Belated Boulez

Tears of a Clownsilly has a screamingly funny post, of some time ago, on Pierre Boulez' hair.

Let's face it: Boulez has some of the worst hair of the current crop of composers and conductors. His comb-over is painfully obvious and shellacked down with what I can only assume is some sort of industrial epoxy. He also doesn't seem to jump and jive in concert, so that probably helps fly-aways. In the late 1960s, he sported an H.R. Haldeman-esque 'do that made him seem like a slightly irritable chemistry teacher. His penchant for white, button-down dress shirts and dark ties didn't help, but his current penchant for sweater-shirts buttoned up to the top seems even less appropriate.

I have decided that Boulez is everyone's nice, very smart grandfather who used to be a holy terror in the 1950s and 1960s, but - for whatever reason - has decided to mellow out and be agreeable.

Before you ask, Stockhausen is everyone's slightly kooky uncle with grandiose ideas and massive schemes, and is the guy your father refuses to talk to at family reunions.

As a bonus: Graduate thesis: Modern archetypes in the modern nuclear family - 1950-2007. You'll do very well in comparative lit. programs, and you might just get an appointment at some sort of progressive American university.