Dealing with broken dependency in dselect

["Thomas J. Hamman" <hammant@panther.adelphi.edu>]

How can I get dselect to install packages that depend on
no-longer-available packages, and, once installed, how do I keep dselect
from uninstalling them?

I'm trying lilypond, but it still depends on python-base (no longer
avaible).  I couldn't get dselect to install it so I downloaded it
manually and used dpkg with --force-depends.

And now, if I try to do anything else in dselect, it desperately tries
to uninstall lilypond.  Whether I leave it in an installed state or try
to put it on hold, dselect refuses to install other software without
first uninstalling lilypond.

Is there any way around this?

-- 
Thomas J. Hamman
"Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come
through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was
false."
        -Bertrand Russell