Erotomania

About a month ago Susan and I went with friends, Dennis and Marty Renault, to hear a rehearsal of Berlioz in Monterey. Before the music began an excellent docent talked about Berlioz and took questions from the very elderly attendees. The final question came from grizzled shrimp who wanted the speaker to explain the connection between the symphony and Berlioz's "Clara Bow syndrome," which is asshat-speak for erotomania. The speaker refused. Now this was an old bunch of people, but Clara Bow had made her last movie before most of them had been born. I had actually seen part of one of her films on TV, and I understood why she had been a major movie star. She was like, well, the young Shirley MacLaine or like Amy Adams (but better).  Back in her prime, in an attempt to blackmail her,  a tabloid had falsely accused her of exhibitionism, incest, lesbianism, bestiality, drug addiction, venereal disease and alcoholism. She had been accused of everything but running for mayor of New York. The charges were false, and the tabloid editor ended up serving an eight year sentence, but apparently news of this outcome has yet to reach parts of Central California.