the twentieth century was the golden age of the silver screen. at least, it was, until the television took over its place in the hearts and minds of the babysitter-deprived generations of the second half of the century. now that we have entered the twenty-first century, though, the art of film is dead. that’s not to say that the painful experience that is theatergoing has lost money or attendance. it certainly has not. the mallrats and obsessives keep hollywood in small change and then some.

but what has happened to the experience?

dirty rooms with larger and larger walls and poorer quality projections fill with unwashed masses who speak on mobiles and talk throughout the production. and that’s only half the problem.

trailers take up the vast majority of the average attention span, before the film has even begun – and that’s with ever-increasing admission costs. advertising for products that i shan’t ever purchase followed by trailers for films completely devoid of interest sap the life from my viewing eyes. this is then followed by the introductory scene of the main production, at which point i am ready to go home. and that’s when the film begins.

but that is an incipit problem and cannot easily be solved. it is the tradition of an industry devoid of thought but flush with currency.

what i do not understand, however, is what happens once this vast harang has been relegated to the void of past experiences and the collection of photographs that will make up the memory of the film begin to flash before the eyes.

the forties and fifties saw film noir, the sixties and seventies, the drama, the eighties and nineties, the action film, and now, the comedy.

there was a time when comedies were funny. there were banana-peels. there were characters like donald and daffy. comedy was where it belonged. in the realm of the ridiculous and the animated. but it has become a mainstay of the modern film experience. and it lost something in the translation. the funny.

so where did the funny go? it was replaced by the disturbing. food humor, toilet humor, death humor – you name the depths of depravity that you’d like to sink to and then pick the currently-running film that uses them as a basic premise for existence.

and people watch it.

and i’m sad.

i want to see plot, writing, and an alternate reality that is believable, complex, and lifelike. i don’t need to see people behaving stupidly for the sake of non-existent humor. i don’t need to see illness in the guise of comedy.

pshah. i’m going back to the sixties. they knew how to write back then.

singing is fun.

seriously.

not rock band and karaoke, mind you. those are fun in a way. but that usually involves more alcohol than should be socially acceptable and a fairly large probability that ears will not survive the evening without a particularly expansive likelihood of excruciating pain.

i mean choral singing.

choirs.

most of you know that i sing with several of them and have for as long as i can remember. church, school, university, private, rock, jazz, classical, renaissance, you name it. singing is far more enjoyable than you’d imagine.

and why am i telling you this?

just what happens to be on my mind.

i just figure that it might be a good time to relate my rules of choral singing.

first, small is good, large is bad. the smaller the group, the more capable it tends to be. and the more fun results. and the better the music. just a general rule. but i haven’t seen any exceptions. small is six. large is forty. massive is two hundred. just a guide.

difficult music is fun. easy music is boring. christmas music is an incentive to burn down the building. no exceptions.

men’s choirs sound bad. women’s choirs sound better. mixed choirs sound best. all other things being equal. unless they’re russian. then men’s choirs sound hardcore, women’s choirs sound pathetic and hairy, and mixed choirs sound like they belong in a church. just an observation, though.

music in english is badly written. music in french sounds like the soundtrack to a movie in which nothing happens. twice. music in russian sounds amazing. german music is hit-or-miss. italian music is difficult. long live italy.

madrigals are good. motets are good. chorales are an excuse to sleep. frequently. anything called a mass is likely heavy. a requiem is sad. and slow. and about death. and sounds like it. go figure.

happy music is good. unless it’s christmas music. in which case, see above. sad music is bad. some exceptions apply. some, not many, i tell you.

rock music done by choir is awesome. most of the time. unless it’s not. then it sounds kitsch. and kitsch is bad. unless you’re in russia. then it’s really bad. and you’ll get shot. by the mob. twice.

jazz choirs are either very good or very bad. no exceptions. very bad jazz sounds like a pet store at feeding time. with microphones. and a bass.

and they just ran out of birdseed.

if you’re in a choir where people raise their hands to admit mistakes, it’s likely a good sign.

it’s a good sign that people make a lot of mistakes.

but at least they know it.

and that’s the first step to improvement.

singing in hebrew is fun. singing in german is powerful. singing in english is mindless. arabic is unusual. mandarin is impossible. french is questionable, italian beyond simple, and english, did i mention english? singing in english is a painful experience that i would only wish on people in the faculty of education.

there you have it.

la.