Robert Peters wrote:

>Christopher Webber wrote:
>
>>The line about the "magic flute at the lips of God" gives us a very good
>>example of Shaffer's customary impressiveness of utterance, combined with
>>total vacuity of meaning.
>
>This line is not the best written line in the world but it is by no
>means without meaning.

Then please explain it to us.  I agree with Christopher, btw.

>I think you deliberately misinterpret Shaffer. He is not suspicious of
>the artist, he admires him for being the creator of wonderful art
>whereas we all (me, you, everyone) have to live a life full of
>trivialities. This is a statement full of truth I think.

Oh dear, the cult of genius again.  It may surprise you that Mozart too
has a lot of "trivialities" in his life.  He had to pay the rent, for
instance, imagine that.  Deal with money problems when his cash flow was
low.  I doubt he had fewer "trivialities" in his life than most of us.

And please speak for yourself.  If your life is boring and trivial, I'm
sorry for you.  Mine is not and never has been.  There are plenty of things
that interest me to the point of obsession and I enjoy that.  I admire
Mozart's music, but I don't envy him.  And if you ever decide to read
Mozart's letters, you might notice that he doesn't talk about his music in
terms "Look Papa, I created another wonderful masterpiece".  His letters,
when he writes about music, are more like those of a very talented
craftsman, some quite technical.  Then again, so many of them are quite
trivial.

-Margaret Mikulska