When I was around twelve years old, I spent my summers playing trombone in the woods of Long Island at an arts camp called USDAN. It was great to play all day; that intense regimen was the first step on my path to professional musicianship.
Every day after lunch, there'd be a performance of some sort. They'd bring in dry chamber music groups for us to yawn through, prissy ballet for us to smirk through, not-particularly-swinging jazz, and a profusion of fat, screaming, warbling opera singers, several of whom elicited such unbridled laughter that, to our immense gratification, divas would huffily stomp off in mid-performance. We were reasonably talented kids, but not prodigies, so most of these programs left us nearly as bored and squirmy as they'd have left civilian pre-teens.
Except one. One performance was awaited as eagerly as our late afternoon ice cream pops. Each summer violinist Ruggiero Ricci would show up. None of us knew his reputation (that he'd been a prodigy, touring professionally since age 12; that he'd made 500 recordings; that he was astoundingly versatile, playing everything from Bach to Mendelssohn to the most contemporary repertoire). We knew nothing of his professional accomplishments (this wasn't one of his career's hotter periods). We did, however, remember his show-stopping annual appearances.
Ricci played with a showy, bravura style, but that's not what captured us. We had excellent bullshit detectors. It was his incredible musicality and feeling. After each selection, we, the hardest-to-please audience in show biz, would stand on our chairs, screaming at the top of our lungs and pounding our hands black and blue. One summer we made the poor guy play three encores.
Ricci had been warmly received all over the world since 1930, but figures like him realize they'd be received the same if they played safe and coasted. Name and reputation stir audiences more reliably than interpretation and lyricism. But Ricci never had a purer audience than us, because we didn't know him from a hole in the wall. We, a bunch of mall rats from the Long Island suburbs destined to mature into Howard Stern's primary fan base, just really loved his playing. Out of the sea of highbrow contenders paraded before us, we'd unanimously selected him.
In fact, for all my life, I've continued to think of Ricci like one of the great unknown little restaurants I've sussed out. Even after having learned who this guy actually was, I still regard him as one of my discoveries, and I'll bet many of the other kids feel likewise. He was our Ruggiero Ricci.
Alas, Ricci (who was old even when I was 12) died last week, at age 94. As one of the sharp-eared youngsters who recognized the maestro's greatness, I can't help feeling a tinge of childish pride for all he accomplished.
Here he is not many years later. I don't know about you, but he still makes me want to jump up on my chair and slam my hands together till they hurt:
Here's some suggested listening.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Brave Heroes
The word "hero" describes someone who behaves selflessly when the stakes are high.
It's an admirable quality, for sure, but to this we assign one of the most superlative words in the language, akin to terms like "genius" and "legend"? Shouldn't the proper word for a person who behaves selflessly when stakes are high be "non-shmuck"?
Another word sadly degraded from years of grading on a curve is "brave". These days, merely enduring something like cancer entitles you to "brave", as if you'd been given a choice and proclaimed "bring it on!".
Are we really so small a species that by merely enduring unavoidable adversity, or by not behaving selfishly under stress, we've risen as high as humans can go?
It's an admirable quality, for sure, but to this we assign one of the most superlative words in the language, akin to terms like "genius" and "legend"? Shouldn't the proper word for a person who behaves selflessly when stakes are high be "non-shmuck"?
Another word sadly degraded from years of grading on a curve is "brave". These days, merely enduring something like cancer entitles you to "brave", as if you'd been given a choice and proclaimed "bring it on!".
Are we really so small a species that by merely enduring unavoidable adversity, or by not behaving selfishly under stress, we've risen as high as humans can go?
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Recognizing Pure Id For What it Is
If you're the author of popular software, prepare for hell. Here's how it goes down:
Users demand some new feature (some complaining that the software is utterly useless to them without this function), and you work on adding it. At some point, you find yourself pressured to offer a guestimate for when it will be done.
If you're foolish enough to publicly name a date, and then you miss it (as you will, because it's notoriously hard to estimate programming completion time), you're dead meat. A number of your users will flip into Huffy Insurrectionist mode, declaring development to have dead-ended, labeling your software "abandonware", and vowing to take their business elsewhere. Your online forums will erupt with discussions of competing applications to use as alternatives. Generally, people will hate you. I mean, literally, hate you.
Your impulse will be to announce how wrong this all is, and how hard you're working. But you can never say so often enough to satisfy people; and, besides, time spent defending yourself on message boards is more logically spent working on the damned software.
