While you were quoting Monroe,

the bit about pulling music out of the air,

I was pulling this -- apparently pulled out of the air -- out of the air:

Two From Bill Monroe

''I never wrote a tune in my life,'' Mr. Monroe once said. ''All that music's in the air around you all the time. I was just the first one to reach up and pull it out.''

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In 1985, someone broke into his home and smashed the 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin he had been playing for four decades; technicians at Gibson Guitars spent three months reassembling it with microscopes and tweezers.

THE MADNESS BEGINS

Pictures From Brueghel