birding-aus

Blue-faced Beethoven and sacrificial pigeons

To: "Scot Mcphee" <>, "michael hunter" <>
Subject: Blue-faced Beethoven and sacrificial pigeons
From: "Bill Stent" <>
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 14:54:04 +1100
I don't know, I suspect that the sight and sound of someone torturing
pigeons to Beethoven could be considered a Dada Installation.

Bill


-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Scot Mcphee
Sent: Tuesday, 4 December 2007 2:44 PM
To: michael hunter
Cc: Birding Aus
Subject: Blue-faced Beethoven and sacrificial pigeons


On 04-12-2007, at 11:40 AM, michael hunter wrote:

> What about the sacrificial pigeons Scot?

Well, I would hazard that being in a predator/prey relationship is a
perfectly natural order. After all, the individual pigeon does have a
chance of escape from the predator. The major problem I would have with
it is mostly about the propagation of a feral species (I assume here
that 'pigeons' means 'rock doves'), and a general one about the impact
of agriculture on native species. So, yes it's concerning, however I
don't think it's on the same level of personal culpability as the
rock-chucker, who was only doing it because it upset his sense of
aesthetics (a mere trifle compared to the life and death matters of
human food supply, no?).

Additionally, and I didn't say this straight up because I thought it
would be too much of a distraction - I think the rock-chucker displays a
terribly stuffy view of  "fine music" whereby it has an entirely
fossilised relationship to the space it is performed in - contrast, for
example, to John Cage's 4'33".

Which is to say I not only have an issue to the behaviour as it concerns
cruelty to an animal and disturbance (in both counts) of a native
animal's natural behaviour but also I have an aesthetic objection as
well - it reduces nature to merely a passive visual "backdrop" over
which music is performed. A most curious reaction to a performance of
Beethoven, one of the greatest Romantic composers!
Romanticism, as anyone who has seen a Caspar David Friedrich painting
should be able to attest, most certainly does NOT think of nature as a
merely passive recipient of man's actions - quite the reverse, it's all
about the sublime, untamed, natural elements that overwhelm man and his
intellect. And here we have a person who thinks he can appreciate
"Beethoven" in a natural setting while driving off the untamed natural
elements he deliberately chooses to set the performance in. In other
words, an intellectual pygmy of the highest degree.

regs,
scot.







===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
===============================
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
=============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU