Because of today's dual guestmanship, Dmitri Kabelevsky, winner of the People's Artist Award of 1963 and whose 91st birthday was this morning, will not be featured on this, the 32nd episode of the New Music Sesquihour, no matter that it is in fact being featured even now as I speak. However, if you, our listening audient, are not in fact now listening, then the duality is moot, and Larry and Jody beat Dmitri, four hands to two.

As a service to our burgeoning listening audience, the International Classification of Musical Diseases will not be discussed on today's show. But be forewarned: one Saturday afternoon down the road, we may not feel so charitable, radiophonically speaking, and then not only will we discuss it, but it may even constitute that program's theme, quiz, guest composer, and le flambeau oriange.

"Do you like Kipling?" goes the unilaterally famous if unburgeoned question, followed posthaste by the snappy riposte, quot;I don't know, I've never kippled!" And while you're all recovering from outbursts of hearty guffaws, let's take a quiet moment to honor the ol' Rudster's 130th birthday. (dead air) OK, that's enough.

The date is 1853, the place, Peter the Hermit's Cantina in Mexico's Mesilla Valley, the time, 8:15am. Six men are seated at a booth near the lone window: they are, in order of net height, a locomotive mechanic, a haberdasher, American diplomat Jim Gadsden, and two-thirds of the Fennel Barbershop Quartet. All are drinking caffe lattes, although only the haberdasher is using a cup. A spray of violets sits pensively in a spittoon in the center of the table surrounded by an unfinished hand of Whiskers Six-Draw. From an adjoining room can be heard the strains of an automatischklavier plunking out the food fight theme from Norma in the sesquilydian mode. A photograph -- a forerunner to the video game -- is tacked to the wall. It depicts 400 owls attempting en masse to outwit a giant badger in the rain. A Mexican official in a terrycloth robe enters the cantina carrying a rectangular strip of land. It measures 29,640 square miles yet weighs only 50 pounds. He drops it onto the table, tipping over the spittoon and scattering the Whiskers Six-Draw cards, and smiles at Gadsden. Gadsden smiles back, withdraws Manhattan Island and several strings of fashion beads from his coat pocket, and hands them to the Mexican. The haberdasher smiles. The Mexican nods, stuffs Manhattan Island in a sack, grabs the beads, and leaves, pausing momentarily to puzzle over the photograph. The locomotive mechanic sighs but then smiles as the Fennel Members suddenly burst into song, their exploded torsos splattering the table and much of what will one day be termed Gadsden's Purchase.

And speaking of purchase, you, too, can purchase this portion of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Sesquihour, which up to now is being brought to you by this portion of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Sesquihour, but which will in the future be available for procurement at many fine retail sesquioutlets. Check our program guide for one near you.

What more needs to be the saying? Only that the clock beats time again for Sovlak of the LPs.