Today's Simile of the Day! is brought to you by Jeff Dunn of the San Francisco Classical Voice.
Mr. Dunn reviews a concert of Brahms and Nielsen:
Then came Mr. Nielsen, bursting into the auditorium with an Allegro like a battalion on Saturday-night leave hitting a string of dance clubs, each in a different key.
First: Wow.
Second: I'm a bit confused. Was each dance club...in a different key? Is Nielsen like the battalion, or is the Allegro like the battalion? Huh. Great imagery, though.
But wait! Bonus simile from the same review!
The evening began with Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto, as common a visitor to the concert hall as a baked potato in a steakhouse
Hilarious. Colorful and strange, if...apt. Do baked potatoes really visit steakhouses? And, soon:
Conductor Laureate Hebert Blomstedt and soloist Nikolaj Znaider delivered the Brahms potato in exemplary fashion when I attended Friday.
Hm. A bit overextended, perhaps. Maybe he should have dropped the hot potato after the first time.
That said, the article contrasts the pieces nicely. Go read it.
11/13/08
Simile of the Day!
Posted by Sator Arepo at 1:09 PM
Labels: Jeff Dunn, Rhetoric, San Francisco Classical Voice, Simile
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7 comments:
I'd have preferred, "as common a visitor to the concert hall as chicken broth in a Thanksgiving stuffing." But that's me.
Weird.
No, see...the broth doesn't get to leave...like the potato.
How about: "as common a visitor to the concert hall as a divorcee to a Reno whorehouse"?
Yeah, but the broth actually goes "into" the whole production. Without it the canon would be wanting, as it were.
As for the whorehouse, I'd like to see the numbers. I'm skeptical.
Gosh. When I first read that, I thought it said battalion on Saturday Night Live.
Then came Mr. Nielsen, bursting into the auditorium with an Allegro like a battalion on Saturday-night leave hitting a string of dance clubs, each in a different key.
Okay, again, no grammar expert here, but commas can be used to separate or to join -- does this sentence make any sense either way? If the comma is being used to separate then the two fragments "Then came Mr. Nielsen" and "each in a different key" should make sense with each other -- they clearly don't.
If however, they are being used to join, then "hitting a string of dance clubs, each in a different key" works fine, but why in the hell is there a comma between "Nielsen" and "bursting" -- "Mr. Nielsen, bursting"? What does that mean?
This, sentence, is fucked. I want, to like, it, but, what?
I first read the opening sentence as "...bursting into the auditorium like an Allegro with a baton...."
Clearly I read too fast for my own good, but that would have been a way better simile, you have to admit.
I wonder if Jeff has seen this yet!
I am afraid I have tagged you in the meme of seven.
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