Took a break from listening to Jesus Christ Superstar...

...in order to watch Jesus Christ Superstar.
Yes, it wasn't on the schedule yet, but tonight I sat down with a few friends (several of whom had never seen it) to watch the 1973 movie version.
We had palms on hand as decorations, which made one of our number speculate that the evening would be like a Rocky Horror event in which we'd become part of the action; this didn't happen (well, okay, there was a little bit of dancing along to the "Simon Zealotes" scene) but we did provide some commentary as we watched, a la MST3K. I'd never before noticed the similarity of the "Damned for All Time" riff to the Batman theme!
I promised some additional commentary on the emotional effectiveness of kitsch--why, in spite of my instinct to sneer at it, I still found The Living Strings and Living Voices' JCS heartwrenching. The best quote I can offer on the subject comes from Bill Flanagan's book U2 at the End of the World. He's reporting on a conversation Bono was having with friends about meeting the artist Jeff Koons. Koons told Bono that the most generous kind of art lets its audience decide how to react to it. Flanagan says, "Koons's philosophy suggests that with so much of contemporary culture devoted to trying to con some emotional response from people, the most honest art is a glass sculpture of a puppy, or one of those paintings of little waifs with big eyes--because that obvious, corny, simplemended art that wears its intentions on its sleeve is the only art attempting no subliminal manipulation."