Klarinet Archive - Posting 000295.txt from 2006/01

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] new Mozart finds
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:48:57 -0500

Not only did Scheinlin know about my novel, I gave him a copy,
described its contents, and confirmed that he read it. He even
mentioned it in his article in the first run through but then
took it out. Did you really believe that I would not have
mentioned it to him? I find that thought unworthy of you.

I'm surprised that people cannot tell the difference between
scholarship and satire.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Lelia Loban [mailto:lelialoban@-----.net]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 10:32 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] new Mozart finds

Dan, I'm curious. When Richard Scheinin interviewed you for the
Mercury
News article, did you tell him about "The Mozart Forgeries"? Do
you think
he knew about your novel when he wrote the article? Five minutes
of
Googling when (if) he fact-checked your credentials should have
turned up
that information. Whether Scheinen failed to obtain the
information or
failed to recognize its relevance and/or knowingly neglected to
include it
with your other relevant publications, if (more likely, *when*)
his editor
finds out about your novel, it's gonna be "Ride 'em, cowboy" time
in the
newspaper office.

Dan Leeson wrote,
>Rien, you have no idea how embarassing
> it has been on multiple occasions as I spoke
>about the collection. I was in Salzburg
>presented to the authorities of the Mozarteum,
>and one officer of the organization said to me,
>"Didn't you write a book about forging Mozart
>manuscripts?"

Okay, I understand the embarrassment. People do tend to suspect
that
experts have an unfair advantage over the rest of us and that
experts take
advantage of the advantage--that they're up to no good. It
appears to be
an enormous coincidence that this collection turned up while you
were in
the process of preparing the novel. (Your novel was published in
May,
2004; the article states that you "first saw the trove early in
2004.") An
apparent coincidence this huge is bound to raise eyebrows.
However, I'm
wondering whether the client knew all about your research and
contacted you
(instead of one of the many other experts in Mozart's life and
works) to
assist in authenticating this cache precisely *because* of your
background
work for the then-forthcoming novel. That explanation, if you
had
volunteered it, would have made sense while wiping out the
improbably large
coincidence.

>I now learn to say, "I am sufficiently knowledgeable
>about manuscripts to be able to write about forging them.
>But it would take a genius to forge works of art contained
>in an 18 carat gold frames which are sold to unsuspecting
>American naive men for a pittance."

That's part of a good answer, but the other part, leading to a
better
answer, is to anticipate the obvious questions and to volunteer
information
about your novel when you talk about the trove of memorabilia.
Don't wait
for somebody to ask, "Didn't you write a book about forging
Mozart
manuscripts?" Assume that even if nobody asks, people naturally
wonder.

Whether or not you and/or Scheinen made a deliberate decision to
withhold
any mention of "The Mozart Forgries," the simple fact that the
information
isn't in the article *looks* as if you might have preferred for
the Mercury
News audience not to know about the novel. Given the ubiquity of
Internet
connections, you must assume that anybody can and will read
anything you've
ever posted in a public forum and that any audience will learn
what you've
told any other audience. Trying to avoid an awkward explanation
by
controlling which information selected audiences receive (if
that's what
you did) just won't work today. Also, even with the audience
that knows
you better, here on Klarinet, the appearance that you've
concealed
something on a different site, from a different audience, can
backfire.

(Besides, Scheinen's article could have encouraged readers to buy
your
novel. How many authors with a book currently in print pass up a
chance to
promote it?)

I realize you can't control what parts of an interview the
reporter will
use. But, in the future, instead of withholding or downplaying
awkward
information, you might try to do the opposite: persuade the
reporter that
*because* this information is so fraught, it's too important to
omit. That
shouldn't be hard to do, because explaining the awkwardness gives
your
story the human interest hook that reporters want. Being the
first to
bring up your novel in connection with the memorablia would
disarm doubters
better than waiting for questions or accusations that force you
into a
defensive stance.

Lelia Loban

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