Alas, it has long been tradition to make puns and jokes using musical terms and names. I love puns and jokes, sometimes even especially music-based hilarity. But some traditions have played themselves out. Like:
Q: Why couldn't Mozart find his teacher?
A: Because he was Haydn!
See! An alarmingly clever --and super-tired--play on words. Or this:
Q: Why did Mozart kill all of his chickens?
A: They kept saying "Bach! Bach! Bach!"
Great. That's just great.
It is, more than anything, the puns on the name "Bach" for which I am calling a moratorium.
Alas, I am too late. The normally-reliable John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune offers this gem, in re: the upcoming Bach Week Festival.
Cue the choir. Sound the trumpets. Bang the drums.
Why, whatever for?
The Bachanalia is about to begin!
Can we please, please stop the madness?
RESEARCH UPDATE:
Very unfortunately, there is already a group of the same name.
Color me...unsurprised.
5/7/08
Call for a Moratorium
Posted by Sator Arepo at 3:45 PM
Labels: Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, JS Bach, Moratoria, Puns
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11 comments:
I would have gone with "Bacchantes". It's a shorter name, so...
Aw fuck it: I got nothin'.
UUXZFW: An endangered species of antelope found mainly in Northern Soweto. Pronounced "uuxzfw".
Ah, c'mon. Can't we keep them? I know the pun is the lowest form of communication (just this side of reality television) but then we'd be without comic gold like:
Make out your Chopin Liszt early before Debussy season, when you have time to check out Verdi good bargains and can still get gifts Faure good price, not have to Handel large crowds and have time to give Bach things you decide you don't want.
RPMBLI: American slang for the flaccid, uncircumsized male genatalia.
(Did I just cross the line of good taste?)
I saw a paper in the UK a couple of weeks ago deploying the "getting a Handel on Messiah" pun, which made me wonder if they're so hard up they need another Lend-Lease program.
On the other hand, honesty forces me to admit that if someone programmed a Brandenburg or two alongside some Skalkottas and called it "Bachlava," I'd probably laugh for a week.
Skalkottas puns are most welcome, sir. If you can make a pun out of "Martinu" you win an (unspecified) prize. Well, not really.
Haydn, Bach, and Handel puns are tired, tired, tired. First-grade elementary school music tired.
A little night music special at K-Martinu.
Variation: Pedestrian products at Wal-Martinu.
Excuse me? Martin who?
Bohuslav it when you find a half-penny on the ground?
I'm done now.
Ok, pun death match between Gustav and Empiricus:
Druckman
Rimsky-Korsakov
Piston
Lachenmann (bonus if you can use Helmut within 5 words as well)
With no composer name puns, we'd have no set-up for "What, you think it was Hindemith?"
Then where would we be?
Also, we'd lack the always hilarious "Suter? I hardly know 'er!"
Thanks everybody, I'm here all week!
Laystch: means "pun" in Magyar. Oddly, one of the most taboo curse words in that language.
Okay, AnthonyS,
As I staggered to my Car-ter, leaving Nichol beer night at the Palace watching the Detroit Piston(s), I suddenly realized that I was really Druck(,)man. Just then I got all Torke(d), Torme pants, and fell to the ground in the parking lot. That was really Tubin of me. As I admired by newly Bached chrome Rimskys, I began to Piccinni myself up and banged my head on the Glass Part of the Carter. "Korsakov, that smarts," I yelled. Maybe next time I should where a Helmut, and shouldn't plan on driving in case the police should want to Lachenmann up.
Nicely played.
Using "Korsakov" as a swear word, priceless.
Ortrzq: How Vince Young spelled his name on the Wonderlic Test.
So I says to the very Druckman, who Husa better Tye? The guy who Hasse Tcherepin Byrds on it or d'guy with the Parry pretty Beach scene? He dunno, he says, why the Fux you askin me bout that Schmidt? So I says, Fuchs you, too. Ives gotta know cause, my Barber Weill call me a Panufnik. He says, your Barber? I says, Vasks me that again and I'll Torke your Kunstein back t'Brooklyn. And he was Dun. Boy was he Piston off, though. I Zappa'd him good! Anyway, I had t'get to the Salonen.
When I got there of Korsakov surprised my Jamaican Vriend, who was Coates-ing his Helmut Bloch. He says, Schat, Lachenmann what you made me do, mon.
Wow. That was some fantastic Schmidt, Empiricus. Well played indeed.
...
Vince Young... I literally spit water all over my computer screen. I think we have a winner in the word verification game.
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