X is the Y of Z

“X is the Y of Z” is a snowclone–an adaptable, Mad Libs-like idiom like “May I compare thee to an X?”, “X is the new Y,” and “I for one welcome our new X overlords.” This snowclone touches on every subject imaginable, including music. So without further adieu, today’s topic is…

Salieri

Jealous, traitorous, duplicitous, and murderous: That’s what the name Antonio Salieri means to the masses, even though the Venetian was a talented composer who didn’t kill Mozart and was far from being the Dr. Evil of the classical music world.

But as Stephen Colbert and Wikipedia know well, truthiness is stronger than truth, and the fictional Salieri is far more compelling than the real Salieri, who is long gone, with a measly IMDB page to boot. So please enjoy these unfair uses of his besmirched name, which should keep Mr. Salieri turning over in his grave till the sun blows up.

“When The Mozart of Pickpockets (Who, incidentally, is hated by The Salieri of Pickpockets.) won Best Short Film, Phillippe Pollet-Villard began speaking in French to Javier Bardem’s mother, but she wouldn’t give him any tongue. That’s all for her boy.”

(Feb. 25, 2008, The Morehead the Merrier)

“Hillary, the Salieri of American politics, may well have the resume and the policies, but she cannot compete against the effortless grace and vision of Obama, the Mozart of American politics.”

(Feb. 14, 2008, My Mall & News)

“I think if ‘post 9/11 anxieties’ and fear of terrorism ever start to subside, this movie will be better appreciated, without people criticizing it for a lack of answers or insight. Like van Sant’s Elephant, a very similar movie, Day Night Day Night avoids causes and goes merely for the effects; I found it to be a powerful character study, regardless of its irresponsible or irrelevant politics. (SPOILER WARNING) By the end, it seemed to me that her being a potential ‘suicide bomber’ was (albeit perhaps exploitatively) merely a conduit for an examination of a failed New York transplant, someone who came to make a name for themselves in the capital of the world and ended up failing. Terrorist as artist? An abhorrent notion but by the end, when she plaintively asks, ‘why don’t you want me?’ I thought she was like the Salieri of suicide bombers. Overall, a very moving and disturbing experiment in cinematic identification.”

((May 16, 2007, Cinematical)

“In addition to scintillating previews of Klaus’s big-swinging soundography, KlausHarmony.com offers mustachioed pics of the man and a frightfully short (55 pages, large font) e-book biography detailing his hard-charging life and unsubstantiated death in a 1984 used record store explosion (they couldn’t find the body — seriously). Regardless of his improbable (or faked?) death, the Mozart of Porn will give you the juice you need to at least become the Salieri of the Bedroom.”

(Feb. 26, 2007, Thrillist)

“Now, as to which ethic — individual freedom or ‘social justice’ — truly coexists with economic abundance, one answer has long been clear: the contrast between the pro-prosperity Old Left and the pro-austerity New Left and its fellow travelers (e.g., affluence foe John Kenneth Galbraith, the Salieri of economics, now so irrelevant as to not even merit a mention from Chait). Here the supporters of ‘bigger government’ continued to ‘back’ it despite the demonstration of its actual relation to ‘growth.’”

(May 6, 2008, FrontPage Magazine)

“Right. I run. I love to run. I’m less than mediocre. The Salieri of running. All of the ambition, none of the talent. Except not enough ambition, either.”

(Oct. 30, 2006, B. Flash)

“The difference between us and you is that we have an understanding of reality.   In your rich little fantasy world, it is only Mikey Scheuer who sees the truth.  But you need to come to grips with your own inadequacies and personal failures.  At the outset of your career at CIA you were not considered qualified to be selected to the Career Trainee program.  Only a select group of folks were accepted into the CT program.  Your mediocrity continued after you switched to the Counter Terrorism Center.  You made no effort to learn Arabic and immerse yourself in the culture of the people you were supposed to find, fix, and finish.  Let’s face it, you’re the Salieri of intelligence analysts.”

(July 11, 2006, Larry C. Johnson, Daily Kos)

“But we’ll never really grasp all of those moments that made each of us who we are. We can’t know it all, so we look for easily recognizable similarities. I see more in men, and therefore mistrust women. But in truth, I’m the Salieri of gender identification…I have the desire, but not the tools. I’m a woman, I will never know what these men are really thinking.”

(May 19, 2006, I’m Only a Man)

“that’s 40-some minutes of the most insane and bizarre radio I’ve ever heard. with Glenn Gould and Harry Brown (of Canadian Broadcasting Company tv and radio). They are Canadians. Glenn Gould is is described at one point on the CBC webpage as ‘a ham who enjoys dressing up and taking on different personas’. It’s disorienting. If you think it’s too weird to be true, it is, sort of: Gould appears as himself, and all of the other characters. At one point early on, he references ‘the Salieri of chess,’ ‘reprobate inversion of the Kafka theme,’ and an article titled ‘Psychic Murder at the Chessboard’ and shoots back at Brown in this exchange:”

(Sept. 24, 2005, Psychomania)

“nope. we see through yours every damn time. you are the salieri of the usenet.”

(May 25, 2000, alt.politics.org.fbi)

Mark Peters is a language columnist and humorist who writes for Good, Visual Thesaurus and other mags, while maintaining too many blogs, including Wordlustitude, The Rosa Parks of Blogs, and The Pancake Proverbs.

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