Category:
Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements

Miracle at Syracuse, NY

Not a "Christmas Miracle," but we'll take what we can get.









Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 22, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Religion, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, 1940s

The Fainting of the Tigerettes

Sep 12, 1952: At the end of the first quarter of a high-school football game in Natchez, Mississippi, the 165 members of the Tigerettes cheerleading squad mistakenly marched onto the field to perform their halftime routine. Made aware of their mistake, the cheerleaders began to faint. All of them. One after another. A witness described them as "dropping out like flies". It remains one of the largest mass-fainting events in history.



Shreveport Journal - Sep 13, 1952



The Tigerettes
Monroe Morning World - Apr 27, 1952

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 09, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Psychology, 1950s

Mystery Illustration 101

What are these folks doing?



The answer is here.

And after the jump.

More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 09, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, 1960s

Les Djinns Singers



Les Djinns were a French choir with a distinctive singing style, composed of sixty girls[1] between the ages of nine and eighteen years, conducted by Paul Bonneau. In 1959, the French government organized a 'Master School' for the instruction of girls in musical subjects in order to ensure a supply of performance talent for the country's radio and television industry. The Master School set a course of study where the girls followed a curriculum of standard academic subjects in the morning hours, then musical courses in the afternoons consisting of scales, vocal techniques, harmony and choral vocalizing. Upon graduation, each girl was accepted into Les Djinns.

Within six weeks of the group's founding, Les Djinns were awarded the Gran Prix of the Academy of Records in France, and their popularity began to proliferate with stage appearances in France and tours in other European countries. Eventually a total of 88 tunes were recorded, including a Christmas album and an album of American favorites sung in French, and released on the ABC-Paramount label. One Les Djinns single recording, "Marie Marie" (1960), made it onto the Top 100 list.


The Wikipedia page.



Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 01, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Music, Europe, Twentieth Century

Gaddafi: A Living Myth

With Libya in the news, perhaps it's time to revisit Gaddafi: A Living Myth, the 2006 opera that was billed as an "all singing, all dancing, free-spirited version of the Dictator's life."



Here's a catalog of contemporary reactions.

Speaking before the September premiere of his new commission, Gaddafi: A Living Myth, English National Opera artistic director John Berry averred that it could "redefine opera".

The piece, written by members of Asian Dub Foundation, was billed in advance as a venture of extraordinary audacity, addressing contemporary politics in music that would set our old friend the Classical Music Establishment by its ears.

Some of us had doubts long before the premiere. In December 2005, writing in this paper about the state of affairs at English National Opera, I said: "A commissioned opera from Asian Dub Foundation has had to be put off - and it's not hard to guess why."

When it was finally unveiled, there was not much pleasure to be had from seeing this gloomy prognostication confirmed.

The critics did their worst: "Cliche and bombast ... "repetitive and incoherent ... laughably wooden" ... "as cynical as Simon Cowell" ... "embarrassingly redolent of sixth-form earnestness" ... "long stretches of jaw-dropping banality" ... "risible moments that look and sound like a Middle Eastern version of Springtime For Hitler". Worst of all, almost every review used the word "brave".


Alas, I cannot find a video of the actual production. Here are two of the creators discussing it.



Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 23, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Bombast, Bloviation and Pretentiousness, Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Dictators, Tyrants and Other Harsh Rulers, Music, Avant Garde, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults

Follies of the Madmen #435

Is it just me, or is the notion of an army of clones on the make for a lone gal a creepy thing?







Source.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 16, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Business, Advertising, Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Dreams and Nightmares, Fashion, Sports, 1970s

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