>> The funny thing is that old postings in those flame wars are nowhere as >> interesting as they seemed at the time.......... > I'm afraid they weren't as interesting as all that at the time, Roman. > What's interesting (or, for that matter, persuasive) to the writer in the > heat of combat is a far cry from what's interesting to the reader. Note that I said SEEMED. But a few actually WERE.
> BTW, what is a "roach assumption"? Is this a characterization of > methodology, or of substances that affected your sobriety in making it? Or > some rule of thumb about the visibility of actual visible cockroaches to > hidden ones? The latter: 1 to 4 I believe, but gave a conservative eslimate. > > And as long as I've sort of touched on it, I know this is OT, but in light > of recent remarks by Roman, Stewart and Matanya, the following excerpt from > a set of program notes I recently finished somehow seems relevant: > > "While in the hospital recuperating from his heart attack, Shostakovich read > through a collection of poems by Alexander Blok.... The dark tone of Blok�s > poems must have matched Shostakovich�s mood. When the cellist Mstislav > Rostropovich, a longtime friend, asked him to compose songs for cello and > soprano for Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, Shostakovich > turned to Blok�s poems. A few days after he finished the cycle on February > 3, 1967, he told a visiting friend that though he had conceived it well > before Rostropovich�s request, he was unable to compose it until he found a > bottle of brandy that his wife?who was otherwise vigilant and ruthless in > keeping her ailing husband away from potentially harmful substances?had not > hidden thoroughly enough. After a reviving shot of the brandy, Shostakovich > said, he finished the cycle in three days." Fine, but there is no implication that he drank to visible excess. Ditto RT...... RT ______________ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