If, on the other hand, you hold tough and refuse to estimate a time frame - and simply put your nose down and work - that makes you arrogant and non-communicative. And that's even worse. We like your software, but, given your non-responsive service and the lack of this critical feature, we vow to take our business elsewhere!
This progression is a certainty - a foregone conclusion. If you've been around for a while and take any interest in the development of software you use, you've seen this repeat ad infinitum. The same things are said, often word-for-word.
It's worst for developers of much-loved software, because their users have more at stake, being emotionally involved. Plus, such software is crafted by perfectionists who take time to get things just right. God help software developers unlucky enough to produce great software with a large, emotionally-attached user base.
But the human dynamic at play here is actually way broader. For example, the managers of every moderated online discussion will inevitably be derided as censorious Nazis with nefarious agendas, regardless of how kindly and fair-minded they may be.
When new Chowhound moderators would ask me why some users seethe when their postings are expunged for reasonable reasons (and all our reasons are reasonable), my explanation would sound disconcertingly flat:
"They want to post something. And you're not letting them. That's really all there is to it, regardless of what they're saying."
"But," the new moderator would protest, "reasonable people should understand the extenuating circumstances involved!" I'd be forced to unveil the murky depths:
"If your toddler screams to be fed, you can explain why dinner's late, but it won't matter. The toddler is hungry. He wants, period. And many seemingly reasonable people are, under the hood, stunted toddlers. They want, period."
I want the software update, and you're not giving it to me. I want to post about skeet shooting in the Chowhound Baked Ziti forum, and you're not letting me. I will pressure you with every tactic at my disposal, however ridiculously disproportional, until my will is indulged and my need is met.
"I want" is a force to be reckoned with. Or would be, if there were any possibility of reckoning with the unbridled ids of a lot of the American public. Anyone who ever faces the public in any capacity - commercially or not, and regardless of how high-principled, generous, and reasonable you may be - must go in fully recognizing that a substantial segment of the population has the emotional wiring of a toddler. Regardless of how articulately such people may express themselves (many are virtuoso button pressers, just as toddlers learn to tailor their tantrums for maximal manipulation), their underlying drive is simplicity itself: they want. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you ever find yourself facing the public, even if they seem to love you, it's incredibly important to be aware of this dynamic, so you 1. don't take it personally and 2. don't waste time trying to engage reasonably with toddlers. And, just as importantly, that you don't allow yourself to be so desensitized by it all that you start disregarding reasonable criticism!
Users demand some new feature (some complaining that the software is utterly useless to them without this function), and you work on adding it. At some point, you find yourself pressured to offer a guestimate for when it will be done.
If you're foolish enough to publicly name a date, and then you miss it (as you will, because it's notoriously hard to estimate programming completion time), you're dead meat. A number of your users will flip into Huffy Insurrectionist mode, declaring development to have dead-ended, labeling your software "abandonware", and vowing to take their business elsewhere. Your online forums will erupt with discussions of competing applications to use as alternatives. Generally, people will hate you. I mean, literally, hate you.
Your impulse will be to announce how wrong this all is, and how hard you're working. But you can never say so often enough to satisfy people; and, besides, time spent defending yourself on message boards is more logically spent working on the damned software.
If, on the other hand, you hold tough and refuse to estimate a time frame - and simply put your nose down and work - that makes you arrogant and non-communicative. And that's even worse. We like your software, but, given your non-responsive service and the lack of this critical feature, we vow to take our business elsewhere!
This progression is a certainty - a foregone conclusion. If you've been around for a while and take any interest in the development of software you use, you've seen this repeat ad infinitum. The same things are said, often word-for-word.
It's worst for developers of much-loved software, because their users have more at stake, being emotionally involved. Plus, such software is crafted by perfectionists who take time to get things just right. God help software developers unlucky enough to produce great software with a large, emotionally-attached user base.
But the human dynamic at play here is actually way broader. For example, the managers of every moderated online discussion will inevitably be derided as censorious Nazis with nefarious agendas, regardless of how kindly and fair-minded they may be.
When new Chowhound moderators would ask me why some users seethe when their postings are expunged for reasonable reasons (and all our reasons are reasonable), my explanation would sound disconcertingly flat:
"They want to post something. And you're not letting them. That's really all there is to it, regardless of what they're saying."
"But," the new moderator would protest, "reasonable people should understand the extenuating circumstances involved!" I'd be forced to unveil the murky depths:
"If your toddler screams to be fed, you can explain why dinner's late, but it won't matter. The toddler is hungry. He wants, period. And many seemingly reasonable people are, under the hood, stunted toddlers. They want, period."
