The crowd at the Grammy Awards last week looked as if it had just flown in from one of the moons of Saturn: glittering, snorting the intergalactic dust. Touches of the high crass mingled with a sort of metaphysical flash. Stevie Wonder, for example, wore a cumulously quilted white satin tuxedo whose upswept lapels formed great angel wings. The costume had the curious effect of making him look like a Puritan headstone.
The American popular-music industry was having its annual pageant. The program was about to end. Joan Baez walked onstage unannounced. As if she were lost in time, Baez driftingly began...
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