Talk:P. D. Q. Bach
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Although P.D.Q. Bach is a fictitious character, I think that he deserves his own entry because he has a body of music which is both appreciably substantial and also distinct from the music Peter Schickele has pubished under his own name. Del_arte
Taking Pains to show P.D.Q. Bach is fictional
I am appreciative of the edits made to articles I've written; they add information I may not have known about and bring my writing into line with Wikipedia conventions.
But some of the edits to this article on P.D.Q. Bach make me wonder if it's really so necessary to so heavily underscore that P.D.Q. Bach is a fictitious character. I thought it was sufficient to write in the first paragraph that "P.D.Q. Bach" is a pseudonym which Peter Schikele uses to write satirical music.
I look at the pages on fictional characters on TV shows, such as Homer Simpson and Jean-Luc Picard, and in articles like that, the fictional nature of the character is mentioned in the first sentence and afterwards follow many paragraphs unencumbered by any reference to the fictionality of the character. On this article on P.D.Q. Bach I am seeing a tendency to preface nearly every sentence with something along the lines of "According to Schikele".
On the one hand Wikipedia has a duty to inform in a clear and accurate manner. But on the other hand, readers don't like having stuff they already know rehashed to death. Besides, I think readers are smart enough to keep reality and fiction separate, especially when the fiction is presented in as tongue-in-cheek manner as P.D.Q. Bach's life story ("the last and least of Johann Sebastian Bach's sons"). Schikele calls his audiences an "eagerly skeptic public", and when in his Carnegie Hall act he complains that people still doubt the existence of P.D.Q. Bach, the crowd laughs out loud, followed by Schikele complaining "Nobody seems to take these concerts seriously." Again, the audience laughs heartily. - Del_arte
- I see what you mean. User:Marcus2 added a categorization to this page: Hoaxes. I removed it because I thought it was wrong. Here's why: Schikele presents P.D.Q. as comedy, with no attempt to actually make anyone believe that there really was a 21st son of J.S. 141.217.177.19 23:04, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Not to pass on the merits of excessive obviousness as applied to this article, but the same could be said for Orson Welles's War of the Worlds: probably no attempt to deceive, but nonetheless likely to deceive because it uses a deceptive fictional device. - Nunh-huh 23:10, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
When was the biography published?
I'm pretty sure that the copy of The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach which I read prior to working on this article was published in 1987. An anonymous user changed it to 1976 and Amazon.com says 1977. Del arte 18:34, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)