The reliably outrageous TV show American Horror Story deserves a prize for the Foiling of Pop-Triumphalist Stereotypes. The most recent episode opened with a scene set in New Orleans in 1919, in which a coven of witches confront the Axe-Man, a serial killer who also plays jazz saxophone. The Axe-Man has issued an ultimatum to the city, promising to visit mayhem on any home from which jazz music is absent. (How Adorno would have enjoyed this allegory.) The witches defiantly put on a record of the "Casta diva" from Norma — an apt choice, given the opera's druidic setting. When the Axe-Man enters, he finds himself outmatched. For once, the polarity classical / pop does not align with repressed / liberated or stuffy / cool or evil / good. I trust someone is already working on a paper for the next meeting of the American Musicological Society.
