Conductor: All right, you've got all these hard militaristic bits and here it's this really silly bit. it's meant to sound camp. but it's Russian camp. Hard camp. Not pink pom-poms and skirts. It's black leather.

This is what happens when analogy is taken a bit too far when describing the 4th movement of tchaikovsky's 4th symphony.

and later on...

Conductor: you're going to have to articulate those notes. otherwise it'll just sound all french and wimpy.

***
kai and i were just talking the other day about how tiring it was to blog, and how having work really destroys your sense of humour. you come home tired after working and you just can't write anything funny any more.

and then he sneaks behind my back and blogs something so uproariously funny, i cannot help but think

base treachery!

ok, the archaism was added later on, for dramatic effect, but you get the idea: i feel very cheated.

bah.

***
this is what happens to you when you read accounts of a man being pumped full of bullets at close range in a shanghai station in 1912 after disagreeing with so-and-so.

i blame yuan shikai.