How To Disappear Completely

I wanna be a music lawyer

Not really, but the other day in class, the prof was relating what a substantial amount of money musicologists receive from testifying in copyright cases. "Ah yes, your honour. The main theme in Mozart's 12 variations is CLEARLY identical to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...we recommend the defendent reimburse Anonymous with full back royalties..."

Another student remarked that originality is located in the melody, and more specifically in surface gestures...otherwise the largish bulk of Western Music would simply be a rip-off of Three Blind Mice (at least, according to Schenker and his analytical theories).

Apparently locating originality in timbre and texture really hasn't caught on yet, else the cover artist wouldn't have to obtain rights to the original song. But sampling rearranges to a greater degree, I suppose. At least, for some reason, asking an artist if you can cut his painting to bits and create a collage out of it is considered more demonstrative of creative agency than asking an artist if you can repaint his mona lisa using nothing more than blue or red tints. Oh wait. You CAN do that in the visual arts. Just not in music.
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AMS has finally caught on to the wide-spread influence of Wikipedia and has sounded the cry for more musicologists to get on board in order to rectify the "painfully obvious [fact] that many other articles [those in popular music, I presume] are the work of persons with no background in the disciplined study of music." [Charles Hamm, a popular music historian]. I am glad they have noticed that Wikipedia is important, because not everyone can access the Grove Dictionary (despite the presence of an online version). That repository of all musicological knowledge (regarding Western Art music at any rate) is either a) inconveniently located in a library somewhere and not at your fingertips or b) frustratingly dependent upon paid subscription for access. Fortunately, I'm a student and can access the online Grove through my school. But your average Joe Music Listener (whoever he may be) is not. So Wikipedia's the way to go if we want the general public to be informed.

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In a world where information is increasingly sought predominantly on the internet, the field of classical music lags behind, largely because of classical music's autonomy from any text. Popular music can often be traced via lyrics: if I hear a song on the radio that I like, I can usually find it by googling a fragment of the text. But for all those snatches of sonata, concerto, or symphony that we encounter~there is no effective method by which to trace these. And perhaps public memory suffers because of it.
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Fast List of Composer Birthdays
New York Metropolitan Opera Radio Goes 24/7

I am listening to the soundtrack to Holiday Inn because I want to, not because of class. Except now I am in the mood for Christmas. Someone get me a copy of It's a Wonderful Life fast!
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If anyone wants to learn how to have faith like a child, they ought to watch Ponette. Children struggle to understand the spiritual, but adults sometimes lose their grasp on the material. Or perhaps we resort to the spiritual in order to hide our fear of the material: saying that heaven and the resurrection are spiritual hides our doubts that the material miracle can ever happen. But why shouldn't we expect the material?

I felt less as if I were watching a film, and more as if I were back nannying: these children were some of the most natural-looking characters I've ever been privileged to watch onscreen. And the fact that there is little music contributes to the "real time" effect. Thanks to Joanna for the recommendation.
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I've never seen an entire episode of the Office, but I found this link to be of interest, courtesy of cevangeline.