Spurious history: el vaquero

Lots of people in Barcelona don’t have piped gas, but it doesn’t matter at all. When their canister of butane is about to run out, a man comes along the street yelling BUTAAAANNNNOOO!!!! and, after a brief conversation, he climbs up six flights of stairs with a new one on his back. Easy!

It used to be like that with milk too, but the anatomy of cows’ knees meant that what went up never came down. This destroyed the nascent vaquero industry, as well as leading to the occasional roof collapse (NE). This important information is missing from Daniella Thompson’s very fine series of articles on the Brazilian origins of Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit, but it does provide a pleasingly rationalist explanation of the Moschophoros.

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Comments

  1. Daniella, some things are more important than objective reality, but you land blows on both. (PS: what happened to the recordings of the trombonists?!)

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