Klarinet Archive - Posting 000580.txt from 2003/05

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Hawaiian PUNCH!
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 09:50:42 -0400

Gary Truesdail wrote,
>Bug and fruit salad??? You must have had a gig in China
>where they do serve bugs, Cicadas, cooked in spicy hot oil.
>In your salad they add a crunchy texture or 4 for $1.00 at
>the local Bazaar on a Saturday, served on a skewer stick.
>
>Lelia Loban wrote:
>> I'll get me some bug-an-fruit salad, too. I
>> love bug-an-fruit salad.

Lelia *typed* it, apparently, but strenuously denies all responsibility for
the content, which she blames on a rat named Dick Vigorous, who (despite
his lame imitation of Jimmy Cagney talking like a mobster) soon will be
ignominiously deported (again) to the culvert via Hav-A-Heart trap....
Lelia does not voluntarily eat bug-'n'-fruit salad, although the stray
picnic ant may occasionally meet an unhappy fate in this manner.

Humor aside, though, attracting insects into the case is a genuine drawback
to soaking reeds in fruit punch, or leaving anything else that's edible in
an instrument case. I've mentioned to the list before that, in cleaning
out old / vintage / antique clarinet cases, I often find quantities of dead
insects in various stages of decomposition. There's also that curiously
penetrating aroma, unique to neglected old wind instrument cases. Most
people probably don't intend to store a clarinet unplayed for months or
years. They're going to practice again, any day now. Years later, the
inside of that case (closed up damp and then forgotten) smells like the
bottom of a cesspit. Add fermented fruity reeds to the eau de cork grease
putride, the piste de insecte mort and the parfum de salive moisi and . . .
I don't even want to think about it.

If you eat cicadas, will your reeds chirp?

;-)

Lelia Loban
E-mail: lelialoban@-----.net
Web site (original music scores as audio or print-out):
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban

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