days, but those people you see filling up the cafes, patios, parks and other public spaces are having a good time, not just sitting by themselves looking at their phones. A place like Trinity Bellwoods wasn't a place you hung out back in the day since it had more of a reputation of being a place where the hobos slept. Now it's pretty much filled up with young people on the weekends during the warm months. The same goes for many other parks around the city. People did go to the park in the past but I don't recall them having as many people as they do now, and same goes for the beaches (unless you go way back to the sunnyside days).
There are other places full of people that didn't have much going on in the past like the King West area (including all those clubs), Yorkville, and Bloor West Village to name a few.
I remember how hardly anyone went out on Sundays since barely anything was open, there wasn't much to do in the evenings since many places would close by 7, and the people in the city just didn't have many places to go eat on a night out. The city had a very milquetoast feel. Nowadays there is some festival or another going on every weekend and yes people do show up. There are countless eateries serving food from all over the world that aren't just sitting there empty.
Yes people have become device zombies these days, but those people you see filling up the cafes, patios, parks and other public spaces are having a good time, not just sitting by themselves looking at their phones. A place like Trinity Bellwoods wasn't a place you hung out back in the day since it had more of a reputation of being a place where the hobos slept. Now it's pretty much filled up with young people on the weekends during the warm months. The same goes for many other parks around the city. People did go to the park in the past but I don't recall them having as many people as they do now, and same goes for the beaches (unless you go way back to the sunnyside days).
There are other places full of people that didn't have much going on in the past like the King West area (including all those clubs), Yorkville, and Bloor West Village to name a few.
I remember how hardly anyone went out on Sundays since barely anything was open, there wasn't much to do in the evenings since many places would close by 7, and the people in the city just didn't have many places to go eat on a night out. The city had a very milquetoast feel. Nowadays there is some festival or another going on every weekend and yes people do show up. There are countless eateries serving food from all over the world that aren't just sitting there empty.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
In the old days, we couldn't just order sex on our new fangled cell phones! We had to go out and shake our moneymakers on Yonge Street. BOTH SIDES!! And every time we left the house, we had to go buy a record. It was the law and WE LIKED IT!
Tewder
Senior Member
... or a book, don't forget the book stores!! You see, there were these buildings with lots of shelves...
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Right. Books of lyrics to the latest Boney M and Air Supply hits.