Yes and no. Mozart is Exhibit A in illlustrating Walt Whitman's point: "I am large, I contain multitudes." But my quarrel with the creators of the Mozart's Requiem-themed toilet ad -- and contemporary US culture as a whole -- is the conflation of all aspects of personality to produce a POV that is *relentlessly* vulgar. The whole notion of the "proper occasion," that there is a time and a place for everything, has pretty much been lost. I doubt that Mozart, for all his fondness for fart jokes, would really want listeners meditating on intestinal gas while listening to his Requiem -- again, one of the most sublime collection of notes ever assembled.
On a less lofty but related subject, one of the reasons that I value my new telecommuting lifestyle -- where I very rarely have to take the train to a Manhattan office anymore -- has been the virtual extinction of coat-and-tie wearing among office workers. One of the few good things about working in an office was that coworkers looked dignified and sophisticated, like adults. Now, with the ubiquitous crummy shirts and slacks that are de rigueur for the "leisure" look of today's anything-but-leisure, 24/7 business operations, male office workers simply look like a corroded, old and tired version of high school students.
Carl
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