Weird Coincidence Day
Jul. 26th, 2021 06:44 pmI woke to one, followed by the other in the early afternoon. I'll start with the latter, since the subject is better known:
Today marks the 100th birthday of John deLancie.
(No, not that one.)
I wound up making the trip to Rochester today I did not make yesterday, for less fun but more productive reasons. As I bumped over the Batavia hill and my Buffalo radio stations went away, I put on a friend's afternoon show on Classical 91.5 and heard that name. I'd never known that John deLancie Senior was a famed oboist. He served in the US Army and, after the end of WWII, met the composer Richard Strauss. The story, as Wikipedia tells it and Julia did as well on the air:
De Lancie knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly and asked the composer if he had ever considered writing an oboe concerto. The composer answered simply "No" and the topic was dropped. Six months later, de Lancie was astonished to see that Strauss had changed his mind and was indeed publishing an Oboe Concerto. Strauss saw to it that the rights to the U.S. premiere were assigned to de Lancie. However, de Lancie had joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1946 as a section oboist, so that as a junior member and under orchestral protocol, he was not able to premiere the concerto since Philadelphia's principal oboist, Marcel Tabuteau, had seniority. De Lancie then gave the rights to perform the premiere to a young oboist friend at the CBS Symphony in New York, Mitch Miller.
(Rochester's own Mitch Miller, that is.) Senior did eventually get to play it himself.
The version I heard her play was one by the Academy of London under the direction of Richard Stamp, with the oboe solo done by, I swear I am not making this up, Ray Still.
(No, not that one.)
The Senior deLancie's son, of course, went on to a long career in sci-fi, most notably as the afrorepictured tricksting, jokesting sometime member of the Star Trek continuum known as Q.
(No, not them.)
Making this even more coinkidinkal for me? Two things: only yesterday, I mentioned deLancie the Younger in replying to a post here from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
conuly, who's been doing a rethink of the Voyager franchise and suggested several retroactive fixes, including improving the Kes/Neelix roles and, yes, more Seven. My comment was that I hated the idea of injecting the Q into this series, given that Junior or his friends could have Thanos-snapped them back to the Alpha quadrant any time he/they wanted. Then, after police suspected an oboe was involved, I asked my Meta-Met loving friend Susan if she'd ever played the piece. She's a longtime Citi Field season ticket holder and an oboist for the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. She replied that she never got to play it, but she did have the honor of studying under deLancie père for nine weeks at Aspen. He lived for 82 of those hundred years and his students remain active players, conductors and teachers of his art.
----
The earlier coincidence was tied to the client who was the main reason for my relatively short-time stop in the 585.
I've been representing this guy since 2008 and have gotten him out of so many jams, I had to order canning equipment from the Ball Jar company to capture it all. The first of those cases is still going on; the opposing law firm has gone through no fewer than seven different attorneys representing the opposing party in those years. I suspect there's a drawing of straws after every retirement, firing and lateral move to see who gets to continue dealing with me on it. The last of them to leave was a guy I will call John, not his name but not related to the deLancies, either. Nice guy, was one of the easiest to deal with in all that time and sadly had one of the shortest tenures among the Spinal Tap drummers on the other side.
My case with them is actually in a state of limbo at the moment, but I was surprised to see John's name pop up in an email from a different client with a totally different problem. My client Eric had a rather substantial claim against a guy with the exact same first and (less common) last name as John, for work performed at the site of a legendary and now sadly defunct Rochester restaurant. I asked how old the guy was and he said about my age. Wow, that old?, I replied, doing some quick math and realizing it could not be the John I'd worked with. Maybe it was his father, though.
Nope: I tracked down his mobile in earlier email exchanges, said hello, found out he's doing well in his new gig and asked him about Other John. Turns out it's his cousin, and that, at least according to My John, my client's claim is one in a long line that's probably going to end up in Bankruptcy Court. I'm still checking some things before I write it off, though.
Maybe the guy has an oboe he's not using.
Today marks the 100th birthday of John deLancie.
(No, not that one.)
I wound up making the trip to Rochester today I did not make yesterday, for less fun but more productive reasons. As I bumped over the Batavia hill and my Buffalo radio stations went away, I put on a friend's afternoon show on Classical 91.5 and heard that name. I'd never known that John deLancie Senior was a famed oboist. He served in the US Army and, after the end of WWII, met the composer Richard Strauss. The story, as Wikipedia tells it and Julia did as well on the air:
De Lancie knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly and asked the composer if he had ever considered writing an oboe concerto. The composer answered simply "No" and the topic was dropped. Six months later, de Lancie was astonished to see that Strauss had changed his mind and was indeed publishing an Oboe Concerto. Strauss saw to it that the rights to the U.S. premiere were assigned to de Lancie. However, de Lancie had joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1946 as a section oboist, so that as a junior member and under orchestral protocol, he was not able to premiere the concerto since Philadelphia's principal oboist, Marcel Tabuteau, had seniority. De Lancie then gave the rights to perform the premiere to a young oboist friend at the CBS Symphony in New York, Mitch Miller.
(Rochester's own Mitch Miller, that is.) Senior did eventually get to play it himself.
The version I heard her play was one by the Academy of London under the direction of Richard Stamp, with the oboe solo done by, I swear I am not making this up, Ray Still.
(No, not that one.)
The Senior deLancie's son, of course, went on to a long career in sci-fi, most notably as the afrorepictured tricksting, jokesting sometime member of the Star Trek continuum known as Q.
(No, not them.)
Making this even more coinkidinkal for me? Two things: only yesterday, I mentioned deLancie the Younger in replying to a post here from
conuly, who's been doing a rethink of the Voyager franchise and suggested several retroactive fixes, including improving the Kes/Neelix roles and, yes, more Seven. My comment was that I hated the idea of injecting the Q into this series, given that Junior or his friends could have Thanos-snapped them back to the Alpha quadrant any time he/they wanted. Then, after police suspected an oboe was involved, I asked my Meta-Met loving friend Susan if she'd ever played the piece. She's a longtime Citi Field season ticket holder and an oboist for the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. She replied that she never got to play it, but she did have the honor of studying under deLancie père for nine weeks at Aspen. He lived for 82 of those hundred years and his students remain active players, conductors and teachers of his art.----
The earlier coincidence was tied to the client who was the main reason for my relatively short-time stop in the 585.
I've been representing this guy since 2008 and have gotten him out of so many jams, I had to order canning equipment from the Ball Jar company to capture it all. The first of those cases is still going on; the opposing law firm has gone through no fewer than seven different attorneys representing the opposing party in those years. I suspect there's a drawing of straws after every retirement, firing and lateral move to see who gets to continue dealing with me on it. The last of them to leave was a guy I will call John, not his name but not related to the deLancies, either. Nice guy, was one of the easiest to deal with in all that time and sadly had one of the shortest tenures among the Spinal Tap drummers on the other side.
My case with them is actually in a state of limbo at the moment, but I was surprised to see John's name pop up in an email from a different client with a totally different problem. My client Eric had a rather substantial claim against a guy with the exact same first and (less common) last name as John, for work performed at the site of a legendary and now sadly defunct Rochester restaurant. I asked how old the guy was and he said about my age. Wow, that old?, I replied, doing some quick math and realizing it could not be the John I'd worked with. Maybe it was his father, though.
Nope: I tracked down his mobile in earlier email exchanges, said hello, found out he's doing well in his new gig and asked him about Other John. Turns out it's his cousin, and that, at least according to My John, my client's claim is one in a long line that's probably going to end up in Bankruptcy Court. I'm still checking some things before I write it off, though.
Maybe the guy has an oboe he's not using.