A Letter to the Editor

A Letter to the Editor

The Perception-Reality Vortex, Take 2

Written By

Larry Austin

Dear Editor,

Frank Oteri, in his essay on Alvin Lucier, states that he first heard Lucier’s “I am sitting in a room” in “Peter Garland’s Source”. Peter Garland didn’t establish, edit or publish Source magazine. Peter did have a piece published in Source, but Larry Austin, Stan Lunetta et al were the founders/editors/publishers of Source and still own same. Please correct in your next issue.

Larry Austin

***
Oteri responds:

Indeed he is correct. As I mentioned in my personal response to Mr. Austin, for some reason, Source and Soundings got conflated in my brain which sometimes happens with a memory from more than 20 years ago. (I listened to the Source LP of I Am Sitting In A Room at the Columbia University Music Library in 1982.) But that’s a lame excuse all the same. This is something I should have known.

So, does this mean that in the future I’ll cut reviewers a little more slack when they bungle important facts about composers in daily newspapers. Not on your life! If anything, in the future I’ll cut them even less slack, me included. Since we are often writing about things as they are happening, and there is sadly sometimes little overlap, what we write can easily get turned into historical record.

Inevitably, human error goes hand-in-hand with human nature. But, at least on the web, we can fix such things. So, if you find something egregious on any of these pages, PLEASE let us know.