Instrumentalists: The Compleat Virtuosi

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The man who dared think up discothèques is Jean-Claude Merle, a Paris entrepreneur who opened a club called La Discothèque 14 years ago and is still riding the boom. When he began, he detested musicians ("They play for perhaps twelve minutes, then go to the bar and swill down drinks for half an hour"), but now he detests phonograph records with the cold fury that comes from marrying a machine. This week Merle will close down his discothèque for a month or two, and when he reopens, it will be with the help of a live piano player—an anachronism, perhaps, but a man with no delusions.

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TOMMY WARD, whose family has been harvesting oysters from the Gulf of Mexico since the 1920s, on the FDA's plan to ban the sale of raw oysters that are harvested in warm months; about 15 people die each year due to raw-oyster contamination
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Quotes of the Day »

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TOMMY WARD, whose family has been harvesting oysters from the Gulf of Mexico since the 1920s, on the FDA's plan to ban the sale of raw oysters that are harvested in warm months; about 15 people die each year due to raw-oyster contamination

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