Rachel laments along with Jeremiah:

>Himmel, where does it end? Here I am just feeling better about myself when
another aspect of my life is trashed!  German and a woman...sheesh, It
could only be worse for me if I were also Lesbian...Hey, that's right...I
am!  And I like classical music...MAN WHAT A MINORITY!

It was ever thus.

You made my day.  That's exactly why women are divorcing men three times
as often as the other way round.  Men have become wimps.  Did you see the
response that precedes yours? Maybe he was afraid of hurting me? They are
afraid of your kind.  I love your kind (well, those I can make love to) and
they seem to be attracted by a good fight.  It's the making up that's so
sweet.

Sorry, but you are not in the minority either.

Others on this board

(1) have politically correct reputations to maintain.  My life has taken
me in a different direction.  I have no reputation to protect.  That I won't
go into.  I do want to be published here.

(2) pretend Lebrecht is a shaky source of information about classical
music.  But these folk consciously avoid reading me.  I understand why.
I would, too, if I were them.  But as I wrote in a recent post, Lebrecht
is actually one of them, a man of the left, sympathetic to homosexuality
and tired of the three B's.

(3) I have been a New Yorker and a classical music lover all my life.
You'd have to be blind not to know that being a homosexual in the New York
classical music scene is an asset.  Being heterosexual is the liability.
I didn't need Lebrecht to tell me that.  That also goes along with the fact
that the New York homosexual community being far wealthier per capita than
"ordinary" people.  It is the East Coast wing of the Hollywood political
set and a major source of Clinton's campaign warchests.

(3) If anyone wishes to challenge the above,

(a) I have sources at the highest levels of NY music organizations, men
I have represented who suffered in advancement or lost their jobs because
they were outside the "cozy circle" Lebrecht speaks of.  I can also cite a
court case of a heterosexual woman who left the Metropolitan Opera because
she was told to her face by her co-workers that there was no future for her
there.

(b) Years before Lebrecht cried "the king has no clothes" I could see all
the "nakedness" with my own eyes.  I knew the conductors, soloists, high
profile hangers-on, critics going back to Virgil Thomson and management
people, who were obviously homosexual.  Speaking of kings and nakedness,
I guess that's a small reason I am attracted to Nielsen.  Not that the
present Danes are any different from anyone else, but their historical
greats were men who defied convention, from Andersen to Schoitz to Niels
Bohr and to the way they refused to take ^%#@ from the Nazis even though
they are blonder and more blue-eyed than the little Corporal or the
forerunner movie mogul from Bayreuth.

(4) As for men, restricting it merely to a small matter in concert
attendance, why are there three times as many bathroom facilities at
Philharmonic Hall for women than for men? Now be careful.  This is an over
50 (maybe 60) age group.  Men at this age are in worse physical condition
on average than women.  They need as quick and long access to a bathroom
and it is as hard for them to climb stairs as for women.  So it must be
as with sinking ships, women and children first.

I am not taking anything out on you.  I love a good fight and I enjoy
people who have the self-confidence to do a Laurel and Hardy.  I write
privately to one person and sometimes include the phrase "this was
generated automatically in the interest of controversy." It's fun and it's
funny; its shakes up the flabby establishment and only humor will ever
destroy the worst aspects of feminism.  Forget reason.  No one was ever
convinced by reason nor fairness.

Let the games begin. (-:)

Andrew E. Carlan, not being very "esquire" and loving it.

 [I knew you'd find a home for that kitchen sink after all.  Nice work.  -Dave]