ATDTDA 716

[Michael Bailey]

I'm such a liar (Cretan too)

flashback to 712, re the Mozart piece
"either in or outside of his head..."
and "It might have been prophetic, had he been listening."
So either way, he's not paying attention, not "facing the music"

""romance" had slipped into an inexpensive subfusc of
self-awareness, unnaturally heightening the effect of
the outmoded pastels peeping from beneath"

(cf. p 491 - "the boys were lounging about Ratty's rooms
drinking ale, smoking Balkan Sobranies, and trying without
notable success to mope themselves back into the
lilies-and-lassitude humor of the '90s")

90s - a) the "gay" 90s

b) wasn't that era like, Aubrey Beardsley 'n' them?
some really lovely stuff (imho)
and, it was referenced and flashed back to in
a similarly "pastel" period - the 1960s -
which were in Vineland compared/contrasted
with the more "subfusc" 1980s

c) Balkan Sobranies, imported ($$$) smokes,
"Sobranie" being Russkii for "Legislature"
(sorta like the American "Parliament" cigareet,
whose jingle was "You get the most out of mildness with
Parliament - Cigarettes" - with the recessed filter)

----- and indeed, there is now (2008) an actual
Macedonia with its own Sobranie
(where before there was only a Macedonia question,
and then under Tito - who in my extreme youth was
regarded as kinda ok for a Commie - a socialist republic)
(and if you go WAY WAY Back, Mr Peabody...
there was this ancient fellow called "Phillip of
Macedonia" - and Phillip means horselover,
which may be referenced in AtD, page 492:
"A sigh.  "Shetland...I say how does one...well,
actually, Shetland ponies...")



-- 
"ticktacktooling along" - Time Magazine