Posted on 12/20/2007 7:49:15 AM PST by Borges
A little night music seems too much for pushers, loiterers at two minimarts.
At two minimarkets in Sacramento, Beethoven has been enlisted to do what no beat cop could do: drive off loiterers, panhandlers and drug dealers. For good.
In two separate cases, the Sacramento Superior Court has told markets identified as trouble spots by police to play music known to discourage loitering – classical music.
Reviews of the violin concertos – to be audible for 25 feet around the store, the orders say – are mixed at the Oak Park and Lawrence Park convenience stores. Police and city officials say the music is effective, along with other security upgrades.
While the tactic has been used around the world, some academics see its backing by a court as a cultural assault, similar to thumping panhandlers with a hefty volume of Shakespeare.
"I think it's a coercive act and it makes a mockery of our idea of classical music as a great cultural tradition," said Robert Fink, a UCLA associate professor of musicology. "It would be like reading 'to be or not to be' through a bull horn."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Classical Music PING
I know of a convenience store that had issues of teenagers hanging around the store, scaring away customers. One day they started playing classical music outside the store on loudspeakers. Their loitering problem vanished overnight.
Heh. They’ll end up with middle aged men and the choir ladies loitering around drinking diet slurpies.
I go to Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts frequently and see quite a few young people there. It’s really a canard that Serious music appeals only to the elderly and staid.
Oh, I started going to the orchestra when I was young. Went with a college cheerleader, red hair, tall but so light. But now I’m “elderly and staid.”
I’m betting the young people you see at the symphony are not hanging out at convenience stores when they are not soaking in live orchestral music.
So, you would be about 45 years and 5 months old? (The number of days was too hard for me to figure out, what with leap years, etc.)
Happy Birthday, I think.
Did you know that Nicolette was married to a very good drummer, Russ Kunkel?
For some reason, I’ve outlived 9 friends or cousins that died at my age or younger. I don’t know why. Must be my diet of wine and cheese and loud rock and roll. Plus I avoid “health food”.
“... Out of ivory palaces stringed
instruments have made You glad.”
(Psalm 45:8)
Let the whining begin!
Playing classical music at YOUR store where people VOLUNTARILY patronize is a coercive act. What a twit. And how typical for the Sac Flea to go to a musicology teacher for an opinion.
I think the musicologist meant coercion in the cultural sense not material. What’s wrong with asking a musicologist an opinion about a given use of music?
BTW: This is yet another example of the Masonic plot to take over America. Remember that the Magic Flute is merely code for the brother Masons to communicate their message of world domination.
It would have made more sense to interview cops and business owners only, not get some bogus "other side" of a nonissue.
His opinion was strictly as to the cultural impact os using great music in this manner. He wasn’t talking about the legal ramifications. A musicological perspective on this issue is quite relevant and not the ‘other side’.
Nicolette Larson died too young but I hope to live long enough to have the tagline "I am 49 days away from outliving George Burns."
“I hope to live long enough to have the tagline “I am 49 days away from outliving George Burns.”
I hope so too. Good luck. We need all the intelligent, informed conservatives we can get.
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