Mitch Friedfeld wrote

>But whenever some one wonders why I have, say, the Bartok quartets playing
>(out of earshot ofanyone else, I add), I try to change the subject.  My
>musical likes are just too personal.

I happen to do that same thing in addition to turning off the player or
pausing the cd until the person leaves the vincinity - especially in more
modern and dissonant music.  I guess it's just a way to avoid being branded
as an eccentric and conforming to social norms.

>Oh yes, and with several thousand people on the Internet.

Internet provides us the anoynimity of identity.  The fact that we don't
physically see the other persons somehow makes us braver- a shield for many
CM lovers (like myself and many others).

Questions asked by many of my friends (face to face) about my CM hobby can
be a little insulting sometimes (eg.  listen to CM because it makes me feel
that I'm above them? duh!).  Others are plain amusing in their intent to
help ("...hey I've got this CD of this guy called Mantovani doing Strauss
Waltzes" - which then I put on Bokovsky's excellent Strauss Waltzes which
blew him away).  But it's the insulting and insensitive questions that
always puts me back in my shell of silence.

Jynn Tan
Honolulu HI