rooms or policing the streets from making mistakes.
“If I was coming to see a work of art, I used to ask dealers
to put a black cloth over it, and then whip it off when I walked
in, and blam, so I could have total concentration on that
particular thing,” says Thomas Hoving. “At the Met, I’d have
my secretary or another curator take a new thing we were
thinking of buying and stick it somewhere where I’d be
surprised to see it, like a coat closet, so I’d open the door and
there it would be. And I’d either feel good about it or suddenly
I’d see something that I hadn’t noticed before.” Hoving valued
the fruits of spontaneous thinking so much that he took special
steps to make sure his early impressions were as good as
possible. He did not look at the power of his unconscious as a
magical force. He looked at it as something he could protect
and control and educate — and when he caught his first glimpse
of the kouros, Hoving was ready.
The fact that there are now women playing for symphony
orchestras is not a trivial change. It matters because it has
opened up a world of possibility for a group that had been
locked out of opportunity. It also matters because by fixing the
first impression at the heart of the audition — by judging purely
on the basis of ability — orchestras now hire better musicians,