Jocelyn Wang wrote:

>Coughing cannot always be stifled, but other noises can, such as taking
>10 minutes to unwrap a cough drop, talking, etc.  A composer I know, when
>attending concerts, comes prepared with cough drops for three reasons.
>
>1. If he needs one, he can have one.
>2. If someone near him needs one, he can offer one.
>3. If someone is talking several rows away and can't be shushed,
>cough drops make excellent projectiles.

At the Kennedy Center, there are dispensers in the Concert Hall foyers that
have free Robitussin drops available for anyone to take.  My impression
from a recent concert I attended there was that they should have included
a large scoop with the bin, sort of like the bulk cheap food dispensers in
grocery stores.  Some folks in that audience could have used every one they
could stuff in their pockets.  A suitable gunlike device to carry out step
Number 3 above would have been useful, if bringing one into the KC these
days wasn't likely to get one the Boulez treatment (or worse, a military
tribunal and subsequent execution in Texas).

Bill H.