Wowpow, you are missed.

[Guest Geezer]

I have long wanted to post a paean to our departed friend Terry Power -- Wowpow. I wish I were able to do so now, but can find no words which do Terry justice. I can but say Terry was a courteous, honorable, polished and, refined man. A gentleman in the finest sense of the word.

 

Terry owned an extensive library of opera videos, heavily freighted with Wagner. These will go to Somtow Sucharitkul, conductor of the Bangkok Symphony, whose concerts Terry frequently enjoyed. They will be used in the instruction of his students. A devotee of Terpsichore , Terry acquired a collection of forty-five ballet videos. They will be given to Somtow Sucharitkul to pass on to an appropriate institution.

 

Terry attended hundreds of operas, concerts and shows in the UK, Europe, Australia and the US, saving the elaborately printed programs, often with ticket stubs inside. Terry valued them so that he had hundreds of them shipped to Thailand.

 

Typical are programs fo the Metropolitan Opera, The English national Opera, the Lincoln Center, Sadler’s Wells, , Welsh National Opera, The National Theater, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and on, and on. There must be two dozen programs from Covent Garden alone. They must weigh at least seventy-five kg.

 

Having nothing better to do with my own much smaller accumulation when leaving the US, I gave them to the garbage man. This is a course I am loathe to follow with Terry’s collection, but I can think of nothing else. Anyone with a better idea (which they are willing to execute) may send me a P.M., and I will deliver the material to them en masse. I cannot deal with it piecemeal. Otherwise, regretfully, I must discard it.

[Gaybutton]

Ask at Thais for Life. They might be interested. Some of those types of items eventually become collectors items and may already have value. Don't be so quick to throw it all away. My mother did that to the baseball card collection I had as a child. If I still had those cards, now they would be worth quite a bundle. Sometimes I see programs listed for sale on eBAY, and people do buy them.

[Guest fountainhall]

Terry attended hundreds of operas, concerts and shows in the UK, Europe, Australia and the US, saving the elaborately printed programs

 

When I recall all the concerts, operas, plays etc. that I've been to since my early teens and cannot now for the life of me remember who sang/conducted/acted what, I wish I'd had Terry's foresight and saved much of what I've thrown out.

 

Just one little correction. Somtow is director of the Bangkok Opera. I don't think he's conducted the Bangkok Symphony which is an entirely different organisation. If the videos have not yet been handed over, you might want to consider donating them to the new Conservatory being built in memory of Princess Galyani. I am sure it would be thrilled with them.