I want the software update, and you're not giving it to me. I want to post about skeet shooting in the Chowhound Baked Ziti forum, and you're not letting me. I will pressure you with every tactic at my disposal, however ridiculously disproportional, until my will is indulged and my need is met.
"I want" is a force to be reckoned with. Or would be, if there were any possibility of reckoning with the unbridled ids of a lot of the American public. Anyone who ever faces the public in any capacity - commercially or not, and regardless of how high-principled, generous, and reasonable you may be - must go in fully recognizing that a substantial segment of the population has the emotional wiring of a toddler. Regardless of how articulately such people may express themselves (many are virtuoso button pressers, just as toddlers learn to tailor their tantrums for maximal manipulation), their underlying drive is simplicity itself: they want. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you ever find yourself facing the public, even if they seem to love you, it's incredibly important to be aware of this dynamic, so you 1. don't take it personally and 2. don't waste time trying to engage reasonably with toddlers. And, just as importantly, that you don't allow yourself to be so desensitized by it all that you start disregarding reasonable criticism!
Friday, August 10, 2012
Gender Segregated Competition
Question no one asks: Why are Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards divided by gender? In athletics it makes sense, as men are, on average, bigger and stronger (which still doesn't explain women's pool, poker, etc.). But acting...?
Speaking of athletics: since we segregate competition among genders to reconcile parity issues, and we segregate competition among the disabled for the same purpose, then why is there no big-time competition among the non-athletically inclined (the "Not-So-Special Olympics")? I'd love to compete in any number of sports in the poorly-coordinated-and-easily-winded-middle-aged-men category!
Final quandary. It was great to see Oscar Pistorius compete. Though nominally "disabled", he's achieved parity. Should top women similarly be funneled in among males? Ye Shiwen, for example, beat the men's gold medal time in the same event this year.
Tricky, loaded questions, all, I know. For one thing, since future champions are increasingly selected, like tomatoes, on breeding factors (e.g. top swimmers need huge torsos), the very concept of athletic "competition" is starting to unravel. The vanishingly thin line between "doping" and legitimate high tech training methods is another blurring factor.
Speaking of athletics: since we segregate competition among genders to reconcile parity issues, and we segregate competition among the disabled for the same purpose, then why is there no big-time competition among the non-athletically inclined (the "Not-So-Special Olympics")? I'd love to compete in any number of sports in the poorly-coordinated-and-easily-winded-middle-aged-men category!
Final quandary. It was great to see Oscar Pistorius compete. Though nominally "disabled", he's achieved parity. Should top women similarly be funneled in among males? Ye Shiwen, for example, beat the men's gold medal time in the same event this year.
Tricky, loaded questions, all, I know. For one thing, since future champions are increasingly selected, like tomatoes, on breeding factors (e.g. top swimmers need huge torsos), the very concept of athletic "competition" is starting to unravel. The vanishingly thin line between "doping" and legitimate high tech training methods is another blurring factor.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Give Me That Old Time Olympics
I've been watching decathlon, and it's like having cleared layers of muck to rediscover a purer core. Not that, say, dressage, mountain biking, trampoline, and badminton don't present their respective challenges and charms, but few events these days carry much old school Olympian vibe (in 2016 they're adding golf, for god's sake).
But decathlon, that's the uncut stuff! In an Olympics where Usain Bolt habitually shuts down 20m from the finish line to "save energy" (a phrase I've been hearing constantly all week), it's refreshing to see decathletes give their all over a two day ordeal. It takes you back a couple millennia - or, at least, a couple decades, to when Olympians were earnest amateurs rather than temperamental stars or star wannabes (LeBron, I love you, but you belong in the American Airlines Arena, not gazing mock-wistfully toward the Olympic torch in the Parade of Nations).
My suggestion is that the Olympics rebrand under the title "Sports". And every sporting event in the world (including poker and pole dancing) can happen under that banner. Then, on top of that, every four years, let's have a real Olympics, with sincere, amateur, non-zillionaire athletes giving their all in the classic Olympic events, just for those who are into that sort of thing.
Anyways, here's the thing about decathlon: you can't watch without wondering just how close Olympic decathletes come, in their individual events, to their single-event-specialist colleagues. And Wikipedia, bless them, has precisely the chart you want to see, contrasting current decathlon best scores for each event with the world record for that event...and, also, the percentage difference. Amazingly, aside from the throwing events, the margin's really not that wide.
