tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post6325326185824923553..comments2024-03-23T12:42:50.151-04:00Comments on MMmusing: Great DiscoveriesMICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-38794266989443073952008-06-26T19:42:00.000-04:002008-06-26T19:42:00.000-04:00MM:I’m not sure I’d interrupt anything on the basi...MM:<BR/><BR/>I’m not sure I’d interrupt anything on the basis of anything Norman Lebrecht offers. He is the cynic of all cynics, insufferably self-promoting. He is the embodiment of my favorite William Buckley word:<BR/><BR/><I>floccinoccifhilipilification</I><BR/><BR/>Definitions abound, but I think Buckley’s is spot on: <BR/><BR/><B>Full of sound and fury but lacking in substance.</B><BR/><BR/>Lebrecht thrives on being the thorn in everyone’s side. Of course, he is always right, he is always the one with the correct insight, and he cannot be questioned. Like Alan Dershowitz, he is intoxicated with the sound of his own voice so he cannot even hear what he is saying. When he makes a good point, it is obscured with his need to provoke. I gave up reading him years ago, tired of his preening and self-aggrandizement. Now and then, when I come across one of his pieces while looking for something else, I find my opinion validated and I keep on moving.<BR/><BR/>Sometime I’ll tell you how I REALLY feel about Lebrecht.<BR/><BR/>Mangan’s article is just silly. Once again, the academy strikes: people who like music that has melody are fools, those who embrace music that makes you “think” are the righteous. This is, what in the days before political correctness, we used to call, “dumb thinking.” He can only survive by making sweeping generalizations. (Huh? People who like Brahms like movies that has graphic violence? Way to discredit your own arguments by spewing nonsense, Timmy.) His assertion that it is only the “moderns” that require the engagement of the heart AND the mind (the stated implication is when you listen to Mozart or Verdi, you simply use your heart) is not elitist. It is just dead wrong, stupid, idiotic, nonsensical and has no basis in reality. I’m glad that on the planet where he lives, everyone is as enlightened as Tim Mangan: a place where everyone has a furrowed brow, thinking deeply, not allowing oneself to crave beauty, where nobody protests against a messed up world by trying to do something that takes the form of a redemptive act. <BR/><BR/>Don’t punch my ticket for that ride. Thank you very much.<BR/><BR/>As pathetic as Mangan’s screed is, most of his fawning commentators simply lather it up, “Attaboy, Timmy! Lay it on those fools who don’t want to wake up in the morning to hear Bertwistle.” Like the crowd that followed Forrest Gump on his long walk, they are like zombies, unquestioning, unthinking. They are legion, and they go to sleep at night feeling that they are protecting the world against the Philistines. Little do they remember that both post-Revolution France and post-Revolution Russia required similarly furrowed brows. We know where the French “Temples of Reason” and the Russian gulags led.<BR/><BR/>Get your rest. The blogosphere is tiring, what with having to spend hours each day finding out what “everyone else” is saying. I spent the day without hearing a note of music. Instead, I observed all of the shades of green I can see in my yard. Nice. Much more interesting than Bertwistle. And I’ll go to sleep with a smile on my face, not a furrowed brow. Mangan, on the other hand, is going to sleep trying to figure out how to make somebody angry at him in the morning. <BR/><BR/>-Fusedule TecilFusedule Tecilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17387213604823136405noreply@blogger.com