I’m not sure of the text in the novel, but in my recollection of the movie with Gary Cooper, Toohey is conversing with a presumed businessman at a cocktail party, something like “I don’t suppose you play the stock market, Mr. Toohey?” ET: “On the contrary. I play the stock market of the soul. And I sell short.”

As depicted, Toohey would not be a good exemplar of the Winokur curmudgeon: his intent is consciously manipulative and destructive. The people he champions he has in his control—he knows and so do they, and it isn’t pretty.

Perhaps the world needs a critic of critics. It would be more telling if that person could “kill” with kindness rather than just more invective.

What is a Curmudgeon anyway?

“A curmudgeon’s reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They’re neither warped nor evil at heart. They don’t hate mankind, just mankind’s absurdities. They’re just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. . . . . . They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. . . . . . Nature, having failed to equip them with a servicable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.
Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers whose bitterness is a symptom rather than a disease. They can’t compromise their standards and can’t manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.
Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor.”

- JON WINOKUR

Doesn’t this sum up Alan? As I’m working on a film that deals with autism and Aspberger’s syndrome, I’m wondering whether being a curmudgeon is on that same spectrum. Oblivious to how comments make others feel, socially awkward, and so on… And so, like the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” he looks and sees that the emperor has no clothes and says so. Even though the king’s court tries to shush him, he calls it as he sees it, and can’t help it.

Why is credence given to a critic’s opinion on a piece/performance heard just one time—with never a peek at the score—and especially when said critic comes to it with insurmountable prejudices against the composer, the work, the style, the performers—the human beings involved? Why is invective from him any more acceptable than from any one of us?

If I had a sense that Alan Rich wrote with even a modicum of wisdom, I’d say OK. But where is the wisdom in bashing musicians because they don’t fit with his myopic view of the musical world? What is the excuse for that kind of behavior? I find no excuse for it, frankly.

As I wrote before: not one single person alive now—not Alan Rich, not Mark Carlson, not Mark Swed, not Roger Bourland, not any critic or composer—can know what music will last; it’s not for us to decide or to know. It is certainly not Alan Rich’s decision, just because he happens to have a forum in print.

And who cares, anyway? If our music outlives us, we won’t be here to appreciate that fact, so all we can do is to try our hardest to make music that is as beautiful, as well-written, as valuable to our own world now as we are able.

In any case, I’ll happily take creativity over destructiveness, any day.

And yet… I also find myself wondering why someone with a visceral dislike for Brahms should get to publish his opinion on any and every musician he runs across. Not that Brahms is sacred (though I just put on the Op. 99 cello sonata and I have to say he’s pretty damned good), it’s just the arbitrariness of it. With another critic it won’t be Brahms but there’s inevitably something, so it’s not really what’s wrong with the critics but what’s wrong with the system. And it ain’t no fun to end up on the wrong side of it.

Anyways, I agree that it’s in your own best interest, but I still admire your turnaround.