Low (1 Viewer)

[path]

This is taken from the [isolated] path:


...A satan spawn of Cultural Referencing is retro-referencing. This hasnt taken the same form as the modern day version as
nobody can really remember lines from TV programmes from ten or fifteen years ago. But the horrible thing is people do
still remember the programmes themselves. So now everyone can relive their (wasted) youth by harping on about the likes
of Battle of the Planets, Auf Wiedersehn Pet, Cheers, MacGyver, Thirtysomething, Sport Billy, Fame, 21 Jump Street,
Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galatica, the A-Team, and any other hour-long muck that was screened on Saturday afternoons
on ITV. People discuss these programmes at length; the characters, the plots, how they spent hours as a child watching
them. This depresses me no end: to think that summer and Saturday childhoods were occupied in front of a flashing screen.
Much more enjoyment was to be had disappearing out of the house at 9am and wandering back to the street as it was
getting dark twelve hours later, with grassy knees and bloodied elbows, mothers frantically searching the green for their
kids. If I didnt come back home with at least one serious open cut and four or five picked open pus-ridden scabs from the
previous weeks exertions then I'd have considered the day a waste.

You are an intelligent individual with a life, friends, family, interests, pastimes. Your own memories are better than
television’s manufactured memories, or at least they should be, for fucks sake...


more of the same is viewable at:

http://gurlpages.com/the.path

new issue up there soon, [optical].

regards

 

[John]

You are an intelligent individual with a life, friends, family, interests, pastimes. Your own memories are better than
television’s manufactured memories, or at least they should be, for fucks sake...

_______________________________


Pah!
The simple fact of the matter is that most kids DID spend at least as much time vegging out in front of the Tv as they did running around grazing their knees, jersies for goalposts, enduring image isn't it, etc. If you really strain, you'll probably remember tons of utterly boring days with nothing to do from your childhood as well. This is Ireland. There were, in fact, rainy days. You're over romanticising, as well as assuming that everybody on this forum still holds teevee in the same godlike regard as when they were seven.

Inspector Gadget never fooled me for a fucking second.

 

[snap-apple]

John - YES!
I mean so what if we happen to enjoy remembering some aspect of our childhood. Well, rose tinted specs and all that - whoever wrote that article obviously thinks our lives would have been better served if we'd spent all day running around grazing our knees, getting soaked in the rain and helping grannies across the road. smacks of somebody who grew up down the country without the brit channels (and before the country boys get on me case I spent a deal of my childhood in Mayo turning hay, milking cows and stacking turf - eughgueegh).

"television’s manufactured memories"

Well - television nowadays isn't putting memories in my mind if that's what you mean - i've not seen much these days referencing that 70's/80's stuff anyways - these are my own memories phosphor-burned into my squeenchy ickle eyeballs.

"the likes of Auf Wiedersehn Pet, Cheers, MacGyver, Thirtysomething, Sport Billy, Fame, 21 Jump Street, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galatica, the A-Team"

Most of which were shit (21 jump street) and yeah, anyone that watched all these probably was overdoing it a tad. we were talking about 20-min long episodes of fraggle rock etc.

"So now everyone can relive their (wasted) youth "

I say i spent equal parts of my childhood mountain climbing, playing footie, camping, swimming, getting the shit kicked out of me etc. as watching TV so where's the harm in looking back on some of those TV programs with the same fondness as remembering any other day of your life?

I hate to say it but whoever wrote that article was probably bullied/deprived in some way to refer to it all as a "satan spawn of Cultural Referencing". Sure this whole site is based around cultural reference - this is how people decide who they can communicate with. If you feel left out and begrudge us - bog off. You saying we must all have pure uninfluenced thoughts and disown technology? Me mates were all chuffed when I emailed them the Bod music - where's the evil in that? what are we supposed to do - only chat about current affairs, religion and politics that have no real relevance to us in day-to-day terms? Once again - fuck the begrudgers!

rant over.

 

[path]

Conor (13-02-2001 03:58 p.m.):

I mean excuse fucking me

.. Before any more incorrect (ass/pres)umptions are posted about me or what I had written, I will direct you to the article in its totality, by reading it you may understand what I meant by 'Cultural Referencing' (which admittedly was an incorrect monicker for the TV-spawned 'pastime' which I abhor) and the context in which the previous comments about 'retro-referencing' were made.

http://gurlpages.com/the.path/isolated.html

If people are interested, the previous and subsequent issues of the freesheet are there.. and maybe after reading it they can make their own judgements if something 'smacks' of one place or another (cf. "suburban").. and even if it did, is geographical location that important at any rate as to a persons antipathic views towards television?

regards.

