When blogads make me smile
Apr 20, 2007 Read/heard/seen
Well, they make me smile when I get paid out on the 15th, that’s for certain, but the other time they make me smile is when a particularly good one comes in. Most of the time the ads are just innocuous but sometimes they are awesome and then I hit “approve” with a flourish!
I emailed the marketing rep for the ad for From the Top to tell her that I love the show and would definitely be watching their Live from Carnegie Hall taping. (It’s the first time I was so moved by a blogad to write the rep.) The rep wrote back and asked if I wanted a DVD to review. Now lately the only solicited reviews I do are for Mother-Talk because I’m friends with the organizers because it seems like a conflict of interest with Get Them Blogging but heck, I love this show so I said yes.
Noah and I watched part of it yesterday and really enjoyed it. The reason I like listening to From the Top with him (and the reason I like some of the PBS shows like Fetch! and — back when it was on our station — Zoom) is that I like Noah to have lots of examples of regular kids being competent and smart. It helps, too, that PBS shows are notoriously diverse and also that there are usually just as many smart girls as smart boys.
It seems like a lot of media paints this great divide between children and grown-ups. Worse, it shows them not just divided but at war and often if it’s a kids’ show, the grown-ups are buffoons. I hate that. I like media where the kids (and adults) are smart, respectful of each other and where the kids’ interests and passions matter.
Now I’m not really a devotee of classical music. I grew up hearing it a lot (my mom loves it) and I like it — play it on the radio, have a handful of CDs — but I don’t adore it the way I do my beloved jazz and showtunes. Noah might grow to love it but for now he’s happy to listen to it but doesn’t seek it out. However he is a fan of music and has always been intrigued by musical instruments. (As an aside, I really thought he would want to play an instrument because at Madison’s age he was starting to identify different instruments when we listened to CDs but so far he’s absolutely refused the opportunity.)
Even with our classical music handicap, we both really enjoyed watching From the Top. We liked meeting the kids who make the music and Noah was especially impressed by the 10-year old cellist in the first episode. What I’ve always liked about the radio show is these kids are brilliant musicians but they’re also kids and the show reflects that. They make jokes, they complain about their siblings and they have other passions — skateboarding or painting or rock and roll. It helps make it clear that classical music is not a rarefied interest and also shows that you can be accomplished at something without giving up everything else.
We will definitely be TIVO’ing the episodes that aren’t on our review DVD and I encourage y’all to check ‘em out, too.
April 21st, 2007 at 7:02 pm
thanks for the review - i’ll definitely have to check this out. my son plays violin, so i think he’ll find it very interesting.
apart from the music aspect, i agree with you about the importance of seeing a diverse group of smart, interesting, respectful kids.