(This was posted December 1 at 5:50pm)
Twice today I've used the Classical Composers Database in the realm of comment placing.
This first was this little Stephen Harper narrative on the Dark Blue Tory blog. I needed the name of a composer. Not a famous and therefore trite one, but also one who isn't stuck in the 20th century. Tommaso Traetta fit the bill nicely.
The second was my reply to comments about my comments [is that right? he just has to wait until my fourth B-52 before throwing around multiple-modifier like that... -ed] about Derek Jeter not having been to Europe. The original post where I replied can be found here. The reply to my comments (and my own comments) can be found here. By far the highlight was her (her? I assume its a chick) response to my statement:
Believe it or not, it is possible to be a human being of some sort of value having never toured a castle or museum in some rundown Spanish villa.
No, it's not.Intellectual snobbery? Never heard of it! Since she (I'll just call her a chick, even funnier if she isn't) had no idea why I was bringing up Kalamazoo, Michigan, it was only appropriate that I tell her I didn't just "come up with the lamest place you could think of in America to compare to traveling to Europe" but in fact made reference to where the dude was born. Naturally I had to compare it to travelling Europe, 90% of which is listening to which obscure authors or impressionists or uranists were born where. Since I'd checked the database already today it seemed the best bet. I needed a pre-1850 composer who wasn't born in a big cool city like Rome or Sommerset. I probably could have found a better example, but Henri-Joseph Riegel was born in a town in Germany that barely warrants a Wikipedia stub. Suits the bill just fine.
