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.