Death of a Cello

As traditional forms of media and entertainment have become fragmented with the arrival of easy upload online videos, so has the mainstream tastes and preferences become more diverse. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, George Lucas described today's Internet content as circus-like and similar to the zeitgeist of the Romans feeding Christians to the Lions.
Stupid pet tricks, karaoke tapes, cartoons; anything obscene, obscure, meant to shock and offend, all of which I think are fine forms of entertainment but I do wish that content like this at least have developed ideas when they're strapped to the budget of a handheld.

For example, a little video titled Death of a Cello seems to be circulating around the MySpace string community. The premise, as the white title blocks explain to us,"What do you do...When the Music Stops." A brief synopsis: we are witness to three kids who take turns blasting away at a cello until no more. If you don't believe me, you can follow the thread of comments at the MySpace Group "Violinists Unite" posting of the video or click onto the earlier link if you have a MySpace.

Give people what they want, as the Roman Emperors did, may mean give the kids some guns so they can shoot out their musical frustration on a such "uncool" instrument. Better yet, there's always some kind of allure of destruction. Sure it was "cool" to see the neck splinter, top pop off, just like the car wrecks that we can't seem to turn away from. But in a matter of seconds, what for? and why? Why such a death of content after a climatic timing of the sound track that ended with some random line, "For the American tourist bastards." It's stuff like this, where I have to wonder, what was the point of it?

Although I found this video to be of cheap amusement, the point is that it was meant to be shared where its true content of destructive entertainment could be realized and appreciated among friends with similar tastes and preferences to its creator. I certainly can't explain to you 'why' these forms of Internet content are the ones in the limelight. Leave that job to a social commentator or talking head on t.v.

Grant it, this blog is about the shop life couldn't resist in a little commentary of how Internet content is affecting the string world.