american bucolic
The scope of the fireworks display in Coralville IA is entirely out of keeping with its population of 15,123. I give it two thumbs up, even though some of the loud popping rockets were downright hostile and Marlowe got hit by shrapnel.
Re: Monday's Mozart, Jen, who is working on a production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus this summer, points out the irony of Hesse's Mozart condemning Brahms for musical excess when this was precisely the charge leveled against Mozart during his lifetime. The historical Mozart, one could argue, is undergoing a transformative process similar to what happened with Shakespeare or even Christ; we remember them mostly through the interpretations of others, so that more than anything else they have become a composite of fictional characters. Hesse's and Shaffer's respective Mozarts would probably be incapable of maintaining a conversation.