But decathlon, that's the uncut stuff! In an Olympics where Usain Bolt habitually shuts down 20m from the finish line to "save energy" (a phrase I've been hearing constantly all week), it's refreshing to see decathletes give their all over a two day ordeal. It takes you back a couple millennia - or, at least, a couple decades, to when Olympians were earnest amateurs rather than temperamental stars or star wannabes (LeBron, I love you, but you belong in the American Airlines Arena, not gazing mock-wistfully toward the Olympic torch in the Parade of Nations).
My suggestion is that the Olympics rebrand under the title "Sports". And every sporting event in the world (including poker and pole dancing) can happen under that banner. Then, on top of that, every four years, let's have a real Olympics, with sincere, amateur, non-zillionaire athletes giving their all in the classic Olympic events, just for those who are into that sort of thing.
Anyways, here's the thing about decathlon: you can't watch without wondering just how close Olympic decathletes come, in their individual events, to their single-event-specialist colleagues. And Wikipedia, bless them, has precisely the chart you want to see, contrasting current decathlon best scores for each event with the world record for that event...and, also, the percentage difference. Amazingly, aside from the throwing events, the margin's really not that wide.
Whimsy
Last night I went to see Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom", then came home and prepared this salmon-and-mackeral-sashimi-with-shaved-watermelon-and-spinach tostada on toasted whole wheat chapati dusted with crushed potato chips:
How was it? Okay. Interesting. Provocative. Unique. But while a touch of off-kilter whimsy can be charming, completely unbridled whimsy is a bit much.
Same for the tostada.
How was it? Okay. Interesting. Provocative. Unique. But while a touch of off-kilter whimsy can be charming, completely unbridled whimsy is a bit much.
Same for the tostada.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
No-Fee Change Counting And Human Happiness
This may be the slightest tip I've ever offered. But if you, like me, are really into change counting machines, it's important stuff.
Since age six, I've kept my change in the same Goofy Grape "Funny Face" container (GGFFC) , and never felt a call to update that. Funny Face (holy crap, there's actually a web site) was the far better alternative to Kool-Aid which, like other superior technologies (ala Betamax), lost out to superior marketing. It's obviously been a while, gauging by the brand's proud tout of "Sugar Sweetened!" prominently atop the label.
But I digress. For years, I've sought out those big change counting machines when my GGFFC filled up, though I never saw the point of paying a fee for the service (they should pay you; everybody needs change!). There were a joyful few years when Waterhouse banks appeared everywhere with free change counting machines. Best of all, they offered prizes if you correctly guessed your total (a bank clerk, noticing my anxiety, once offered to give me the tiny plastic toy football even though I'd guessed wrong. I indignantly refused; as this would make a mockery of the spirit of the change counting game).
But the bank changed policy, allowing only customers to count for free. Feeling boxed in, with a badly overflowing GGFFC, I resorted to one of those supermarket Coinstar machines - the industrial green, fee-charging, non-guessing-game-playing, ubiquitous and unfun Walmartish alternative. But here's the thing: while they charge a fee for cash redemption, you can choose redemption via gift card for free (Coinstar's gift card "partners" pay the fee for you). And Amazon's a partner. And Amazon credit is like cash. Woo!
So this, people, is my tip: always opt for Amazon gift certificate when using Coin Star machines.
And, if you're like me, don't forget to bask in the paradox at the conclusion of the process, when the clerk hands you currency plus some change, and you mischievously contemplate running that change back through the machine. That sublime moment is what it's really all about for me (though dumping out all the clattering coins is also awfully great).
Another weird thing I'm into: I really like typing within excruciating interfaces. For example, searching for programs to DVR by selecting letters one at a time via my TV remote control. Or text messaging on dumb phones.
These things bring me inexplicable joy. Not sure why. But that's what made me realize how completely arbitrary preference always is...and, therefore, how easily preference can be "hacked" to produce happiness and eliminate stress.
But I digress. For years, I've sought out those big change counting machines when my GGFFC filled up, though I never saw the point of paying a fee for the service (they should pay you; everybody needs change!). There were a joyful few years when Waterhouse banks appeared everywhere with free change counting machines. Best of all, they offered prizes if you correctly guessed your total (a bank clerk, noticing my anxiety, once offered to give me the tiny plastic toy football even though I'd guessed wrong. I indignantly refused; as this would make a mockery of the spirit of the change counting game).
