I sat down to my computer this morning after having had a tummy-filling green smoothie. As I am want to do, I tuned into my go to classical music FM station in order to suffuse the room with snooty background tunes as I type.
But instead of playing what generous subscribers pay to hear, the station host launched into a reading written by an effete intellectual who penned a reflection on a famous opera singer. The reading, done in the host's best ASMR-inducing voice, was riddled with otherworldly adjectives, such as "ethereal," "cerebral," "transcendental", and so on.
Not that I mind listening to discourse that works the less used muscles of my brain, but what struck me about this was the lengths to which the reading went; only an elite patron of the esoteric arts could keep up. It brought to mind, "I may not know art, but I know what I like," since I was familiar with the singer and enjoyed his voice.
So being the occasional snarky soul that I am, I questioned why it was necessary to employ such arcane, dare I say, highbrow, efforts at language to set one apart from the great unwashed. After all, the subject was the gifted talent of an opera virtuoso; but given the lofty verse of the reading, one would think we were appraising Jesus himself on the stage of the Met singing La donna e mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto. And even I would think a similar review of him could be overdone.
I wondered. Is the language of the elite in place to maintain some lordly impenetrable status reserved for but a few of the culturally enlightened? Or could it simply be verbal masturbation, an effort to make one feel supremely satisfied with how well he or she comprehends such supercilious prattle?
Whatever the reason, my advice to the proud is simple: Lighten up. Subscribers give donations to hear classical music, good jazz, and even listen to Garrison Keillor read poetry. (Or so I hope.) As for me, I still enjoy my public radio station; and if I want to have my mind boggled by cryptic over-the-top artsy-fartsy drivel, I can always enroll in a college psychology class.
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