Topical Guide 241
Mark Dorset
Celluloid Collars
Chacallit’s rise in the haberdashery industry was purchased at the expense of some self-esteem. The men’s-furnishings business took itself quite seriously in those days, and the name of the town, because it did not suggest high seriousness, top-notch standards, and vaulting aspiration, might have stood in the way of further growth. When the Excelsior Celluloid Collar Company became interested in building a mill in Chacallit, Excelsior officials made clear their feeling that the company would find it an embarrassment to be known as the Excelsior Celluloid Collar Company of Chacallit because of the humorous connotations of the name of the town. “We fear,” the board of directors said in a letter to the mayor of Chacallit, “that in a short time we would be known, not openly, but behind our collective back, in a snickering, mocking way, as the Whatchamacallit Collar Company.”
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 1
Sunday concert: the Abeo Quartet in the Schneider Concert Series.
Their performance included Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3, in F Major, Op. 73.
From Wikipedia:
Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, was composed in 1946 after his Symphony No. 9 was censured by Soviet authorities. It was premiered in Moscow by the Beethoven Quartet, to whom it is dedicated, in December 1946.
For the premiere, most likely so that he would not be accused of “formalism” or “elitism,” Shostakovich allegedly renamed the movements in the manner of a war story:
I. Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm
II. Rumblings of unrest and anticipation
III. Forces of war unleashed
IV. In memory of the dead
V. The eternal question: why? and for what?
[more to come on Wednesday, April 20, 2022]
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