The Null Device

The raindrops, the raindrops

When you expose 9-to-11-year-olds to Radiohead and ask them to draw what the music suggests to them, you may get something like this. Some are surprisingly existential, others are somewhat prosaic, and one of them is of a 1,000-foot ice cream cone, reaffirming the adage that when children recount a story they often put correct it, adding the crucial missing element of ice cream.
For the first few songs, the kids hardly move, scarcely even changing facial expressions. One girl plants her head on her desk face-first. The "hold your head in your hands and look completely confused" look is extremely popular.
Jeffrey, 9 Easily the most disturbing of several you're-going-to-hell panoramas. The booth in the center reads "Free Suicides." Someone buy this kid a Coldplay CD.

(via Rocknerd)

There are 3 comments on "The raindrops, the raindrops":

Posted by: lisa http:// Mon Sep 22 21:44:49 2003

wow.

i don't know if i'm more shocked at the teacher's initiative to do this or at the results. the "go to art school now" is quite impressive.

Posted by: mark http://donotuselifts.net/ Mon Sep 22 23:57:18 2003

Indeed, wow. I loved "Radiohead: it's about bummed-out dolphins." Stunningly accurate, that.

Maybe we could continue the experiment. Go through the whole shebang of pretentious and whiny music (The Smiths, Pink Floyd...), then finish up with that New Waver album you were talking about. Suicide watch may be required, come to think of it.

(I don't mean to be perjorative with "pretentious and whiny", by the way. I love Pink Floyd. But, c'mon! Have you ever really *listened* to "On the Turning Away"? "Have a Cigar"? "Welcome to the Machine"? Yeesh...)

Posted by: mark http://donotuselifts.net/ Tue Sep 23 00:01:07 2003

(And I wonder why they didn't like "Paranoid Android". Apart from "Creep", that's the closest thing to the sort of music they'd probably like they're ever going to hear from Yorke. Plus, it seriously rocks. Even more than "2 + 2 = 5")