Klarinet Archive - Posting 000924.txt from 1995/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Neil Leupold zings me - ugh!!
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:04:21 -0400

Neil ends a note to someone on a subject to which I have not added
a single word and says, "But with Dan Leeson around you are sure to
get a jab."

No offense taken. In fact I took it as a compliment.

Neil, have you ever seen the opera Falstaff (Verdi) or the Shakespeare
play on which it is based, The Merry Wives of Windsor? In it, everyone
beats up on Falstaff at the end of the opera, but he zonks them all
by saying something like, "What kind of a life would you be having were
it not for me? I make the sparks. I make everything happen."

I am not suggesting that the parallel is exact, but this would be a far
more prosaic and dull list if I were not forcing everyone, including
youself, to take a new look at some very old issues. Makes you somewhat
uncomfortable, yes?

In effect:

Ogni sorta di gente dozzinale
Mi beffa e se ne gloria;
Pur, senza me, costor con tanta boria
Non avbrebbero un bricciolo di sale.
Son io che vi fa scaltri
L'arguzia mia crea l'arguzia degli altri.

(Falstaff, Act III, Scene II)

[All kinds of common folk
Jeer at me now, and are proud of it.
But without me, their arrogance
Would be flat and flavorless.
It is I who season it for you -
My cleverness creates the cleverness of others.]

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================

   
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