Comments on: Ten Pieces of Inspiration #37

By: Creede

Creede — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:48:45 +0000

If you’re a fan of “Linus and Lucy,” check out the version on the inimitable Béla Fleck and the Flecktones’ album “Jingle All The Way.” Fleck does a version on banjo that sounds both very familiar and weirdly different. You’ll also get the most unusual version of “Jingle Bells” you’ll ever hear, with Fleck and the Flecktones joined by a group of Tuvan throat singers. It’s a Christmas album for people who love Christmas albums, and it’s a Christmas album for people who hate Christmas albbums.

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:51:44 +0000

I love Linus & Lucy! In my book it’s the ultimate happy music. I used to work at Nordstrom, back in the days when there was live music every day in every store. One of our pianists would play this for me on Sunday mornings. First he’d do a Gospel set, including my favorite hymn. To indicate that the set was over and that he was heading back toward the “official” playlist, he’d play one last song for me: Linus & Lucy. To this day, it never fails to make me smile.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:31:09 +0000

OK, Brittany, in your minute corner of America there are bananas for sale in the farm market which are locally grown, you’re one up on me. I wish I was where you live instead of facing a bleak winter in the NE!!!! If you want bananas in most of America, you can’t buy local bananas at your farm market. You must pay mega corporations to lug bananas from tropic climates inpensively and in the purchase price you pay for bananas included not only the money for banana cultivators and harvesters, cost to transport the bananas to and inside America, and money for stores to display and sell them, to cover all the spoilage and a profit for those who own the companies which do the work. We can have cheap bananas in America, all corners of America, because of the sophisticated marketing and displays of stores, and the strength and efficiency of American big business.

By: Brittany

Brittany — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 02:26:46 +0000

Nitpicking alert! I live in America, Deruiter, and there are bananas growing right outside my window.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:14:55 +0000

Nitpicking alert! “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is from 1965, not 1962.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:11:27 +0000

The whole point of selling anything is to take money from people who have it and give them in exchange things which you have but do not want so much as you want their money. Trent doesn’t offer two articles a day out of the goodness of his heart, he is offering them in exchange for as many “hits” as possible which are then turned into money as the “hits” are “sold” in a fashion to those who advertise on his site. If Trent cranks out interesting articles, he makes money (marketing and display). If he doesn’t offer a good product in a display which people want to read, he doesn not get money. Businesses, from the yard sale or corner hot dog man, to Ralph Lauren, Microsoft and Apple, are in business to first make money for owners / shareholders. They display their merchandise and market it in order to exchange the merchandise for money. Whole Paycheck takes advantage of snob appeal and the lack of sophisitcation of the public with their cornball pseudo farm market approach. Clever of them. Go to a real American farmer or farm stand if you want real food, but you won’t get local tomatoes in January, bananas ever, or totally symmetrical fruit and vegetables which you will get at a large chain grocery.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:02:37 +0000

Whole Foods, and every other store which wishes to stay in business, engages in marketing and display. A multi million dollar business can afford to hire sophisticated, talented, educated people to market their products and to create displays which encourage the buyers to buy. Fashion is totally unnecessary, but Ralph Lauren and his ilk spend millions to display and market things not so useful as food. Think of RL’s country scenes, models perched on horses they don’t know how to ride, golden retrievers, log homes, polo matches. All marketing and display!

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:14:27 +0000

#1 Steven – One problem with statistics like that is that it’s usually an average, and I believe this often-quoted one is from a poll of people who were reporting how many hours their TV is on in a day (a lot of people use one as background noise and aren’t actually just sitting in front of one watching it). Those people who literally have the TV on every waking hour (I have several friends who do this, even when hosting guests) heavily skew the results.

And I find the title of that talk misleading. TV may reflect the nation’s conscience or zeitgeist, but it doesn’t have a conscience. Simply put, as Trent would say, programming that gets on the air reflects what the industry and advertisers (consciously or subconsciously) think will sell more products.

By: Steven

Steven — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:47:03 +0000

I, too, call it the idiot box. I was actually surprised by her statistic that the average American watches 5 hours of TV a day. A DAY!? Wow!

Imagine what we could accomplish if we just turned off the stupid TV. And our computers. And our cell phones…

If we used that time to do something productive, I can’t even imagine how much better off each of our lives would be. Five hours a day!? Geez!