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Right now I'm listening to a podcast of Pacific Drift, a SoCal culturally-themed radio program from KPCC. This weeks' episode has a piece about Long Now featuring Eno, followed by a piece about Long Now-er Danny Hillis and woodworker Sam Maloof - mixed in with all sorts of other cool features. I'm new to podcasts but I got up-and-running in <10 minutes. In general I've been getting a lot of audio [via BB] including some MP3s of some great old radio shows like Flash Gordon and Amos 'n Andy from Radio Memories. Right now I'm downloading a live broadcast of the Normandy Invasion. Amos 'n Andy is noteworthy because it was the first radio show to have continuous story arcs - stories that threaded accross episodes. Steven Johnson identifies this as one of the hallmarks of increasingly complex pop culture - he traces serialization from current primetime dramas like West Wing [as opposed to prime-time drama of twenty years ago, like Dallas, which was much less complex] back to soap operas, back to Charles Dickens. According to Johnson, another hallmark of increasingly complex pop culture is the tendency towards obscure references - for example in the Simpsons. I'd like to see where he would place shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Walt Kelly's Pogo, and A Night at the Opera. And, he also discusses reality shows like The Apprentice, as examples of experience that excercise our social intelligence - again, I'd be curious to see how he addresses a comic like George Herriman's Krazy Kat? Anomalous? |