Mall singing
Dec. 1st, 2010 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessThis will either make you run to a mall, or swear off malls entirely, depending:
Watching this, two different thoughts popped into my head:
1) I guess the "stand the second you hear even the first few notes of the Hallelujah Chorus," drummed into me at a young age, is fading now? Or is that just at full concert performances of the Messiah, where people start scuffling and standing up even before anyone bursts into song? Or just perhaps the people at the mall figured they didn't want to stand up against the singers.
2) As some of you know, for years I used to stroll around malls at the holiday season, caroling, and one of the things that always got me, no matter how long I'd been doing it, was the way bored and irritated expressions suddenly turned into, "Huh, they are really singing! It's not just a lousy recording!" (The problem with mall caroling is that the sound varies tremendously depending upon the acoustics of the particular corner or bit you are walking through, which in turn dramatically changes your sound from lifechanging and all inspiring to oh god when are those terrible singers GOING TO LEAVE already.) This realization was generally followed by the approach of an excited child begging us to to sing "Rudolph," the main reason why that particular song slipped from being my all time favorite song like ever (when I was five; I LOVED it) to my most hated Christmas song of all time (I don't quite think it's reached my most hated song of all time, since, well, lots of competition there) because I just had to sing the song waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy too often since how can you say no to a little kid squeaking "RUDOLPH RUDOLPH RUDOLPH!"?
Anyway, I had yet another nostalgic moment. It does appear to be the week of that kinda thing -- even some of my dreams last night had a decidedly nostalgic twinge. The holidays, I suspect, and on that note, happy Hannukah to all of you and may everyone gain lots of calories on latkes.
(For new readers, I am an agnostic equal opportunity stealer of various winter holidays.)
And while we're on this subject, a repeat of my still-favorite flash mob entertainment thing:
Watching this, two different thoughts popped into my head:
1) I guess the "stand the second you hear even the first few notes of the Hallelujah Chorus," drummed into me at a young age, is fading now? Or is that just at full concert performances of the Messiah, where people start scuffling and standing up even before anyone bursts into song? Or just perhaps the people at the mall figured they didn't want to stand up against the singers.
2) As some of you know, for years I used to stroll around malls at the holiday season, caroling, and one of the things that always got me, no matter how long I'd been doing it, was the way bored and irritated expressions suddenly turned into, "Huh, they are really singing! It's not just a lousy recording!" (The problem with mall caroling is that the sound varies tremendously depending upon the acoustics of the particular corner or bit you are walking through, which in turn dramatically changes your sound from lifechanging and all inspiring to oh god when are those terrible singers GOING TO LEAVE already.) This realization was generally followed by the approach of an excited child begging us to to sing "Rudolph," the main reason why that particular song slipped from being my all time favorite song like ever (when I was five; I LOVED it) to my most hated Christmas song of all time (I don't quite think it's reached my most hated song of all time, since, well, lots of competition there) because I just had to sing the song waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy too often since how can you say no to a little kid squeaking "RUDOLPH RUDOLPH RUDOLPH!"?
Anyway, I had yet another nostalgic moment. It does appear to be the week of that kinda thing -- even some of my dreams last night had a decidedly nostalgic twinge. The holidays, I suspect, and on that note, happy Hannukah to all of you and may everyone gain lots of calories on latkes.
(For new readers, I am an agnostic equal opportunity stealer of various winter holidays.)
And while we're on this subject, a repeat of my still-favorite flash mob entertainment thing: