Elliott Carter on Ronald Reagan

http://www.sohothedog.blogspot.com/

EC: I was only at the White House twice. There was once with Kennedy,
with some other composers. And the second time, Ronald Reagan, he
invited me, and he gave me a medal [the National Medal of Arts, in
1985].
God, he was stupid. I had lunch with him, and?well, maybe he wasn?t
stupid, but he certainly acted stupidly that day. There were very
funny things about it. That famous black opera singer, a beautiful
woman, [Leontyne Price]?she sat between me and the president, it was a
round table. And she looked at me very angrily and she said, [clenches
teeth] ?We?re here to have a good time.? [laughs] It was all sort of
in that mood. And I sat next to Carter Brown, who I knew, who was head
of the big museum down there, the Mellon Museum [the National Gallery
of Art], and we talked. And Mr. Reagan tried to get in on some
conversation, because we were all talking about things he didn?t know
much about. Finally, he said, ?I just love the sculpture of [Frederic]
Remington,? you know, the cowboy guy.
Finally, he had to take the lead, and he decided to tell his stories,
and the stories were unbelievable. I don?t know if you want to hear
them.
MG [Matthew Guerrieri]: Sure.
EC: OK. Well, there was one story?he said, there were two
psychoanalysts, they had offices in the same building, and they?d go
up together in the elevator in the morning. And in the evening, one of
them was all disheveled, and the other one looked perfect. And the
disheveled one said to the other, ?How can you go through all that,
hear all those terrible things, and still look like that?? And he
says, ?Who listens??
Now, this is the president saying that.
MG: We do know how to pick our presidents.
EC: Well, yes, we finally did! I didn?t think [Obama would] ever get
in.
.

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