From the Wikipedia article, "Flattery."
I'm reading that because I was looking up "Flatter!," which I'm doing because I'm getting rid of the piano, and, emptying out the piano bench, I found this:
I thought it might be a band. It was with 3 other cards/stickers — all with names that I now understand to be bands (Zumpano, Six Finger Satellite, and The Hardship Post).
But if you look closely at the truck exhaust, you can see it's a journal, "The Journal of Oblate Puffery." Volume 9 of "Flatter!” is in the Girl Zines Collection/Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. That's from 1997.
Click through to see the cover of the zine, which is "a processed-chicken mosaic of a woman (possibly Drew Barrymore)."
But is it a flattering processed-chicken mosaic of a possible Drew Barrymore?
Should portraits be flattering?
Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) offered a cartoon on the topic. It's a lithograph, not a chicken mosaic:
The caption translates: "Yes, It Is My Deceased Wife!...Only You Have Flattered Her Too Much!"
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44 comments:
Why are you getting rid of the piano?
The best one word response to obsequious flattery? (tapered or untapered...)
"Flummery." One of my favorite rarely used words.
O most worthy, wise, talented and kindly Professora Althouse, superlative scholar of jurisprudence and excellent empress of the blogosphere: this humble one abases himself and begs your indulgence to turn your attention again —for the briefest interval— to your remark on getting rid of a piano.
We are trying to find a home for one: a very nice upright (made in Switzerland in the 40’s; burl walnut; needs a tune-up) and seriously there are no takers. It seems you cannot give them away. Suggestions?
That is the Journal of Oblate Puffery, an underground 'zine. in 1997 the cover was "a processed-chicken mosaic of a woman (possibly Drew Barrymore)." It did not flatter her.
Puffery is exaggerated flattery of a product. Oblates are slightly flattened circles. I think this 'zine strove for obscurity and was successful. Probably I would have liked the editors but they would not have liked my carefree stories about my days in pro-life.
https://libex.smith.edu/omeka/items/show/501
I’ve heard that, unless it’s something very desirable like a Steinway or a top-end Yamaha, “getting rid of the piano” basically means “give it away for free to whomever will haul it away” or even “pay someone to take it away.” We have a 25-year-old console (nothing special, a Baldwin) that will need the treatment soon. If I replace it, the new one will likely be an electronic one with a high-quality keybed (Yamaha seems to be the leader in this kind of instrument). Or I might just decide to get a quality Hammond B-3 clone and entertain my Steve Winwood wannabe fantasies…but I don’t expect anyone to flatter me over my abilities.
Allowable puffery - the Carbolic Ball case!
JSM
I’m with Erasmus. If I catch someone’s eye I WILL get them to smile. It doesn’t take more a smile of my own and a kind word or two to brighten their day. Nothing fancy. Nothing false. Just enough to let them know they were noticed and that they were worth noticing. Best of all, it’s way more contagious than Covid.
I haven't heard the word blandishment since Oh Brother Where Art Thou.
Pappy: We should hire this man away.
Campaign managers: Good idea, Pappy. Hell of an idea. Can't beat 'em, join 'em. He'll join us, run our campaign. Power, wealth...no one says no to Pappy O'Daniel! Not with his blandishments. And powers of persuasion.
Pappy: what's his name again? The campaign manager?
Campaign managers: Waldrip. Vernon Waldrip. Vernon T Waldrip.
I'd always thought it was some kind of backhanded compliment - flattery, but in a ho-hum bland and predictable way. It is a good word!
It's a flatbed truck. The bologna makes Drew's portrait flat-ter, but it does not flatter.
“Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.”
- Benjamin Disraeli
“Why are you getting rid of the piano?”
No one uses it and we want to open up the space.
“ We are trying to find a home for one: a very nice upright (made in Switzerland in the 40’s; burl walnut; needs a tune-up) and seriously there are no takers. It seems you cannot give them away. Suggestions?”
I am paying $360 to have it professionally removed and disposed of properly.
@Althouse, my understanding is that if it has ivory keys (and made in the 1940s that’s close to a certainty) then you cannot legally sell it. So disposing of it is about the best you can do.
NPR will take your old car (boat, or motorcycle) and turn it into cash. Got rid of a POC (that's piece o' crap, not people of color) that way in 2018.
But nice pianos? Nah.
Maybe try "Pianos 4 Pests" as seen on the tv screen.
You want fulsome flattery, look at what geniuses like Bach and Beethoven had to say to their patrons and social betters when presenting a piece of music, commissioned or not.
Flattery is from flatter, but flummery does not appear to derive from flummer. I'm flummoxed. Time for a visit to the OED (I should move it in here I think).
I sold a nice old Kawaii upright last year on crait for 1000. Arghhh.
Guy who bought it was an orthopedic surgeon.
Shoulda asked 2000.
"and made in the 1940s that’s close to a certainty"
I was quoting someone who said their piano was made in the 40s. My piano goes back to something like 1910, but it was restored around 1990, and I don't think I'm looking at ivory keys. In any case, I am not selling it. I'm paying for removal.
