In pop culture, there are usually two ways of looking at the conductor’s baton. One way is as the focal point of his or her authority and magic: as Bernstein said, the stick as a “an instrument of meaning in its tiniest moment.” The other way is as a symbol of the conductor’s pretension and uselessness: Seinfeld asking, in the introductory bit to the episode “The Fix Up” (not “The Maestro”), “Do you really need somebody waving a stick in your face to play the violin?”
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