geode,
Please don't wander too far off the reservation. Some of us enjoy your input. Sparring with management generally isn't wise, unless you own da joint.
***
coug and all,
Here's a variant on the "silk purse" apophthegm.
A couple decades ago, the San Francisco Symphony had a Music Director who was vexed by one of the society matrons on his Board of Directors. The nouveau riche biche had muscled her way onto the board by means of very generous donations of her husband's fortune. Now as we all know, money talks, but it doesn't sing and dance. And year after year this woman became increasingly rancorous and shrill about settling the score (and the repertoire)... on the Strauss waltzes. Gentle hints that, maybe, Strauss was a bit less than a stellar composer seemed to fall on deaf ears. Eventually, the maestro had had enough of the woman's championing of bad taste. In a heated moment in a Board meeting, he caustically commented, "Madame, tis impossible to make a silk ear out of a sow's purse."
I hear she's on the Opera board now..... |
