Word: thomson
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...scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia gave Rorem entry into the company of the other wunderkinder and their mentors who, from the 1940s on, would do much to define what serious American music was all about: Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thomson, Marc Blitzstein, Lukas Foss, Samuel Barber, John Cage. Rorem's feelings of admiration, doubt, jealousy and gratefulness for these figures inspire the sharpest sketches in a book crammed with sharp sketches. On two composers who straddled the concert stage and Broadway: "Lenny Bernstein would never have been quite what he was without the firm example...
Still, one leaves this rich meal feeling curiously empty. The reason may be that Rorem has been voluble about every facet of his life except whom and what he really cares about. Explaining why he felt his protege was "not a dependable critic," Virgil Thomson once said of Rorem, "His egocentricity gets in the way. It prevents his seriously liking or hating anything." Rorem quotes this remark, along with others even less flattering about himself. It's a gutsy thing to do, but it only points to a terrible void...
...discussion featured: Thomson Professor of Government Martin L. Kilson Jr.; Alex Hurt, a first-year student at the Harvard Divinity School; Preston; and Carl Washington, a Los Angeles minister...
Most important is increased vigilance by public-health authorities. The faster a new microbe can be identified and its transmission slowed, the less likely a small outbreak will turn into an epidemic. Unfortunately, the trend has been in the other direction. "Even in the U.S.," says Thomson Prentice of the World Health Organization in Geneva, "disease-monitoring expertise has been lost, either through cost-cutting or reduced diligence. If some of the edge has been lost in the U.S., just imagine how poorer countries have reacted...
...highway. For one thing, the phone companies have virtually no experience in creating programs for the newly wired homes. One of the Bells' biggest rivals in the information race scoffs at the deal between Disney and three Baby Bells as "showboating" and "premature." Concurs TCI senior vice president Bob Thomson: "There's still a lot of hype going on amongst the Bells. There's quite a bit of smoke flying around...