Pruitt Igoe

[ciphergoth]

More than thirty years after its demolition, the grounds of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex lie undeveloped. Footage of the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe features prominently in Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, and the name is given to the haunting and insistent Philip Glass soundtrack which accompanies it. I just listened to that track again; it is a powerful and moving piece of music that aptly accompanies Reggio's theme of the imbalances of modern life. It is thus fucking ridiculous to use it as accompaniment for a fucking car advert, as I heard it used last night just after the World Cup semi-final. Fuckers.

Comments

[zbyszek.livejournal.com]

How depressing. A rare point of truth and light bastardised and dragged through the marketing mire by vicious soulless fuckwits. Bill Hicks put it better.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

Godfrey Reggio is probably horrified, but Philip Glass has always been keen to participate in commerce. I remember being amused by his composing the alarm bleeps for special edition Swatch wristwatches. (I'll go add them to Wikipedia.)

It wouldn't be so bad if the money gave him the backing to write some really good music, but he's pretty much been coasting for the last decade judging from what I've heard.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

I picked up Naqoyqatsi for a couple of quid a couple of weeks ago, but haven't got around to viewing it yet ... which car ad got the Glass?