The Troll Void

[Gurn Blanston]

Gah... you guys are so sickly sweet sometimes. MI is simply a tool. He's not interesting enough to be a troll.

I'm way too subtle for you, Philo. But speaking of tools...

[karlhenning]

(* munches caramel-covered popcorn *)

[Philoctetes]

I'm way too subtle for you, Philo. But speaking of tools...

Way too.

I'd call myself an ass rather than a tool. I don't have the patience to be a tool.

[The new erato]

Does anyone here think I'm a troll?

Slightly impish at times, but far from a troll.

[MishaK]

The great thing about Newman is that he didn't just believe his own Mozart conspiracy theory; he believed every other conspiracy theory - the moon landing never happened, Shakespeare didn't write his own plays, 9/11 was an inside job.

Yes, but the pathetic thing is that his own Mozart conspiracy theory didn't even have the basic elements of a decent conspiracy theory. The best conspiracy theories are persuasive because they have a really good answer to the question of cui bono? Most of them are follow-the-money lines of reasoning. Newman's concoction failed even that. It doesn't really matter to the classical music "industry" (which doesn't really make all that much profit anyway), whether or not Mozart in fact wrote all his works himself. The core twenty or so works of his would continue to be played whoever the author simply on the quality of the works themselves. It doesn't matter whether the Jupiter was written by Mozart or by Dittersdorf's left buttcheek. Nobody's career depends on the authenticity of Mozart these days, at least nobody who makes any money meaningful enough to put up the resources to manufacture and maintain such a complicated conspiracy.

[Mirror Image]

No, your opinions are far too often congruent with my own for them to anything other than enlightened editorializing...  0:)

Lol...thanks Gum. You're a nice fellow. A good moderator as well.

[Mirror Image]

Sometimes just a bit brusque, perhaps, MI, but never a troll.

Yes, I can be incredibly blunt sometimes, but I often do apologize to those I have wronged.

[Grazioso]

No one gets to be beyond a teenager without getting over some level of sheer idiocy.

Have you ever watched Cops? 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Yes, I can be incredibly blunt sometimes, but I often do apologize to those I have wronged.

Then you're not a troll. Trolls never apologize to anyone for anything.

You guys have not mentioned the greatest CMG troll of all time, one who made even the many-talented Saul look like a rank amateur. I refer to none other than the great Mark Anstendig, the great might-have-been conductor and photographer, whose rantings and ravings against digital sound and defense of the LP were the most obsessive and bizarre collection of pseudo-thoughts I have encountered anywhere on the Net or off. One of Mark's pet theories, for example, was that Fiordiligi in "Per Pieta" was experiencing a female orgasm at the end of that aria, and that this could only be heard properly by Schwartzkopf on the Boehm recording, but only in analog, because when it was transferred to CD all the "expressive nuances" were lost. When I asked Mark if the soprano was actually supposed to frig herself on stage, and pointed out that nothing in the text or music supported such an interpretation, he got on his high horse and commenced an even ravier set of ravings than ever. They don't make 'em like Mark anymore. But once he was banned from CMG, he seems never to have resurfaced anywhere else (thank God). Good times, good times.

[CD]

You guys have not mentioned the greatest CMG troll of all time, one who made even the many-talented Saul look like a rank amateur. I refer to none other than the great Mark Anstendig

A quick google search reveals... he has his own institute!

[Scarpia]

Then you're not a troll. Trolls never apologize to anyone for anything.

You guys have not mentioned the greatest CMG troll of all time, one who made even the many-talented Saul look like a rank amateur. I refer to none other than the great Mark Anstendig, the great might-have-been conductor and photographer, whose rantings and ravings against digital sound and defense of the LP were the most obsessive and bizarre collection of pseudo-thoughts I have encountered anywhere on the Net or off. One of Mark's pet theories, for example, was that Fiordiligi in "Per Pieta" was experiencing a female orgasm at the end of that aria, and that this could only be heard properly by Schwartzkopf on the Boehm recording, but only in analog, because when it was transferred to CD all the "expressive nuances" were lost. When I asked Mark if the soprano was actually supposed to frig herself on stage, and pointed out that nothing in the text or music supported such an interpretation, he got on his high horse and commenced an even ravier set of ravings than ever. They don't make 'em like Mark anymore. But once he was banned from CMG, he seems never to have resurfaced anywhere else (thank God). Good times, good times.

