The Fredösphere

He's a home-grown Ann Arbor boy, and he wrote "the most influential music / theater / literary work of the 1980s," but only now am I noticing Robert Ashley.  (Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.)  His meandering monologue throughout the opera Perfect Lives would get old fast, I think, but it just might have influenced Speech, who currently resides in the Where Are They Now And How Could So Much Talent Have Disappeared So Completely? file.  Oh, wait, no he doesn't.

Amazon has more excerpts of Robert Ashley:  check out eL/Aficionado and Improvement.  The music not my cup of tea;  Ashley's emotions are detached to the point of coldness, but what he's doing cannot be ignored.