The Hall of Fire

Thanks for that account, vison, relating from a personal perspective a history that I had only read about. (I was too young: my brother was born the day the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan, and I was just out of diapers). Padme, FWIW I think Lennon+McCartney were better then either since, the ...

"I don't think that there is any question"????

That's a little dogmatic for you, Vor. In my opinion there's nothing in Dylan's catalog can touch 'Eleanor Rigby or 'A Day in the Life'; but your mileage may vary.

Well, opinions of relative merit are indisputable; but for the twentieth century alone I'd have to go with Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Puccini.... you'd really rank Dylan's material with Das Lied von der Erde ? In the popular arena there's Gershwin, Berlin, Lennon & McCartney (who, admittedly, were Dy...

Personally I love Joni's music, and always thought Dylan overrated (obscurity isn't profundity). To me Bob is more period icon than talent. De gustibus non disputandem. But whether her charges have any merit, I have no idea.

Bob is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_b ... -fake.html

Yes, it's true that the old degrees of the Order of the British Empire etc no longer apply in New Zealand; nonetheless the 'replacement' New Zealand Order of Merit is still (nominally) bestowed by the Head of State, i.e. the Queen.

All knighthoods come from the Crown, which (nominally) is that of New Zealand as well as the UK. The actual choosing is done by the PM or Government of the country in question, but the fiction is that it is a 'recommendation' to HM the Queen. The GG of course is acting as her representative.

The Simpsons subtly backs South Park:

Ross Douthat's take in the NYT:

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opini ... uthat.html

Which makes Comedy Central's action even more craven, since apparently there wasn't even a credible threat.

Comedy Central Execs Land Courage Award NEW YORK -- The programming staff and Standards and Practices department of cable TV's Comedy Central have been named winners of the Al-Fatwahadeen Revolutionary Martyrs Anti-Defamation League's 2010 Anti-Blasphemy Courage Award. "All too often, infidels...

Alatar, again: the threat was made against Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators and producers of South Park , and they wished to go ahead with the broadcast despite the threat; it was the network, which was not threatened, which made the decision to censor it. Their heads on the line (literally)...

Jon Stewart's forthright response:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-a ... th-threats

Alatar, are you saying we should just yield to bullies? It only emboldens them: the moral *and* pragmatic response to bullies is to stand up to them. CC should have either ignored these barbarians, or told them to shove their Dark Age mentality where the sun don't shine. If they don't like freedom o...

Well, the Wilson government claimed they gave the Beatles MBEs on the ground that the Fabs had made Britain a whole lotta money.

Well, that was why I said "Tolkien the living Oxford don and his slightly fictionalized self ." Sure the Narrator is intrusive, and Tolkien (much later) came to regret the style he used in The Hobbit: but nonetheless the Narrator is simply the print version of the voice of Tolkien the fath...

supinely censors South Park : http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/south-park-censorship-.html This is Comedy Central, the network which has never, ever worried about taste or giving offense, and its flagship program, one which has happily and often tastelessly lampooned Jesus, the Pope, Sc...

Sir Sean Connery
Sir Maurice Mickelwhite (Michael Caine)
Sir Mick Jagger
Sir Elton John
and of course Sir Peter Jackson

I suspect that 'services to popular entertainment' is the baseline.

On the topic-fork: I'm with Elentári. I can't think of an ensemble sound more pleasing, to me, than a good English male choir (treble/countertenor/tenor/bass). The countertenors, in particular, bring a richness and resonance to their line that female altos just don't.

Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax cuts to the core of the matter, I think:

"And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."