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Pastimes : A CENTURY OF LIONS/THE 20TH CENTURY TOP 100
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To: w molloy who wrote (372)10/18/1999 5:56:00 PM
From: Raymond Clutts  Read Replies (3) of 3246
 
As hackneyed as it may be, the concept the belief that the 20th Century was, "The American Century," is still true. For whatever reason, it seems objectively indisputable that different cultures display periods of disproportionate creativity and lethargy. This last 100 years has seen us offer the world brilliant innovations in science, arts and business management.

And there are four deletions here that I strongly dispute including #25-Neil Armstrong, #37-Frank Lloyd Wright, #41-George Gershwin and #42-Louis Armstrong.

Neil Armstrong. All those comments that dismiss American achievements because they were important only to Americans miss the point. NO OTHER CULTURE OR PEOPLE WERE ANYWHERE NEAR AS IMPORTANT TO THIS CENTURY. Sorry but cultural relativism is just PC masochism. To dismiss Neil Armstrong just because his achievements were not as overwhelmingly personal as were Lindberg's flight is to miss the point. It may be that from the grand perspective the ONLY significant accomplishment of this century is that humanity began the transition to an interplanetary and interstellar culture. And his was the first step even if it was as much our step together as it was his step individually.

Frank Lloyd Wright gave us forms that are still fresh and exquisitely balanced in their settings. Though all architectural forms can become banal when they are overused look at how he took modern engineering and used it to open up interior space and to blend the exterior form within its natural setting. He has created transcendent beauty and an artistic aesthetic that deserves to be included. The alternate architects on this list created forms that did little more than mimic machines where Wright left room for the people inside the building and melded it with nature outside.

Goerge Gershwin. Tell me another classical composer whose work you really love as an American. By which I mean, what other classical composer took the idioms of American jazz and blues music and used them to create timeless compositions that compare favorably with those of any other civilization that composed in the classical mode?
But why not try the following if you're not familiar with his compositions: listen for that background music to the United Airlines commercials and ask yourself, do you love it as much as anything of the three Bs(BachBeethovenBrahms) that you've ever heard? If so he stays.

Louie Armstrong. Ask someone who is a foreign music critic what American instrumentalist most influenced the world's popular music and his is the name you'll hear. Ask me the best musician of the last 100 years and I'll tell you it was Satch.

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