I just saw a photo of a castle, and the teaser for the article said, "If you're thinking Disney, you're right." Well it's not Disney and that's not what I thought of. I thought of the original, or the real thing, if you will: Neuschwanstein, "Mad King Ludwig's" castle in Bavaria, Germany.
Similarly, I was watching a figure skating competition on TV. As one skating couple's performance started, the commentator identified the music as "2001 A Space Odyssey." Wrong! The music is Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss--though as it happens, that music was used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And I guess that in the same vein, another bit of music, in people's minds, might be thought of as "The Lone Ranger," though hopefully more people might recognize that it's the William Tell Overture-- if for no other reason than that The Lone Ranger has not been a current TV show for a very long time, so maybe the music has sort of reverted to its original identity.
I wonder if people see a picture of the Eiffel Tower and think of Las Vegas instead of Paris. Or a picture of a pyramid and think of Memphis, Tennessee, instead of Egypt. We are getting so used to copies, reproductions, derivatives, and so forth that we ignore the real thing.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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