Hallo zusammen!
Kann sich noch jemand an diesen berühmten Buchtitel aus den 80er Jahren erinnern? Der Autor dieses Werks, der amerikanische Medienwissenschaftler Neil Postman, ist nun im Alter von 72 Jahren gestorben. Hier eine Würdigung von Heise:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-09.10.03-001/
Ich meine: In Zeiten von RTL, Bohlen, Küblböck und Burger Dance sind seine Gedanken aktueller denn je.
CU
Olaf
out-freyn 
Olaf19 „`Wir amüsieren uns zu Tode`“
Hi Olaf,
kennst Du auch das - deutlich von Postmans Gedankengut beeinflusste - Album "Amused to Death" von Ex-Pink Floyd Mastermind Roger Waters?
Ich poste mal die Lyrics der zusammengehörigen Titel "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" und "Amused to Death".
Viele Grüße,
Stefan
The Ballad of Bill Hubbard
==========================
(instrumental, im Hintergrund hört man den Fernseher -> kursive Texte)
[Alf Razzell:]
"Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I had to collect the paybooks; and when I left Bill Hubbard in no-man's-land.
I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I'd no sooner taken two or three steps down the trench when I heard a call, 'Hello Razz, I'm glad to see you. This is my second night here,' and he said 'I'm feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard, one of the men we'd trained in England, one of the original battalion. I had a look at his wound, rolled him over; I could see it was probably a fatal wound. You could imagine what pain he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after I'd gone about three shellholes, traversed that, had it been...had there been a path or a road I could have done better. He pummelled me, 'Put me down, put me down, I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me down.' I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any further, let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't be found, let's have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And the same thing happened; he couldn't stand it any more, and I had to leave him there, in no-man's-land."
(switch channels)
(girl) "I don't mind about the war, that's one of the things I like to watch, if it's a war going on, 'cause then I know if our side's winning, if our side's losing..."
Amused to Death
===============
Man:
Consider it a bargin at even 6 or 7 or even 8 hundred dollars...
Hi! You're live on the show! Hi!
Woman: Denise from Delaware
Man: How are you?
Woman: First time I've even been this.. uh, spoke to you.
Man: Why, it's my pleasure!
Woman: ---son, bought that thing for me, and you were supposed to give it to me on Mother's Day.
Man: Uh-huh
Woman: But you didn't.
Man: (?) tell me (?)
Woman: Ah, maybe about 7 or 8 hundred dollars
Man: Seven or eight! A congratulation! OK!
Woman: bye-bye
Man: bye-bye
We own this at four hundred dollars
You gotta be kidding me!
Seven, eight, nine hundred dollars!
Tell ya what
While it was seventy-five, eighty maybe
Cut the price
Cut it and give it away
To end the day
To end the day out there...(?)
It's incredible (?)
Not even worth selling (?) seventy-seven (?)
Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
What is the heart life of a colour TV
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol
Of detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell the belle
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
And the children of Melrose
Strut their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath
Bartender what is wrong with me
Why am I so out of breath
The captain said excuse me ma'am
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped around the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death
(switch channels)
[Alf Razzell:]
"Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Arras. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done?'
[background: "I'd rather die, I'd rather die..."]
And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of lightened my...heart, if you like."
(woman) "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?"
"Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be a year,
ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."
(switch channels, fade)
