the SAG stuff (Szanto ventures out)

Subject: A Problematic BM

>Yes, I am going to meet Brian McLaren, and find out what's up. To
>paraphrase David Brinkley, I may not be able to be objective but I can try
>to be fair.

Good for you. Perhaps you can do us *all* a favor and take a look at the
local newspaper for a couple of local concerts to recommend to Brian
that might give him a better field for the breadth of work that comes out
of "academia" these days. I think it's worth gambling that things are at
*least* as loose there as here. Here I am out in dairyland and I'm sitting
through Charles Wuorinen wannabes *and* folks who want to channel
Shostakovich or Debussy or Duke Ellington and then walking across the
street to hear Marilyn Crispell and Roscoe Mitchell running down some
kind of harmolodic improvisatory take on the work of this local guy with
some serious serialist chops whose music uses a completely different set
of tonal resources. I get in my car and drive to Chicago where I spend the
interset bits of the aforementioned Table of the Elements festival chatting
up some of the string players from Rachel's about Erkki-Sven Tuur and
Peteris Vasks. Heck, there's even the rumour that Tristan Murail is going
to be at Columbia. That's certainly a sign of the End Times (since I know
that they interviewed both Rzewski *and* Ferneyhough)! If he were in
Japan, we could simply turn Eric Lyon loose on him :-). See if you can
check a copy of Jamey Pritchett's book "The Music of John Cage" outta
the library and make him at least flip through the thing. Buy him a good
bottle of Merlot and sit him down for the canonical chat about catching more
flies with honey than with vinegar. I know we can count on you, John....

If this SAG thang is a chance to hear a live version of the Anaphorian Grady
stuff that John Chalmers played for us in Hong Kong, RUNDON'TWALK. It
was *wonderful.* My fondest hope for you is that it transpires that la
Bry turns out to be just some guy who turns from being slightly socially
challenged in real life to an ideologue with a megaphone (in short, that
he and I will turn out to be largely similar in real life, as Mr. Chalmers
so well knows....except for my reticence when it comes to calling for the
ruination and banishment of those with whom I disagree, of course!) once
he's free from the vicissitudes of real interaction outside of the electron
stream. May it be so.

>Am I nuts or what?

No, you're close enough to go and hear some wonderful music. I'd jump
at the chance, if I were you.

>Must be the single malt talking...

Ardbegh? (did I spell that right?) Given mah heritage, Ah'm a small batch
Bourbon person mahse'f. Booker Noe's.

[insert Walker Percy quote here],
Gregory

_
I would go to her, lay it all out, unedited. The plot was a simple one,
paraphrasable by the most ingenuous of nets. The life we lead is our only
maybe. The tale we tell is the must that we make by living it. [Richard
Powers, "Galatea 2.2"] Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/Madison, WI



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