Two…no, three observations abut the bizarre persistence of the Bradley Cooper-Leonard Bernstein-Maestro nose thing, which really didn’t warrant much attention in the first place.

One, the Maestro makeup team obviously wanted to create a strong resemblance between Bradley Cooper and Leonard Berstein, which partly meant creating a correctly proportioned Bernstein prosthetic nose. They just wanted the resemblance factor to stand out in the right way, and that’s all — nothing more. I find it astonishing that anyone would ascribe any ulterior motives of any kind.

Two, it is beyond bizarre that the Maestro makeup team nonetheless got the nose wrong. It’s close to the Bernstein original but a bit too extreme — almost Pinocchio-like from side angles.

And three, what possessed Mark Harris to want to write such a long Slate piece (11 heavyweight paragraphs) about this kerfuffle?