Recent firings

Zobie runs another blog -- the Phosophorus, if you will to Zobenigo's Hesperus -- his daylight, smiling face. (Yes, he has one, or perhaps we should say that he can at least do a good imitation of one). But he runs that blog unprofessionally; ignores comments, has no traffic counter, and, most importantly, uses the side-bar to help him navigate the web, instead of the usual marketing use to which it is put. Finding a new RSS feed to follow and sticking it in there is a joy; but so is pruning the list.

Lately, he pruned.

A website purportedly on Portuguese cultural life whose recent entries covered some PR petition regarding the Great Ukrainian Hunger; and the awfulness of the Air France disaster. Chop. (The reason why I do not watch TV is precisely that I don't want this sort of garbage).

Then the one work a day feed from the Metropolitan - two weeks of uninterrupted, relentless ugliness. Chop. (If they can't do pretty, what is their use in life).

Chop, too, the Cultural Tourist for his warm endorsement of two books (by friend, no doubt) whose goodness lay, he said, in guiding us, readers, through the thicket of literature and advising us which bits to read and which to skip. (Spence, he seemed to suggest, especially).

Now, my uncle once had a record -- a product of America, you will immediately see -- called The World's Most Beautiful Classical Music, which consisted of a daisy chain of 30-second snippets of, in no particular order, the main themes of Eroica's third movement, followed by the main theme of the Persian Market, etc. My uncle thought it was great because one only got the good stuff without the need to waste his time on the dross (modulation, development, coda, etc.).

I should dig it up and send it to Kissel as a gift. I bet he will love it; perhaps even write it up. But I will not have to read it.