But the bank changed policy, allowing only customers to count for free. Feeling boxed in, with a badly overflowing GGFFC, I resorted to one of those supermarket Coinstar machines - the industrial green, fee-charging, non-guessing-game-playing, ubiquitous and unfun Walmartish alternative. But here's the thing: while they charge a fee for cash redemption, you can choose redemption via gift card for free (Coinstar's gift card "partners" pay the fee for you). And Amazon's a partner. And Amazon credit is like cash. Woo!
So this, people, is my tip: always opt for Amazon gift certificate when using Coin Star machines.
And, if you're like me, don't forget to bask in the paradox at the conclusion of the process, when the clerk hands you currency plus some change, and you mischievously contemplate running that change back through the machine. That sublime moment is what it's really all about for me (though dumping out all the clattering coins is also awfully great).
Another weird thing I'm into: I really like typing within excruciating interfaces. For example, searching for programs to DVR by selecting letters one at a time via my TV remote control. Or text messaging on dumb phones.
These things bring me inexplicable joy. Not sure why. But that's what made me realize how completely arbitrary preference always is...and, therefore, how easily preference can be "hacked" to produce happiness and eliminate stress.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Another Rubber Tree Plant
A few years ago, after shedding weight I'd gained from the punishing ten week Chow Tour my corporate overlords had sent me on, nearly killing me, I made it to my holy grail: fitting into high school-sized pants. I described how I did it in a flurry of postings (this is the best index, but this is awfully important).
But then a few injuries kept me out of the gym for months. And I'd shifted focus to recouping my trombone technique and career, which meant hanging out in bars and nightclubs and eating plenty of pizza and Sichuan food. What's more, age happened (last year may have been the hippest time in history to be 48, but at this point my fellow 49 year olds and I are aging like Phrygian Grey). Very, very slowly I've regained 25 lbs.
Call me Oprah.
So I'm starting again. I've accustomed my body to eating right (gentle persuasion's all that's necessary, because cravings are only your body trying to accommodate you), and, for nearly two weeks, I've eaten immaculately and worked out daily. And though I'm not weighing myself*, there's progress to report: my pants are a little loose.
* - two reasons: 1. short term weight change is mostly about water, and 2. weight is only a secondary effect of healthy lifestyle (i.e. I'm not working to weigh less, I'm working to eat better/less and to exercise more...letting weight take care of itself)
That's right. After ten days of meticulous austerity - of bad-ass sweaty workouts, prim little meals, and no hanging out with friends* - my pants are "a little" loose. That's it. But this time I know to expect glacialness.
* if the process is this slow with immaculate diet, imagine factoring in a few beers and restaurant meals!
I could try to go faster. I could dehydrate for dramatic, meaningless, and unhealthy short term effect. I could starve rather than ingest 1800 "clean" calories per day, which would mean I'd burn muscle, increasing my proportion of body fat. But, in the end, unless you're a teenager or possess the metabolism of a hummingbird, 1/2 to 1 pound of weight loss is really all you can expect from a meticulously disciplined week.
Losing weight's not difficult (I've explained the easiest, least sacrificial method in the above links). It just requires more commitment and patience than most people imagine. As I once wrote, losing weight costs $1000/pound
But then a few injuries kept me out of the gym for months. And I'd shifted focus to recouping my trombone technique and career, which meant hanging out in bars and nightclubs and eating plenty of pizza and Sichuan food. What's more, age happened (last year may have been the hippest time in history to be 48, but at this point my fellow 49 year olds and I are aging like Phrygian Grey). Very, very slowly I've regained 25 lbs.
Call me Oprah.
So I'm starting again. I've accustomed my body to eating right (gentle persuasion's all that's necessary, because cravings are only your body trying to accommodate you), and, for nearly two weeks, I've eaten immaculately and worked out daily. And though I'm not weighing myself*, there's progress to report: my pants are a little loose.
* - two reasons: 1. short term weight change is mostly about water, and 2. weight is only a secondary effect of healthy lifestyle (i.e. I'm not working to weigh less, I'm working to eat better/less and to exercise more...letting weight take care of itself)
That's right. After ten days of meticulous austerity - of bad-ass sweaty workouts, prim little meals, and no hanging out with friends* - my pants are "a little" loose. That's it. But this time I know to expect glacialness.
* if the process is this slow with immaculate diet, imagine factoring in a few beers and restaurant meals!