I don't want to deal with a private sale where someone gets to come into my house to look at my piano, I have to make a deal with them, and I have to rely on them to move the very heavy object over my floors.
Check out the Beethoven Foundation, which helps match used pianos with people and places that want them.
You can also check with local schools, piano teachers (who may know of needy students) senior centers, etc, but someone will have to pay for the moving.
I was a church musician in Florida for 20 years...When people downsize, they want to get rid of their pianos. They imagine people want them. They are very wrong. Goodwill and church resell charities won't take them. Upright pianos less then 4 feet tall are trash. An upright over 5 feet may have some value, but nobody will take it. Any grand piano less than 5 1/2 feet is a 'baby' grand; a serious pianist won't play them. Their only value is as awkward furniture.
Of the grand pianos, the largest, over 6'2" are great for a concert hall, but are too big for a normal room. Almost no one wants that in their home. Unless it is a well maintained Steinway, 5'6" to 6'2", there will be no bidding war on Ebay. (Yamaha, Mason & Hamlin, Knabe & Sons from 1910 to the late 1930's, and Boesendorfer have some value, but not as much as Steinway. People want name they know.)
Only 51 free pianos on SF Bay Area Craigslist today. Less than average.
Pianos have been hard to sell/dispose of for years. Ten years ago, I gave a very nice studio piano (not as tall as an upright, but larger than a console) to a group home - Holy Angels in Shreveport if you want to look it up. It was a sturdy model with heavy duty wheels designed to be easily moved from room to room, as in a college music department or church. It also had a locking keyboard cover. I had to send them photos and talk them into it because they were concerned it would be an expense (tuning) and that residents could damage it too easily. I paid to have it delivered to them and for a tuner to go there afterwards to make sure it was in good condition and tuned. The tuner ended up not charging me and told me that he'd donate a yearly tuning to them.
I'm not sure why my parents bought this particular model piano, as it was more expensive than many other models. It was perhaps because they thought I had a future as a pianist or because the sturdiness impressed my father.
Anyway, just posting this to emphasize how hard it is to get rid of a piano.
There's all these podcasts where different celebs interview each other. Successful show biz people really know the art of flattery. Their compliments sound nothing like syncophancy up but rather like shrewd observations delivered by a neutral observer of that other celeb's remarkable talents. That other celeb responds with modest deferential humor, and both celebs seem just so nice. They don't lay it one with a trowel but with a deft dab of the jeweler's buffer.....I'm not knocking them. It's not so easy to deliver a graceful compliment, nor to respond to one with modesty and humor. Those celebs have really mastered it.
Just for interest, in French flatter [pr flah-TAY] means "to stroke" or "to pet" as with a cat.
I get rid of excess lumber in the fireplace.
Didn't you say you have one of those going unused?
@Althouse, my understanding is that if it has ivory keys (and made in the 1940s that’s close to a certainty) then you cannot legally sell it. So disposing of it is about the best you can do
This intrigued me so much that I went down a rabbit hole that delayed my late-night grocery shopping. Lucky for me they're open until 11pm tonight and I just made it.
Apparently there was an outcry from the musicians trade, and pianos with ivory keys can still be legally sold. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued what I think is the final final rule in 2016 that modified the Obama Administration's characteristic instinct to make All The Things illegal, and came to a 200 gram limit per instrument that apparently is comfortably above what a typical ivory-keyed piano carried. What you can't do is sell separated piano keys.
Doesn't affect Althouse for the reasons she mentioned. The love lost for actual pianos is really something when you consider how treasured they were, even the more pedestrian humdrum uprights.
Machiavelli wrote fulsomely of his patron in the dedication of "The Prince", but... Later, in (iirc) his "Meditations", he excoriated authors who flattered their patrons or other nobles. My favorite paper in university was an argument, stimulated by that, that Prince was a satire.
Professora, fulsome thanks be unto you for keeping the piano theme going; and thanks to all commenters who offered thoughts or anecdotes on the “market” (or lack thereof) for instruments of this kind. It seems to be a general phenomenon driven by multiple factors: from downsizing; to technologically adequate/superior substitutes; to fewer people trained to play or trying to learn; to the demise of old conventions where hosts gathered guests in the parlor to applaud little Susie’s talent. (See also the crash of the market for antique furniture —“brown goods.”)
In the end we may have to pay somebody to take it away, maybe to tear out its works and turn it into a bar. Criminal…
The piano pandemic needs great decomposers like Beathoven, Frédéric Chopping, Miss Handel, Claude Debusty, Sergei Wreckmaninov and Krashkovsky dropping pianos from skyscrapers. The ultimate ringtone.
Drew Barrymore...
Firestarter, "I'm gonna fry you like a chicken."
I have 2 grand pianos in my living room: a Steinway M and a 7' Yamaha. They are awesome for my musical parties, eg performing Brahms' Variations on a Theme [Not Actually] By Haydn. They will reach their highest use next week at my student piano recital when 2 young sisters play a Clementi Sonatina with 2nd piano part by Timm for all the families. I can't imagine a home without a piano!
Five years ago we acquired a beautiful used "grandmother" clock for a song. It's the same story as pianos.