I agree with most of what you say about Mark, but would not label him a "Troll" because a Troll (as I understand it) is motivated by the desire to be disruptive.  Mark Anstendig sincerely believed it was his god-given mission to save the world from the compact disc.  His technical claims were complete nonsense (he would sometimes post equations in which the units didn't even match) but when you got him on the subject of the music itself he could be very interesting.  It was extremely annoying that if you ever let slip that you did not enjoy a recording he advocated he would claim it was because you were not listening on LP with his custom made phono cartridge! 

He also claimed that all photographs were not focused correctly because they did not use his focusing method, or because they did not use some obscure Leica lense, which was the only lens that focused properly.   

He even has his own institute. 

http://www.anstendig.org/

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Oh God, the great Anstendig. How could we ever forget...I don't think he was at this site, though.

Stuff I'll always remember: the name "Morel," as in "Morel always told us to [do something or other]," the spelling "time domaine" (and general mangling of the English language), German gov't grants, super-strong magnets from the Soviet space program, doing yoga and meditating before listening, wearing earmuffs to concerts, the superiority of reel-to-reel tape, bisexual adventurism in urban parks, and of course the Anstendig Institute, which as far as I know was just his house in SF, plus a few hippie guests.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I do admit that I found fascinating the combination of his loudly self-declared genius with the various glimpses of his sad-sack existence.

Further on the subject of Sean, this thread exemplifies the above self-quotation:

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,5579.msg134118.html#msg134118

Note how he traces his hatred of organized education to the following incident:

Primary school 1974-81: was doing really well until about seven when was drawing a tree one day the teacher asked me to do something with it without explaining properly. From then on hated the school with a special vengance that I only understood years later- came to see that many other people's minds work in terms of patterns or normative systems whereas mine just works in terms of understanding, and if this isn't available I have difficulties, the tree being one of the first examples.

Yeah, it was the "tree incident" - screwed him up for life, apparently.

[Lethevich]

Stuff I'll always remember: the name "Morel," as in "Morel always told us to [do something or other]," the spelling "time domaine" (and general mangling of the English language)

Hehe, speaking of ridiculously anachronistic language, Sydney Grew was fun while "they" lasted.

[Gurn Blanston]

No, Mark never made it over here. I believe he was so shattered by his dismissal from CMG that he simply gave up fora altogether.

I agree with Scarps though; I don't think he was a troll because he sincerely believed everything he said. As I understand trolling, there is an element of selling out ones personal convictions in order to create more disruption. But Mark really believed all that shit. Well, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Nadia Boulanger from him.



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Now playing:
Palmer Chamber Orchestra / Palmer Harris / Garrison / Fortunato / Guyer - Hob 28 02 Opera buffa in 2 Acts "La Cantarina" pt 04 Act I. Accompanied Recitative: Che dici

[CD]

Hehe, speaking of ridiculously anachronistic language, Sydney Grew was fun while "they" lasted.

We would be most inclined to agree.

[(poco) Sforzando]

No, Mark never made it over here. I believe he was so shattered by his dismissal from CMG that he simply gave up fora altogether.

I agree with Scarps though; I don't think he was a troll because he sincerely believed everything he said. As I understand trolling, there is an element of selling out ones personal convictions in order to create more disruption. But Mark really believed all that shit. Well, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Nadia Boulanger from him.

Perhaps we're only debating semantics here. No question he believed fervently all he said. But he endlessly disrupted discussions and tried to bend them to his idées fixes. That's troll enough for me.

[Scarpia]

which as far as I know was just his house in SF, plus a few hippie guests.

Not even his house, as I understood it, but the house of some elderly lady who was his "patron" and took him in.  The address is on his "institute" page and I see that ironically I walked right past it on a recent visit to San Francisco.  It is near Alamo park, where the painted ladies of San Francisco reside.

[Gurn Blanston]

Perhaps we're only debating semantics here. No question he believed fervently all he said. But he endlessly disrupted discussions and tried to bend them to his idées fixes. That's troll enough for me.

No question about that. Since I rarely took part in the same discussions as he did I could read and laugh. If I had done though, I would have probably wanted to strangle him.   



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Now playing:
Palmer Chamber Orchestra / Palmer Harris / Garrison / Fortunato / Guyer - Hob 28 02 Opera buffa in 2 Acts "La Cantarina" pt 05 Act I. Quartet Finale: Scellerata

[Scarpia]

Well, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Nadia Boulanger from him.

And Klemperer, don't forget.  The most infuriating thing was when you would try to agree with him, and he would feel the need to point out that your opinion was still worthless because you didn't have his custome tweeked Wadia phono cartridge.