“SEX AND THE MUSIC LIBRARIAN” PART 1

HOW COULD I IGNORE A PRESENTATION WITH THIS TITLE—especially by no less than my pal Nick Slonimsky? See “Nick Slonimsky,” September 8, 2013, and also “The Waltz—Its Father, Its King, and Don’t Forget Matilda,” October 11, 2026.

Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are tidbits gleaned from Nick’s presentation. They’re identified in quotes; my extracurricular comments are unadorned. 

Nick’s Intro. “This is Dybbuk speaking, through the invultuation of Bill Lichtenwanger.” 

A Dybbuk, according to Wikipedia, is a malicious possessing spirit that supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished its goal. Encyclopedia.com identifies William (John) Lichtenwanger as a learned American librarian known for pieces with whimsical titles. An invultuation, says Wiktionary, is a witchcraft poke in the chops.

Geez, I didn’t realize I’d be looking everything up.

Nick continues, “I am sorry that I am unable to be present in person, but the Philadelphia Orchestra program book some years ago referred to me as ‘the late Nicolas Slonimsky.’ (I wired them back protesting that I was late only in delivering manuscripts to my publishers and that I was still technically alive.)”

A Setup By Some Clown in the MLA. “I feel that I owe an explanation to the honorable members of the Music Library Association how it is that, next to highly dignified topics of the talks scheduled for the present meetings, sex was allowed to raise its exhibitionist head. Well, I plead not guilty.”

“Virtually everyone said, with a suggestive twinkle, ‘I can’t wait to hear your talk at the MLA convention,’ and unaccustomed as I am to compliments, I worked my facial muscles into a responsive smile. Not until I received a mimeographed notice of the meeting did I discover what the title of my talk was to be! Some clown in the Music Library Association must have played a nasty trick on me, and I think I know who.” 

I wonder if his first name was Bill. 

A Misnamed Bit of Research. “I was aware, of course, that sex lurks in music libraries, and that its repression often finds an outlet in sexo-typographical fantasies. My publisher once received an order from a music library for a book of mine itemized in the order form as Sexicon of Musical Invention by Solo Minsky.”

The Schöder-Devrient Fake. “Ten years ago, sweating out the fifth edition of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, I was tipped off that the autobiography of the German prima donna Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, retailing her nightly tours of the boudoirs of musical celebrities, which is solemnly listed as an authentic documentation in the bibliographies of most reference books, was a fake put together by an anonymous, and largely unimaginative, pornographer.” 

Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, 1804—1860, German operatic soprano. Image from Wikipedia.

Known to the Library of Congress. “To be sure, the volume is kid stuff by present-day standards, but it was hot enough a hundred years ago to be banned from German bookstores. Naturally I was aroused, and on my next visit in the marble halls of the Library of Congress, I filled in a request slip for the book.”

“The librarian, an innocent-looking chap, asked me with a show of uncommon alacrity, ‘Do you want the French edition too? It’s illustrated, you know.’ In no more than ninety seconds, both the German and French editions were placed in my hands—the quickest service I had ever had in any library. I expressed my amazement at the page’s expeditiousness, and the librarian remarked casually, ‘Oh, we all know where those books are.’ ”

Let’s continue this tomorrow in Part 2, with a guy and his sister-in-law, a fellow making it all up, and another merely passing out. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026