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L.A. was a magnet for lives in desperate duress. . . . The place itself provided solace and recompense. They had the comfort of other arriviste losers. They entered the L.A. spiritus mundi.

After their overwhelming victory against the Spartans at Leuktra, the Boiotians likewise found ritual action a powerful means of undergirding the new and hard-won but still compromised participation of the entire region in the koinon.

The way the orchestra performed tonight was an insult to my ears.