It was private, intimate, naked - the bone of a matter was always reached quickly and thoroughly: the smoothies at the bar, which machines did what to the anatomy and, especially, the air quality were avidly discussed.

When Kurt Masur accepted the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic in 1990, he said he envisioned the orchestra at the center of the city's musical life, its concerts crossroads of ideas that would be eagerly anticipated and avidly discussed.

Mr. Posada, 79, has been avidly discussed in Havana and Miami since May 2005, when he was arrested here and taken away in a Homeland Security Department helicopter after illegally entering the country from Mexico and holding an odd news conference to deny involvement in the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner.

Mr. Kraemer said the issue was being discussed avidly at the high school, and articles reporting the latest scholarly research on "mixed- ability groupings" and learning styles can be found on many teachers' desks.

The subtitle of "Down and Dirty Pictures," a new book by the film historian Peter Biskind that was probably more avidly discussed on the streets of Park City this year than any of the movies in competition, is "Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film."

"It's hardly a secret, and secrets are always avidly discussed in the corps."

'Out on the ground' these moves are seized on and discussed avidly.

The decision by the Gidwitz family to sell control of Helene Curtis Industries to the British-Dutch giant Unilever P.L.C., announced today, is as likely to be avidly discussed in social and political circles here, as on the business circuit.

Not only is he the most bootlegged artist in the history of popular music, as demonstrated by the academic conference at Bristol University that marks his 70th birthday on May 24, he is also the most avidly discussed, the most rigorously scrutinised, the most fervently admired.