European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 10, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 the stars and stripes monday March 10, 1986columns& comments let the facts speak for themselves by Russell Baker no one is More gracious than i about confessing and correcting error but to have error unfairly imputed to me when every fact has been checked and verified As absolutely accurate. Well you know what Julius Caesar said about the sting of the adder s tooth i m too old to cry and it hurts too much to yet Here arc these hundreds and hundreds of letters from musical people accusing me of error. And Why for reporting recently that the Kab waging its music War against the United Stales had sawed the legs off Vladimir Horowitz s piano thus compelling the great pianist to lie Flat on his stomach to play Beethoven s idiot begins a typical musical person s letter. Everybody but you knows the Eroica is Beethoven s third symphony and is not piano others insist that Horowitz must have played one of Beethoven s sonatas or piano concertos. All agree that whatever was played could not have been the Eroica and that i am too ignorant to be allowed to report on compos ers As Majestic As Beethoven Brahms and Bachman. Well As it says in the Book of Samuel there is a time for All things under the Sun including a time for tolerating abuse from readers and a time for not tolerating it. Let the facts then speak for themselves at the Cia we knew the music War with Moscow was heating up and expected the Kab to retaliate with some thing fancy after we ruined the Leningrad philharmonic s performance of Wagner s Aida by stuffing their trom Bones with Saltwater Taffy. Accordingly i was assigned to keep an Eye on the Horowitz concert and arrived at car Negie Square Garden to discover that somebody had sawed the legs off the Steinmetz. A lot of piano players would have walked out right there but Horowitz was a Good sport. By now i told him the Kab has those piano legs Halfway to Moscow. The Only Way anybody is going to get any music out of these 68 keys is by lying Fiat on the the Only pianist athletic enough to do it i thought was Kilburn but Horowitz insisted on giving it the old University try. I urged him to take the easy Way out by playing some thing Short like Beethoven s impassion Ata pathology Iwuc or Moonshine sonata but Horowitz said he had a musical idiosyncrasy. The Only tune he could play while lying Flat on the floor was Beethoven s Eroica. Surely i cried surely you Don t mean the massive third symphony composed 1803-1804, the landmark in cultural history which signalled a definitive break with the past and the birth of a new Era the length Structure harmonies and orchestration of which All broke the formal conventions of classical music the very same he said. To readers who Tell me i know nothing of music i say were you there the one person i know who actually was there is utterly untrustworthy. A Cia colleague celebrated for his feats of bureaucratic Well poisoning he tried persistently throughout my secret career in the music to discredit me with our superiors. After the Horowitz concert he filed a report and Natu rally marked it eyes Only to assure it would be widely leaked. In it he stated that it was not Vladimir Horowitz whom i interviewed during the crisis but a Kab agent specially trained to play the piano while lying Fiat on his stomach. In fact said my rival s report the Man did not even look like Horowitz but strongly resembled the late Eddie Duchin and for this reason had been sent to America years ago to corrupt College students by playing soviet pop songs at Tea dances. Moreover this bizarre document continued the music he performed the night of the sawed off piano legs sounded so Little like the Eroica and so much like a med Ley of stardust Moonlight cocktail and pistol Packin mama that the orchestra s Bassoon and oboe players departed angrily during the second movement. I cite this document to illustrate the vicious extremes to which bureaucratic cutthroats will go to discredit a col league for their own self promotion. The document is patently a tissue of lies of course for i sat through the entire concert and heard nothing that sounded the least bit like pistol Packin mama a song i would surely have recognized As it has always been one of my favor ites along with Mozart s marriage of the Barber of Seville of course. C new York times vital questions for though Fuff observers by James Kilpatrick Michael Kinsley editor of the new Republic recently performed a service for Mankind. He made War upon some of the banalities that keep cropping up in our very Best newspapers and magazines. Toward that end Kinsley consulted a company in Ohio that maintains a computerized data base of every word that appears in the new York times the Washington Post the Christian science Monitor time and Newsweek magazines and other such eminent publications. For starters Kinsley asked How often they had used the phrase thoughtful he found thoughtful observers in a dozen areas including thoughtful observers of football these thoughtful observers were endlessly absorbed in vital among the vital questions at the new York times was whether 26 cards fit Well together in the bidding of Bridge alas most of the thoughtful observers found no easy answers to the vital questions. Then Kinsley asked the computers a question to which i am especially sensitive. He asked How often a writer had concluded that something remains to be. in a millisecond or some such the computer reeled out the melancholy facts. Since 1977, when the data base began the publications had declared that More than 2,500 events remain to be evidently this abominable practice is growing worse for 1,223 of the citations were from 1985. I have railed at this stupidity before and doubtless i will go railing to my grave. Is there any editorial Obser vation any feebler any sillier and More pompously Fatu Ous than the solemn observation that something any thing remains to be seen i know of none. Yet presumably professional writers fall into it All the time. The respected . News & world report last month informed us that All in All it remains to be seen whether Amateur astronauts will find the thrills of space Worth a arg Kinsley neglected to ask about the frequency with which state of the Art has appeared. It would be inter Esting to know the state of the Art regarding state of the Art. What about conventional Wisdom what about Bottom line viable alternative How Many things have interfaced with parameters these Are tired phrases. They Are bromides and As All of us know bromides put people to sleep. Many of you readers Are As peevish As i am. . Barkhurst of Myrtle Creek ore., is irked by the misuse of Lay when lie is intended. He cites an and for Pennzoil the bottle reveals tight and lays Fiat in your Louis r. Huber of Seattle complains about the increasing use of would have As in he could have succeeded if he would have run Bob Wunder of Williamsville n.y., asks help in stamping out after All he notes an excess is not a Ronald Gravatt of Buena Vista va., objects to that in it in t that big a . Cole Iii of Boulder colo., fumes at at As in i wonder where it s Richard Bixler of Canton Ohio frets at the confusion of All and not All As in the astonishing statement that All smokers do not have lung c Universal press the ?fanta5tic \ r16ht. 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