Can a boy from Brooklyn wrtie cowboy music?!?

There we were in Stern Grove waiting for the sunday afternoon music to start, namely Aaron Copland's Rodeo, when this blogger was assailed with existential doubt. This was not the first time the writer has doubted the versimilitude of of Copland's inspiration; his opera, The Tender Land, takes place at Commencement time and contains two migrant workers who want to work the "spring harvest". Now, the blogger grew up in northern Michigan, where about the only things harvest in late May was the occasional radish or green peas from the lucky gardener who dodged the bullet of late frost. But then he became aware of a Jewish early harvest festival, named, amazingly, Pentecost. The storal to the mory seems to be, "Artists grab their inspiration wherever they can"