July 11, 2007

• Yeah, I'm with ya. Wait till you get to be a GramMa, and have to stand with the sheep at the 1st grade Christmas pageant.
• I saw a show in Austin where the guy left the stage to lackluster applause, and then some OTHER guy came out and *coached* the audience into giving an ovation. "Hey! You all want to see more, right? Well, come on! Put your hands together!" and so on. Ridiculous. We weren't clapping because he kind of sucked. And we were glad he was gone. But he came out and did another three songs, two of which were covers anyway.
• I keep seeing that as excessive ovulation! I blame the "loose" thread.
• I know a lady who has 17 children.
• Yep. Drives me crazy. Sorry, you have to earn a standing ovation. I just stay seated if I don't think they deserve it, damn the crowd peer pressure. I also won't clap unles I actually liked the performance. I probably would still stand for a kids school concert if the crowd did though. It would just seem mean not to. Professionals, on the other hand, have to earn it.
• SMT -- I also saw it as excessive ovulation . . . had to do a double take.
• I think ovulation should only be given for an eggcelent performance.
• I always joke that when my friend the tenor sings, it's so beautiful my ovaries grow back. But I never made the ovation/ovulation connection.
• I call it Vegas Syndrome. My dad took me to see Wayne Newton here in Seattle when I was younger. (btw: his hair still looks the same...Wayne, not my dad.) At the end of nearly every song, they would bring up the house lights and we would all stand and clap like monkeys. I asked, "dad, what are we doing?" He said, "this is what they do in Las Vegas."
• hmmm...simple solution...if you are done, leave, if you want to hear more, stay and clap... what's the problem????? Went to see Springsteen a few months ago...I would have clapped a million times for more... others...meh
• God that pisses me off. I live on the stage, so I'd rather know how the audience really felt, rather than get placated. Back in high school they would give every boring ass lecturer a standing O - but thats catholic school for ya. . .
• I don't think we're looking at it as a problem in need of a solution, Huron, but rather expressing disdain for a change in the rules governing a custom.
• O inflation is affecting the sciences as well. Used to be, at a conference the speaker would rarely be clapped off the stage after a talk. One used to dread the end of talks because there would be the invariable backbencher question that would question not only the conclusions of the research but also the parentage of the author. Gone too are the days when every so often someone would rip open their shirts and compare hair coverage on their chests with their questioners; heck, I bet all these newfangled 'women' who have entered the field don't even have any chest hair. Nowadays its all about "let's thank the speaker" and softball questions such as "have you thought about possible applications?" It makes you sick!
• I question that conclusion sir!
• see, that's what attracted me to academia, the prospect of doing that to Lois Binford one day when he's 70-million years old and I had my third doctorate. Now that I know it's not done any more, I'm glad I dropped out.
• It still happens in the humanities, stomper. You should have been an historian rather than an archeologist! Unfortunately for me, legal academics are a frightfully polite lot on the whole.
• The thing is, if I remain seated while everyone else stands, it feels like I must be sending the message that the performance was bad. It feels like a deliberate criticism. I know it's not, but I feel that's how others will see it. I dunno.
• I agree, but the phenomenon isn't totally new. I sat down for Simon and Garfunkel (shows my age) and the woman behind me actually tapped me on the shoulder.
• I tentatively stood and clapped at the end of Fellowship of the Ring. I was genuinely very impressed with the movie, but I felt a standing ovation was a bit odd in a cinema. Then I felt okay about myself when the three blokes dressed as hobbits began prostrating themselves in front of the screen. Several times when I've flown to Italy, the passengers have given a round of applause for the landing...
• Well a man should be applauded for going down well.
• see, that's what attracted me to academia, the prospect of doing that to Lois Binford one day when he's 70-million years old and I had my third doctorate. Louis Binford challenged my supervisor's ex-girlfriend to a fistfight at one SAA convention years ago. No wonder he has only two teeth. The ladies keep shoving them down his throat. And I would do the same; while he does have some brilliant ideas (in their time), the majority of the man's work is entirely over-rated, over-written (and terribly dense) padded with old work and created in a way to obscure what little offering exists. Not to mention taking up valuable AA space with petty squabbles over minute details regarding word choice. If I don't like the act I'll clap facetiously.
• Hmm, I knew Binford was and archaeologist. Didn't realize he was famous for being a knob at meetings, hence I end up looking like one myself. Doh!
• Several times when I've flown to Italy, the passengers have given a round of applause for the landing.... Been there in Germany. I think several people crapped, too. Great post. *golf clap
• I'm usually three sheets to the wind by the end of a performance, and so genuinely think it was bloody fantastic, I may even have had a tear in my eye on several occasions, one of which may have been a Punch and Judy show in Hyde Park. Several times when I've flown to Italy, the passengers have given a round of applause for the landing.... I might give that a go on the night bus tomorrow evening, each time the driver successfully pulls up to the stop and opens the doors.
• The audience is applauding themselves. We are so cultured we just can't stand it. Yayyyyy!
• I have been on planes that applauded, but only after an extremely rough flight or landing. The people on my morning bus have applauded once, when the bus driver got us to work safely in an ice storm.
• When I wake up in the morning, if I have had a particularly imaginative dream, I will give my brain a round of applause. Sometimes I throw flowers.
• The audience is applauding themselves. We are so cultured we just can't stand it. Yayyyyy! Bravo! The people on my morning bus have applauded once, when the bus driver got us to work safely in an ice storm. We applauded a bus driver once for making it up an icy hill - right before he had to pull over and let us all out because he could go no further. An elderly lady with a walker lapped us.