I wish I could talk to Collin about this.

I went to the symphony this weekend with a friend, having bought the tickets a week ago on a manic spending binge from which I am now recovering. The theme of the evening was to imitate the style of the Boston Pops Orchestra, arranging orchestral versions of current music.

Well, "current" for the symphony-going set apparently means "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog", but it was enjoyable. The conductor began with a narration of how the concept of a pops orchestra began in 18th and 19th century Vienna, when that city was essentially the cultural capital of Europe.

It interested me that the city through which practically all of Europe's leading philosophers, scientists, and artists passed for 200 years should now be so seldom heard about. It's certainly not a ruin or a backwater or anything, but it's not the intellectual engine of Western civilization, either.

They played several pieces from this Viennese golden age, followed immediately by a series of iconically American jazz and swing pieces from the 1930s, and I couldn't help wondering what will be remembered of our culture when the spotlight leaves, as it did for the Habsburgs.

Placed as it was, right alongside Mozart and Strauss, the American music seemed to epitomize what it means to be an American--or what it used to mean, or what it ought to mean, depending whom you ask--but it was bold, and brash, and living; the product of exuberant freedom and a unique convergence of cultures. I decided that if that's how we're remembered, it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I doubt Benny Goodman or Count Basie thought of themselves as the voice of any big ideas; but maybe that's why it's believable. The best artistic expression is hardly aware of itself. The orchestra played "The Stars and Stripes Forever", for which I had no special feelings--but "Sing, Sing, Sing" made me love my country.

Interesting that a nation that thinks of itself as more open, free, and liberal than it used to be, should now have so much to say about angst, frustration, alienation, and fatalism (and that's the good music)--to say nothing of the maudlin pop ballads and commercial jingles we churn out daily.

Maybe in the long run, we'll find that there were some "greats" operating today, and we just have to wait for history to kill all the noise around them. Or maybe our ridiculous pop icons will become enshrined in our consciousness like the Beatles, and in 2040 bearded college professors will hold classes discussing the political significance and artistic merit of Pink and the Jonas Brothers.

(And yes, I do think it's a fair comparison. Have you listened to the Beatles?)

--Kevin