What's your cultural "blind spot"?

[Jessicatmagnificat]

Read somewhere this week about a game called "humiliation" in which you confess to famous classics you haven't read or finished. That got me thinking about my cultural blindspots in general.

Mine's opera. I just don't get it or like what I've heard. That makes me sound like a real philistine, especially as DH's father sang for the ROH.

And my cultural shame would be - chick lit. At the moment, one of my greatest pleasures is to have an hour to myself with a glass of wine and a trashy novel in which the heroine struggles, but always gets her man.

Stockhausen - dh (long before he was dh) and I went to a concert of contemp music, most of which was lively & interesting - and then, and then, it was time for ...

Stimmung

• silent sneaking exits are tricky enough, but when you are snorting hysterically it is hopeless

I've never been to a ballet - would quite like to but I think my feminist analysis function would go into overdrive.

I really didn't get ballet and that was with the FA switched off.

harpsi you make me laugh

I had a mate whose girlfriend used to insist on shagging to Wagner

she was odd

apparently I was a refreshing change...

Mmm...Harrison Birtwistle.

I used to live in a basement flat with some very noisy people in the flat above. Once they were having a very late dinner party which was a bit annoying and in the early hours of the morning there was an enormous crash as what I can only imagine was an entire cutlery drawer hit the deck.

DH (who was not DH then and was fast asleep) sat bolt upright and said "Dear God...to add insult to injury they've also invited Harrison Birtwistle round"...and then went straight back to sleep.

Oh I quite like Wagner. apart from Tristran and Isolde, which is like very very bad sex that goes on and on and never reaches any discernible climax

lol at Harrison Birtwhistle and the Cutlery Drawer Ensemble
and Stockhausen in the labour ward
I must say dd2's piano playing always puts me in mind of Philip Glass for some reason

For me it is philosohpy and ancient texts, such as Homer.
My DP is always raving about books he's read but I just don't have the time , or frankly the interest, to get through them.

Chick lit is not a sin! It's no worse than reading a magazine. Although these days I prefer easy to read books that aren't quite so mindless.

I hate that you are expected to have read these classics.
I found 1984 a bit of a bore. I understand it was a very exctiing book, and shocking a context in it's time, but it is just too overdone now.

"long periods of practicing humming"

god exactly

The only other thing we have crawled out of was indeed Harrison Birtwhistle. Anchovy I do think your dh is funny (or maybe you are a gifted anecdoteur)

Are we saying what we do like? I really love modern dance of the athletic-acrobatic kind, with solid ideas & to good music - like Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane - but I'm so ignorant I don't know how to work out who does that nowadays (and would be very put off if I went to something on spec and it wasn't right - eg I do not rate Mark Morris). Is anyone knowledgeable enough to tell me what I should be seeing?

One of my personal choral blind spots (actually deaf spots as I never knew when to come in):
George Benjamin Sometime Voices (1996)
baritone solo, SATB chorus and orchestra
Duration 9 minutes
Text: from ?The Tempest? William Shakespeare
3(=picc+III=afl).3.3(III=bcl).2.cbsn - 4.3(I=ptpt).3.1-
timp - perc(4): 3 xyl/timp/tam-t/2 BD/3 glsp - cel -
2 harp - mandolin - banjo - strings
Commissioned for the opening concerts of the
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Nine minutes of nothing (I can't even remember the banjo)!

Why, thank you Bink. I happen to think he would like you too, because you have a tendency to file the old Ocado orders/receipts

banjo?
wot, no kazoo?

Sondheim. Dreadful.

Art and poetry. I honestly can't distinguish between fine art/poetry and crap. Sorry!

You should try SINGING contemporary stuff without laughing - I remember a humiliating experience in a concert when as one of 4 sops, I got the giggles along with all the other sops and the conductor, and we couldn't sing another note....

Dh doesn't get modern art. he went to an exhibtion in a cathedral cloister, one of the exhibits was some piles of white boxes, all stacked on top of each other very neatly. He turned every other box so the corners were above the sides (can you visualise that?) on all the piles. And then left.

Fantasy novels
some type of really clever/radical theatre plays.

and virginia woolf

blindspot -art
shame - porn

that was dh.

in reality my blindspot is probably theatre - like it in principle but never go.
my shame is Hello etc magazines. never buy them but pounce on them in waiting rooms