"You can also check with local schools, piano teachers (who may know of needy students) senior centers, etc, but someone will have to pay for the moving."
I'm dealing with a professional piano dealer. Part of why I'm paying so much is that they are handling the disposal. If it can be placed like this, it will be. I am not going to enter into the activity of searching for charitable recipients. Why would I be any good at this? I have professionalized the entire process for $360. It's possible too that they know someone who is looking to buy a big beautiful old piano. It was nice as the focal point in a room. If anyone wants something like that, maybe they'd pay thousands to be hooked up with it. But I'm not searching for them.
PS What a collection of tags for this post!
If you blandish gifts and brandish guns, why are gifts sometimes called blandishments, and guns never called brandishments?
I had an old one with ivory keys with which I was stuck by a previous homeowner. It was in rotten condition, and problematic to sell on account of the ivory. So I did the same thing, called 'em up, they came with a truck with a crane, and took it away and I was glad to be rid of it.
When you see young people working their cell phones with their thumbs, or watch kids play video games, fifty years ago those kids might have been creditable piano players.
"I'm reading that because I was looking up "Flatter!," which I'm doing because I'm getting rid of the piano, and, emptying out the piano bench, I found this:"
Given where you initially found it, my first thought: "Is this a music book with pieces which eschews sharps"?
Thank you for this thread, Ann.
I have a 51 inch Baldwin upright that needs a new home. Free if you move it. If not I'll go the Althouse route and pay to have it removed. They're a joy when someone is around to play it, but they make lousy book shelves when there is not.
I just did a search for repurposed pianos.
Quite a few ideas. None that I'd want enough to haul off someone's old piano, but ideas...
@Ann Althouse-
Sorry I wasn’t more clear but I posted in response to another commenter who asked for suggestions. And the Beethoven Foundation that I mentioned will match people, when possible, with professionals who do what your piano dealer is doing for you so that the piano donor does not have to seek out either recipient or movers.
I have a soft spot for pianos, even old crummy uprights. When I was a kid I desperately wanted to learn to play but we couldn’t afford one, until my dad got one off a coworker whose aunt had passed away. It was a very low quality spinet but I loved it and passed it down to my daughter when we were able to purchase a beautiful Yamaha baby grand a few years ago.
Well, that's a good strategy to get rid of it.
I think a large part of this is also because of recorded music. You get very good sound from recordings for everyone to listen to without anyone knowing how to play, nor having anyone sing. Up until I think maybe the '60s the only way to get decent-sounding music in the home was with a piano or an organ. Plus, people singing songs was participatory entertainment.
If anything, those old home organs are harder to get rid of than pianos.
>>Oblates are slightly flattened circles.
The shape of the earth is roughly an oblate spheroid because the earth's rotation results in a bulge at the equator. If measured from the floor of the sea rather than the shore, I believe Aconcagua is the tallest mountain on earth.
The word oblate comes from a Latin word meaning "offered up." It is in fact the passive participle of the word offero (first person singular)/offerre (infinitive). It is derived from adding the prefix "ob" to the verb fero/ferre/tuli/latus. IIRC, the fero/tuli split comes from two different roots. The "lotus" comes from the same root as the latter, i.e., originally tlatus, with a simplification of the awkward initial consonant cluster. The b in ob-assimilates to an f in the forms based on the ferre root.
The term oblate is also used in religious contexts to refer to some religious orders, presumably with the thought that members have offered up their lives to the service of God.
That's all I got. No pianos.
--gpm
Christopher,
Oh my, the restrictions on rare materials in instruments! Yes, our Bechstein has ivory keys, so moving it anywhere is problematic. But that's nothing compared to the furor over pernambuco. We string players dodged a bullet a couple months back, when a proposal to put pernambuco on the extremely-restricted list didn't quite pass. If it had, everyone with a pernambuco bow would have had severe restrictions on carrying it out of country. Unless it could be proven to have been made before 1986. (How do you prove that? No one has even tried to figure it out.)
Now, I like carbon-fiber bows (I love my Arcus and wouldn't easily trade it for anything), but it's flat-out ridiculous that anyone should be allowed to use his/her bow only in his/her own country.
Holy Metrical Batman, I never imagined a criminally unheard 1990's band like Zumpano whould ever be mentioned in my favorite blog (or any other non-music blog for that matter). Some of you may know Carl Newman's post Zumpano group The New Pornographers, which he started circa 2000 along with Neko Case, Todd Fancey and others, and based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Here's a couple of tunes off Zumpano's 2nd lp Goin Through Changes. If I was to reference another group or artist's sound, it would be The Left Banke (of Walk Away Renee & Pretty Ballerina 60's hit singles), Michael Brown (LB's leader, principal songwriter & keyboardist) and Brown's subsequent group Stories.
Zumpano - Behind The Behive
Zumpano - Momentum
If you are tossing that Zumpano business card Ann, I would be honored to pay mailing costs to save it from the recyclers.
Thanks, George
It’s a card or sticker the size of a bumper sticker.
It says: “Have you hugged your Zumpano today”
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