It is hard for this writer to type those words. This writer rummages for some wisecrack, some flip follow-up to take the sting out of them. (Novelist John O’Hara: “George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe that if I don’t want to.”)

Lussen himself would not stand for any such sentimentality if he could prevent it. “I don’t suffer fools gladly,” he likes to growl in his trademark deadpan. Then, after a beat, “But unfortunately that sometimes includes me.”... Read more