OK, great, now, after almost finishing the (crappy) Shostakovich paper, NOW, NOW I figure out what I would have liked to do. Oh well, better late than never. The idea is thus: humor as defiance in the music of Shostakovich. Many people have observed Shostakovich's characteristic wit in his music and the same people have observed the defiance shostakovich shows. In fact, it seems that shostakovich uses humor during his periods of defiance in order to survive. Laughing at tragedy to come to terms with it almost. But there is surely some sort of topic in that. A survey of all the music that Shostakovich has written with definitive comic elements to it (don't include grotesuqe, less applicable) and see the political context in which it was written and draw some observations from there. The flashpoint for this idea is non other than "humor" in the thirteenth symphony. Surely there, in such a dissident symphony, something should come up. Also in careers, when the soloist and bass chorus banter back and forth: "tolstoy!" "Lev?" "Lev!" Seems like it shoudl be a wonderfully interesting topic...almost seems as if somebody must have done it before...but Fay/Wilson/Ho all comment on it but none have devoted a detailed study to it. Mmmm...wish I had come up with this idea earlier. Oh well. Like I said, better late than never. I think I need an idea-pad section of this site where I can keep this on tap for future endeavours.