The Curse of 9?

Eliot Spitzer, a Harvard Law School graduate, the current Governor of New York, once known as The Sheriff of Wall Street, was recently exposed as Client 9 in an an international prostitution ring. I read that like Clinton, he did many good things - unfortunately, all it takes is just one weakness, to write off a life time of good deeds. Now, his hours in the office are numbered.

Though unrelated, Client 9 reminded me of Curse of the ninth:

According to Schoenberg, this superstition began with Gustav Mahler, who, after writing his Eighth Symphony, wrote Das Lied von der Erde: Eine Symphonie für Tenor-Stimme, Contralt -Stimme und große Orchester (nach Hans Bethges "Die chinesische Flöte"). Then he wrote his Symphony No. 9 and thought he had beaten the curse, but died with his Tenth Symphony incomplete.

After Mahler, some composers used as examples of the curse include: Kurt Atterberg, Alfred Schnittke, Roger Sessions, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Malcolm Arnold. Schnittke wrote his Ninth and last symphony with his left hand while virtually paralysed and unable to speak due to a series of strokes; the authenticity of the work finally performed as an interpretation of his manuscript is problematic.

This of course was a superstition, as they found many exceptions to this loose rule.