Mark Landson wrote:

>My observation is that people care about things that directly affect them.
>.....Now that CM is being so heavily saturated with sexy violinists
>relying on image to sell them (not that they are not talented as well),
>can we ask ourselves, is the image of Hillary Hahn really going to be
>pulling people's entertainment dollars away from Britney Spears? What is
>the message that Hillary Hahn has that Britney doesn't? Why should we
>listen to Hillary? And please don't tell me quality.  Quality of what?
>Youth? figure? sex appeal?

Perhaps the music? Though I have to admit I've not heard Britney's recent
CD of her doing the Bach unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas.....

>CM and the arts need a reason to exist.  No one has found it.

Does it lend itself to a Cost/Benefit analysis?

>The Mozart effect? Is that really the reason we listen to CM? To produce
>better engineers? Anyone have an idea?

Well, I can only speak for myself, in that Mozart probably did damn little
to make me a better engineer, as I misspent my youth going to concerts
and listening to records rather than doing my Thermodynamics and Kinetics
problem sets as I should have.  But Mozart was always around, and could
always be relied upon to support me emotionally, unlike some of the
girlfriends I had at the time:-( Perhaps for that reason some people will
argue whether Mozart and his brethren made me a better human being.  But
they DID make those years a lot more tolerable.

Bill H.