 

[marc]

so that clears that up then. when i thought i was having fun, i was really packing in false memories so that twenty years down the line i could indulge in retro referencing on internet message boards. damn those false memories.

 

[#10-7]

hmmnnn...

i like remembering. its harmless.
nostalgia is obviously bullsh*t.

i saw knight rider the other day. what a load of bollox.

but the memories connected to knight rider (i used to watch it before i had a shower and went to bed when i was a kid, yes on itv, yes on saturday...)

i don't agree with mr Path, what a person thinks is drawn on past experiences which influence decisions and opinions, and therefore if anything anyone says is analysed deeply, a certain amount of bullshit nostalgia will appear, but when they do what are ye gonna do?

i think my crazy addiction to those pineapple 'roy of the rovers' bars has something to do with this chat eh?

so 'low' are coming to the olympia then?

 

[snap-apple]

path, if you hate TV you should just say so and save us having to read your biased drivvel. what lorcanzo says is right - most of these programs seem shite when you look at them now. I suppose it's just that we didn't hate TV when we were younger and look back on these programs the same way you look back at grazing your knees and having scabrous wounds - which I can definitely say I didn't enjoy - does this warrant me writing some tripe about how running around and having scraps is inherently wrong? Not a bit - so please understand that your hatred of TV as a youngster seems a wee bit alien to us and if it make you feel any better I can come around and give you a few scrapes and bruises sometime in an effort to relive your childhood

 

[treelo]

i agree with john mostly - remembering programmes watched on tv on rainy days is basically the same as remembering days spent running around outside or playing board games before bed. it's all *retro-referencing* in one way or other. i remember the A-Team because i used to only ever watch it in my grannys. i remember Macgyver because he was the first guy i ever had a crush on. i remember playing Game of Life because my sister used to always win. i don't remember the tv shows because the plotlines were great, and i don't remember the board games because they were particularly clever or well designed. i remember them because of the people and events that i associate with them, and there's not one bleedin thing wrong with that.
but there's nothing wrong with anyone giving an opinion to the contrary either, and telling them to fuck off if they don't like or agree with things written here is the start of a baaad line of criticism. i've read all the path articles, and whatever about the opinions expressed, they're definitely not 'biased drivel'. making personal assumptions about the author is equally unfair.
maybe i would've been a (physically) healthier kid if i hadn't watched tv, but it didn't fry my brain or atrophy my muscles or damage my family relations. a memory is a memory, and if retro-referencing is nothing more than recalling that memory, then fuck it - path's site is one of the best reference points i've ever seen.

 

[snap-apple]

"telling them to fuck off if they don't like or agree with things written here is the start of a baaad line of criticism. i've read all the path articles, and whatever about the opinions expressed, they're definitely not 'biased drivel'. making personal assumptions about the author is equally unfair. "


right ok sorry i got carried away. he is of course entitled to his opinion but if path does hate all TV then his views/opinions ARE biased. he is TV-phobic - implying a bias. how can you make a constructive argument when you hold a grudge? this bias and begrudgery is why i said fuck off, not because he was disagreeing with my views. and ok yes its not cool to make personal assumptions about someone but as he seems to be one of the few who do hate this retro-referencing of TV programs i was just trying to come up with a few reasons why? everyone else's faces light up when you mention these things... bless

 

[snap-apple]

but getting back to the point - the new low album is loverly. some of the more mellow bits are very akin to some of the stuff on Yo La Tengo's last album. anyone know how low managed to get the lyrics onto the vinyl like that - did they get a press to do it? nice idea.

 

[egg_]

Jesus, Conor. Relax a bit will ya - path wasn't directing personal insults at you. John's response was reasonable ... you're flying off the handle a bit

 

[snap-apple]

yeah sorry path - I have a tendancy to do that - but you wounded my inner child

 

[egg_]

Ooops

 

[germ]

i think what path is getting at is the (recent?) phenomenon of replacing any sort of meaningful interaction between people with a glut of reference-points and cultural detritus. people who could and should be getting to know one another and learning about who they are, are instead spending their time having conversations which revolve around quotes from the simpsons, friends, frasier, buffy, news at ten, and whatever else has cultural currency. the quality of people's mutual interaction is what suffers - they are willing to have their cultural lives replaced, usurped even, by drip-feed tv 'culture'. the point about referencing is that people who do this are also prone to retro-referencing; i leave it up to the board to decide why, after exhausting their supply of tv culture, these people simply dig further in, rather than try to engage with eachother.

i sat down and watched 'i love 1983', and i thought the 'knight rider' clips were fantastic. but when retro-referencing replaces interaction, rather than being an aid to it, it becomes useless, mind-numbing clutter.

the whole point about retro-referencing is that it makes you part of a club; you get to reminisce with a certain select group about something that doesn't have currency in a wider context. but when everyone is in the gang, there's no point in the gang existing... when retro is simply another way for people to get their faces on television (eg 'i love 1983', again), it's no longer a bonding act but becomes instead an alienating act.

which leads me to speculate... maybe, twenty years from now, there will be retro-referencing about all those hideous retro-referencing programmes that they had in 2000/2001. remember them? with b-list telly presenters doing anything to get their 15 minutes of fame? ha! those were the days.

