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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Friday, May 02, 2003

From NYT obits, this article complete. From 1967 to about 1980, I played classic guitar and loved the Augustine strings with pictures of Andres Segovia on the back of each individually wrapped string. A set would last a couple of weeks with 4-6 hours of daily practice. Segovia said something like "may God curse the merchants who purvey strings inferior to these" and Segovia had major mojo even to those who cursed his Franco connections and blatant anti-Semitism. Man could play the guitar like no one before ever dared...   April 29, 2003 Rose Augustine Is Dead at 93; Championed the Guitar By ALLAN KOZINN Rose Augustine, a former chemistry teacher who with her husband revolutionized the world of the classical guitar by developing the nylon guitar string and who commissioned new works and underwrote concert series and competitions, died on April 21 in Manhattan. She was 93 and lived in Manhattan. Trained as a pianist and passionate about the harpsichord, Mrs. Augustine often said that she did not much care for the guitar and its repertory. Yet anyone who has regularly attended guitar recitals in New York has probably encountered her: she was as likely to be seen at a debut as at a concert by a famous player, and chances are she helped pay for the concert. The Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia lived with Mrs. Augustine and her husband, Albert, for 11 years, starting in the late 1940's. Julian Bream, the greatest guitarist of the post-Segovia generation, never stopped in New York without visiting her Greenwich Village town house and leaving with a year's worth of Augustine Imperial guitar strings. And when she spotted young players who she felt were carrying on the Segovia tradition, she threw her influence behind their careers. Mrs. Augustine was born in the Bronx in 1910 and earned a bachelor's degree at Hunter Colleger and a master's at Columbia University. She became a high school science teacher but went into the string business after World War II when her husband, a guitar maker, found that the gut strings traditionally used for the guitar's three treble strings were in short supply. Mr. Augustine began experimenting with fishing line and eventually got in touch with an engineer at DuPont, who was skeptical about the filament's musical utility. The first samples were said to have had a metallic sound. But when Segovia commissioned a guitar from Mr. Augustine in 1946, he also expressed interest in nylon strings. The Augustines found a grinding machine, originally meant to make binoculars, at a war surplus store on Canal Street and reconfigured it to grind nylon guitar strings to the right thickness and consistency. Segovia quickly became a champion of the new strings, which lasted longer and could be kept in tune more reliably than the strings guitarists had used for centuries. His use of the strings created a demand among both amateur and professional guitarists, and the Augustines began selling them in packages adorned with Segovia's picture and an endorsement over his signature. Other companies began using nylon as well, and it quickly supplanted gut as the standard for classical guitar treble strings. Mrs. Augustine kept her teaching job during the early years of the family company, Albert Augustine Ltd., but worked nights filling orders. After her husband died in 1967, she took over the company, regularly updated its manufacturing processes and established a thriving market for her strings around the world. During the 1980's Mrs. Augustine, who has no immediate survivors, began underwriting concerts, paying for series at the 92nd Street Y and at the Manhattan School of Music as well as festivals and competitions throughout the United States and in Europe. She also commissioned guitar works from about 20 composers. 6:34:44 PM    comment []

On almost a daily basis, I realize that I have nothing new or different to say, but thanks to my friends who visit me, I'm going to blather on anyway. Some would say you enable me, others might cite the first amendment, for better or worse. If you have a blog, you probably say what's on your mind. If you don't, you probably say it elsewhere, sometimes under your breath for the enjoyment of a confidant. Like those giggle-infected moments, maybe in a checkout line, maybe with the TV remote aimed at the cyberbox, what you think in your unguarded moments is sacred. Blogs let the rest of the world in on the joke. Like the lady with a 50-pound bag of catfood behind you in the line, they might laugh and make that eye contact that says "I agree." Or they might deeply sigh and cast a glance aside. Either way, it's nothng but words, which are feared only by control-freak tyrants. So keep thinking and keep talkin', despite rumors to the contrary this is still a free country. Fear is for cowards. 3:58:59 AM    comment []