12 ms·
I can't imagine many things worse than being famous. I guess if you are the kind of super-rich where you can completely avoid interacting with the rest of socie
by noneeeed 2y ago
I can't imagine many things worse than being famous. I guess if you are the kind of super-rich where you can completely avoid interacting with the rest of society that it would be fine, but not being able to just walk down the street or go to the pub without someone stopping you must get tedious.
The kind of quiet fame that Lehrer managed, known to a smallish segment of the population, for being really good at something, and then going off and living a normal life sounds pretty great to me.
As much as I love the maths based songs, my favourites are still Oedipus Rex and The Vatican Rag.
Tom Lehrer and Flanders & Swann were the musical background to my childhood. If you enjoy Lehrer you might enjoy F&L too.
While they don't have the science/maths background that makes Lehrer an obvious win for the HN crowd, F&Ls songs were razor sharp satires of the time. One or two have not aged so well, but most are great, although knowing a bit of British history helps. Like Lehrer they wrote songs about the insanity of war, nuclear weapons, and prejudice (A Song of Patriotic Prejudice is an awkward listen because of the terms used, but a great representation of English exceptionalism in the post colonial era).
- BizarroLand 2y agoMy favorite will always be poisoning pigeons in the park, introduced to me courtesy of Dr. Demento. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY
- fragmede 2y agoThe sun is a misama of incandescent plasma, by They Might be Giants for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA A 2009 follow-up to their original song from 1993, the sun song, in which they erroneously claimed the sun is a mass of incandescent gas, to weigh the follow-up song is a correction.
- 082349872349872 2y agoMy current song pedantry fave is Nanobot, perfected by a video with 18 numbered [refs]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvxPSQNMGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvxPSQNMGc (presumably Brian May would have had his phases of astral matter correct in the first set of lyrics?)
- riedel 2y agoI only knew the Austrian 'version' by Georg Kreisler [0] and only now learned about Lehrer now. Thanks. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Kreisler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Kreisler
- sophacles 2y agoMr Lehrer's treatment of Oedipus is one of my recent favorites. For the last few centuries it's usally approached in either and overly-serious or ham-fistedly humorous way - very tiresome.
- ska 2y ago> While they don't have the science/maths background that makes Lehrer an obvious win for the HN crowd, True, but they did one on thermodynamics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnbiVw_1FNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnbiVw_1FNs
- noneeeed 2y agoI'd forgotten about that one, absolute classic.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago>> I can't imagine many things worse than being famous "I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." -- Bill Murray