I believe the current early chronology of versions containing all the basic motifs is as follows: Joseph Fouché was a politician and administrator, and the delightfully wicked creator under Bonaparte of something vaguely resembling the modern police service. According to PBS, he wrote in something called Archives of the police of a series of murders…
Following the post on Mexican organ grinders, someone kindly sent in the following anecdote, posted by Mark Williamson over at the Mechanical Music Digest: The Italian composer Pietro Mascagni was sitting in his study one day when a street musician stopped outside and began to play one of Mascagni’s pieces on his hand-cranked barrel organ.…
On the same day the Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, a small Mexico City pharmaceutical manufacturer offered the distinguished Hungarian Jewish contract bridge player, George Rosenkranz, work synthesising progesterone from inedible yams. He fell in love with the city immediately: I saw the blue sky, the volcano, and heard this music outside my…
I went into the excellent and apparently men-only Cantina La Fuente in Guadalajara, Jalisco this morning and ordered a beer. An aggressive-looking youngish guy further down the bar started mouthing off loudly about gringos, so I went over to see what his problem was, and it turned out he was a frustrated sysadmin looking for…
Nando’s acquired one, and here’s the video. The world is about to be swept by yet another théremin craze, and I hope to bring you tidings more thrilling yet soon.
I think you can still use the following Dutch rhyme: Allah is groot en Allah is machtig, Allah heeft een lul van één meter tachtig. … as long as it is accompanied by the following English translation, to be pronounced with the London glottalstoppery of the gentleman with whom I spent a year in a…
In a surreal exchange, mediated by Carlos Ferrero Martín and Margaret Marks, and with the usual machine googleation, “in declarations conducted in Majorca days ago, our minister of Culture, Bald Carmen, pronounced the following phrase: ‘Before cook I was fraila’.” Whereupon the journalist said, ‘Bis bald, Carmen,’ but was severely beaten by the Balearic pun…
Lie as they may, the truth is that all wind players share mouthpieces. So what’s your best risk mitigation strategy if you have to kiss a musician? Here’s some useful info: Potential risk of salivary-mediated viral hepatitis type B transmission from oral exposure to fomites. Osterholm MT, Max BJ, Hanson M, Polesky HF. Twelve grade…
