The Sound of the Crowd

Context, connection and Song Styles

Context:

[An] interdisciplinary conference, organised by the University of Melbourne, will examine the superhero in all.

A comic book convention by any other name. As a certain smart kid said on a similar occasion…

I suspect they are on some level involved justifications for academics…

BtVS, like academia, attracts an audience of nerds (I include myself) and nerds can be very single-minded. Surprised to have found themselves drawn to a television series about a blonde who slays vampires, the academics and philosophers convince themselves that it must be more than that.</i>

Connection.

Topics to be dissected at the conference, which starts on Thursday, includes a comparison of the rival universes of the comic book publishers, DC and Marvel, and the primal appeal of California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an exemplar of action-hero politician come to life.

Well, we’re looking at the cover,

We’re spending all our time

Just staring at the magazine.

Well, look who’s on the cover

Wasting all our time,

Some pseudo-fascist hero machine.

Well, that’s no space for a human being.

That man is not a hero or saint.

When somewhere in deepest America

Grown men weep at the sound of his name.

So it goes and it goes…

–Figures On A Beach, “Accidentally 4th. St. (gloria)”


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