I could try to go faster. I could dehydrate for dramatic, meaningless, and unhealthy short term effect. I could starve rather than ingest 1800 "clean" calories per day, which would mean I'd burn muscle, increasing my proportion of body fat. But, in the end, unless you're a teenager or possess the metabolism of a hummingbird, 1/2 to 1 pound of weight loss is really all you can expect from a meticulously disciplined week.
Losing weight's not difficult (I've explained the easiest, least sacrificial method in the above links). It just requires more commitment and patience than most people imagine. As I once wrote, losing weight costs $1000/pound
Monday, August 6, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Richard Wagner: Pussycat
I just watched an interesting film, Wagner and Me, in which Stephen Fry, a Jewish Wagner freak, treks to the composer's shrine/theater in Bayreuth, where he attempts to reconcile his love for the music with the atrocious anti-Semitism of the composer and the enduring taint of the Nazis' appropriation of his music for their mythic meshugaas.
He has a short interview with witheringly brusque great-grandaughter Eva Wagner, who currently runs things (her father called Hitler "Uncle Adolf"), and he spends the film wandering around as if he were the first Jew to have ever breached these grounds.
And that piqued my curiosity, so I did some research, learning about conductor Hermann Levi, son of a rabbi, who was one of Richard Wagner's best friends and who conducted at Bayreuth countless times. When he was chosen to conduct the debut of his religious epic Parsifal, Wagner suggested that he consider being baptized first (due to the religious nature of the piece). Levi walked out in a pique, and Wagner sent him this apologetic note, which strikes me as genuinely affectionate and completely fraternal (bear in mind that this was Wagner at the height of his renown, with total leeway to be a prick):
So what's going on here? It jibes poorly with our image of Wagner as a virulently racist proto-Nazi. As I explained once before, there are two completely different sorts of racism, one characterized by an insurmountable divide, and another by a general predilection often riddled with exceptions (the cliche about "Some of my best friends" can be quite honest, even if it doesn't excuse the prejudice).
As any minority knows, type #1 racism, no matter how polite and passive, is the worst. Type #2 racism, no matter how vitriolic and offensive (Wagner's writings on Jews were both), is far more forgivable.
Wagner's descendants were loathsome, as were their Nazi pals (and this Eva character seems straight out of a Cloris Leachman performance). But Richard himself? Genius aside, I believe I know the type, and it doesn't particularly bother me (though, musically, I could do without his screaming sopranos and megalomaniacal sturm und drang).
He has a short interview with witheringly brusque great-grandaughter Eva Wagner, who currently runs things (her father called Hitler "Uncle Adolf"), and he spends the film wandering around as if he were the first Jew to have ever breached these grounds.
And that piqued my curiosity, so I did some research, learning about conductor Hermann Levi, son of a rabbi, who was one of Richard Wagner's best friends and who conducted at Bayreuth countless times. When he was chosen to conduct the debut of his religious epic Parsifal, Wagner suggested that he consider being baptized first (due to the religious nature of the piece). Levi walked out in a pique, and Wagner sent him this apologetic note, which strikes me as genuinely affectionate and completely fraternal (bear in mind that this was Wagner at the height of his renown, with total leeway to be a prick):
Dearest and best of friends, much as I respect all your feelings, you are not making things easy either for yourself or for us! What could so easily inhibit us in our dealings with you is the fact that you are always so gloomily introspective! We are entirely at one in thinking that the whole world should be told about this shit but what this means is that you must stop running away from us, thereby allowing such stupid suspicions to arise! You do not need to lose any of your faith, but merely to acquire the courage of your convictions! Perhaps some great change is about to take place in your life - but at all events - you are my Parsifal conductor! So, come on! come on! Yours, RW.Wagner gave up trying to convert him, Levi returned to Bayreuth, conducted the piece and the composer was, as always, delighted with his work. He later served as pallbearer at Wagner's funeral.
So what's going on here? It jibes poorly with our image of Wagner as a virulently racist proto-Nazi. As I explained once before, there are two completely different sorts of racism, one characterized by an insurmountable divide, and another by a general predilection often riddled with exceptions (the cliche about "Some of my best friends" can be quite honest, even if it doesn't excuse the prejudice).
As any minority knows, type #1 racism, no matter how polite and passive, is the worst. Type #2 racism, no matter how vitriolic and offensive (Wagner's writings on Jews were both), is far more forgivable.
Wagner's descendants were loathsome, as were their Nazi pals (and this Eva character seems straight out of a Cloris Leachman performance). But Richard himself? Genius aside, I believe I know the type, and it doesn't particularly bother me (though, musically, I could do without his screaming sopranos and megalomaniacal sturm und drang).
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