Summary: <br> Virgil Thomson in 1947<br> <br> <br> <br> We recognize the birth on November 25, 1896 – 123 years ago today – of the American composer and music critic Virgil Thomson in Kansas City, Missouri. <br> <br> <br> <br> Mr. Thomson was one of the most important American musicians and music critics of the twentieth century. But before we move on to him, we’ve an additional topic of nearly equal import with which we must deal, albeit, sadly, in a cursory fashion, here on the august and dignified pages of Music History Monday.<br> <br> <br> <br> The love birds in 2002<br> <br> <br> <br> On November 25, 2002 – 17 years ago to this very day – the Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Kim Coppola in 1964) filed for divorce from the so-called, self-styled “Princess of Rock ‘n’ Roll” Lisa Marie Presley (born 1968). The loving couple had been married for all of 107 days. The marriage ended due to what was euphemistically called “irreconcilable differences”. A brief perusal of internet tabloids (“interbloids”? “tabnets”?) would confirm the “irreconcilable” part. For his part, Cage comes up relatively clean (I’ve used the word “clean” advisedly, as Cage is known for his aversion to deodorant). Indeed: he is impetuous in his actions and spending, which resonates with the spontaneity of his over-the-top, sometimes even surreal acting style. But being impetuous is not, in itself, a particularly damning trait except when it comes to choosing a marital partner. Impetuous and ill-advised was Cage’s choice of Ms. Presley; he should have done a little due diligence over Lisa Marie, who had just recently ended her sham (illegal), public relations-stunt marriage to Michael Jackson. During the course of their “marriage” (that’s “marriage” in scare quotes), Cage and Presley never lived together because they couldn’t agree on where they wanted to live. According to Cage (and Michael Jackson before him), Presley was a jealous control freak who would phone him and harangue him constantly, to the point that Cage could not conduct business meetings or rehearsals. She once had her bodyguards physically throw him out of a recording studio because his presence “made her nervous.” But the clincher – for a fellow collector like myself – is that according to Cage, Lisa Marie “made him” sell his huge and fabled comic book collection, something he regrets to this day. “I should have stood up for myself,” says Cage.<br> <br> <br> <br> Uh-huh. Grow a pair, says we. <br> <br> <br> <br> I will be forgiven for the previous sentence, despite the fact that I know it was critical of me to say what I said, jumping to a conclusion – perhaps rashly – that Maestro Cage was/is cajone-challenged. <br> <br> <br> <br> But that’s what critics do, yes? They judge and draw conclusions based on their own opinions and experience, more often than not with hardly a clue as to the true intentions of the individual or object being critiqued.<br> <br> <br> <br> Ah, critics. We can’t live with them and we can’t live with them (you read that correctly). Having said that, I have no intention – here – of getting into a conversation/screed on the role and responsibilities of the critic; that would take up three or four entire posts and would only, in the end, showcase my own frustration with “criticism” as it is generally practiced. <br> <br> <br> <br> (“But”, one might say, “critics help me decide what restaurants to go to and what movies to watch.” And well they might. But the soaring prose, scalpel-sharp wit, professional jealousy and personal agendas of many of the “best” critics effectively cloud their judgment and cause them – not infrequently – to overstate their critical case and to thus render their critiques as subjective as any laypersons.) <br> <br> <br> <br> Painful to the critical community though it may be,
