Dear Nick,

a) Thanks for your two e-mails.

b) Too cheap to pay to read the NY Times, I haven't had access to the article you mentioned, but the thesis that Die Frau ohne Schatten should be construed as reconciliation after WWI, for which Hofmannsthal wrote Austro-Hungarian propaganda tracts, seems far-fetched to me.  

c) I haven't finished my homework about Die Frau ohne Schatten. I'm startled by the intellectual and esthetic extravagances of the plot, not to mention the  music, extravagances which are far removed from any other poetry of Hofmannsthals that I remember. In the context of my own libretto-dabbling, I may make more efforts to understand die Frau and may have more to write about her later.  

d) The current political situation seems very grave to me, and if it's not naughty to say so, also seems very interesting. Is it wrong, bad, wicked, evil to step back and contemplate it as a zoological phenomenon, where "free will", deliberateness of action is a delusion, as in a fight among dogs, cats, mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons, possums, skunks, snakes, eagles, hawks, vultures ... take your pick? Aristotle was wrong. Animals do not live in isolation. They aggregate into herds, flocks, schools (of fish), swarms of insects, villages, states, nations, political, parties - having "enemies". Fighting, eating, killing, conquering, imprisoning, enslaving "the enemy" is "natural", as is the propounding of quasi- religious theories why it is i) necessary and good, and/or ii) destructive and evil to do so.

I could go on like this for hours, - for days, for weeks, and if I live, I will, - in the next libretto which I am trying to hatch.

When you've stopped coughing and sneezing, come to see me.  Meanwhile best wishes for survival.

EJM


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