perfectly stated, jon.
or, put another way... as they might say in japan, 'to surpass the master is to repay the debt'.
e-RICHIE
On Mon, 8 Apr 2002 11:33:49 -0500 (CDT) Jonathan Cowden
<jac33@tron.arts.cornell.edu> writes:
> It's often said that a teacher is best judged by the qualities of
> his/her
> disciplies. In that vein, I wonder how much of Masi's reputation in
> the
> states is due to the bikes he built, the champions who rode them, &
> the
> great "disciples" who at some point worked in his shop and went on
> to
> become masters in their own right. I doubt whether the first has
> much
> actual power. How many people have actually seen a Masi built by the
>
> master himself, and how many could identify one with the decals gone
> and
> other identifying marks of the frame obscured? The second probably
> carries more explantory power but can't account for everything. I
> just
> don't see the same interest on this list in, say, DeRosas, as I do
> for
> Masis. I can think of other framebuilders both here and elsewhere
> who
> have built steel bikes for champions but who don't elicit the same
> reverance. That leaves the last factor. Regardless of who Masi's
> first
> disciple was, the fact remains that even stateside his students
> constitute a who's who of modern framebuilding and/or refinishing:
> Baylis, Confente, etc. I think that this fact expands the mystique
> of the
> original master; the success of his disciples redounds to him,
> giving him
> a larger than life appeal. It's hard not to ask: "how good must he
> have
> been if several of the masters we know now were at one point under
> his care
> and guidance?" For the same reason it's hard not to look at any
> really
> beautifully executed Masi without concluding that Falerio is some
> fundamental sense responsible for the final product even if he
> didn't
> build it.
>
> None of this is to say that Falerio is responsible for all of the
> success
> of his disciples. They developed their own styles and flourished in
> their
> own right. But it is to suggest that the sheer number who did make it
>
> constitutes good evidence that Falerio's influence went way beyond
> "the
> roll of the dice", that it was something more than a random or
> haphazard
> thing. Jon
>
> Jon Cowden
> Ithaca, NY