 

[Keeror]

But back to the Fraggles:

There were two human characters in different serieseses of the Fraggles - the guy who lived in the lighthouse and the guy who didn't.
But they both had the same muppet dog.

Why was that?

And did Uncle Travelling Matt ever make it home?

And how 'bout that ALF?

 

[germ]

i think what path is getting at is the (recent?) phenomenon of replacing any sort of meaningful interaction between people with a glut of reference-points and cultural detritus. people who could and should be getting to know one another and learning about who they are, are instead spending their time having conversations which revolve around quotes from the simpsons, friends, frasier, buffy, news at ten, and whatever else has cultural currency. the quality of people's mutual interaction is what suffers - they are willing to have their cultural lives replaced, usurped even, by drip-feed tv 'culture'. the point about referencing is that people who do this are also prone to retro-referencing; i leave it up to the board to decide why, after exhausting their supply of tv culture, these people simply dig further in, rather than try to engage with eachother.
i sat down and watched 'i love 1983', and i thought the 'knight rider' clips were fantastic. but when retro-referencing replaces interaction, rather than being an aid to it, it becomes useless, mind-numbing clutter.

the whole point about retro-referencing is that it makes you part of a club; you get to reminisce with a certain select group about something that doesn't have currency in a wider context. but when everyone is in the gang, there's no point in the gang existing... when retro is simply another way for people to get their faces on television (eg 'i love 1983', again), it's no longer a bonding act but becomes instead an alienating act.

which leads me to speculate... maybe, twenty years from now, there will be retro-referencing about all those hideous retro-referencing programmes that they had in 2000/2001. remember them? with b-list telly presenters doing anything to get their 15 minutes of fame? ha! those were the days.

 

[krystal]

Germ - it's when people use cultural referencing as a means of judging others coolness and/or wackkiness factor and yes, based on what they say, allowing them into their gang, then it starts to get worrying - if only for the fact that it's pretty fucking exhausting trying to talk in soundbites all the time. And anyway, you can't trust peoples memories about things that were on in the 80's cos the internet is there to fill in the gaps now, so it's not really a good basis on which to form snobby 'wanna be in my gang' assumptions really.

Nothing wrong with reminiscing about childhood telly shows, it's actually the sort of thing people bond over, common memories etc. It's not like we're wanting to set up a Star Trek style saddos club where we all dress like McGyver once a week and make dry ice out of some packing tape and a packet of fizzy rocks. Would it be any different if this thread was a discussion of gigs we all saw 10 years ago? We'd still be referencing things that happened years ago.

But Alf bit the big one. I hated him like I hate Sister Sister.

 

[#10-7]

low's lyrics printed on to the vinyl? thats very good. i remember i....oops! not allowed remember on this board are we? sorry!... i mean.. i'm sure in the past.. oh sorry.. no past either... eh.. no i'm stumped....
i think..er..that that idea is good...er.. however not being able to reference it to anything i wouldn't know.....

n' stuff.

 

[pete]

Keeror (14-02-2001 11:21 a.m.):
But back to the Fraggles:

There were two human characters in different serieseses of the Fraggles - the guy who lived in the lighthouse and the guy who didn't.
But they both had the same muppet dog.

Why was that?

Fraggle rock was franchised out around the world, with each territory getting to make their own "human + sprocket the dog" bit - the RTE version was in fact the original USA version, while the UTV (or was it BBC?) one was customised for a UK audience. The same thing happened on the continent too.

 

[krystal]

Wow, really? I didn't know that, but then, my parents banned cable when I was 9 or so, on grounds of it wasting too much of time we could be spending doing improving things such as reading, getting our knees skinned, being bullied by other kids, going to fucking speech and drama classes etc etc etc.

And if I am allowed to reminisce about a record from a totally different decade, isn't that Dinosaur Jr Fossils 12" engraved on one side? As is one of Skull Kontrols, I think - I could be wrong, but there's definitely some Chris Thompson related record that has one side with drawin's on.