Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: cavers

Message Display

  This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
  while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
  Send mail to mime@do*.ca*.wa*.ed* for more info.

--part1_ae.bb8dac.25c71650_boundary
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii
Content-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.96.1000131165731.21914G@ju*.uc*.in*.ed*>

This has nothing to do with diving but is a Darwin award contender sent me
by an ol cave dive friend terry Leitheuser
enjoy

Subject: Fwd: Musical Darwin Award Contender

 

--part1_ae.bb8dac.25c71650_boundary
Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822
Content-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.96.1000131165731.21914H@ju*.uc*.in*.ed*>
Content-Description: 

Return-path: PageWilliams@cs*.co*
From: PageWilliams@cs*.co*
Full-name: PageWilliams
Message-ID: <95.34e22f.25b6a7c4@cs*.co*>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 00:38:12 EST
Subject: Musical Darwin Award Contender
To: PageWilliams@cs*.co*
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: CompuServe 2000 32-bit sub 23

Music/humor fans: From the unlikely location of Marfa TX comes this gem!


August 1998 - Montevideo, Uruguay - Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist
with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of
inspiration, decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots
fired as part of the orchestra's performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812
Overture at an outdoor children's concert.

In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited firecracker,
supposedly equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into
his aluminum straight mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his
quite new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.
Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through bandages
on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone would shield me
from the explosion and instead, would focus the energy of the blast
outwards and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra,
like a rocket."

However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified to use
high-powered artillery. In his haste to get the horn up before the
firecracker went off, he failed to raise the bell of the horn high
enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the orchestra.
What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those
delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he failed to
sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute
between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections of the
orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach of the
conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front row of
the audience.

Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus
they were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under
them, passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor backwards into
row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into the
people in the row behind and so on, like a row of dominos. The sound of
collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on their behinds
increased logarithmically, adding to the overall sound of brass cannons
and brass playing as constitutes the closing measures of the Overture.

Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography notwithstanding, back on
stage Paolo's Waterloo was still unfolding. According to Paolo, "Just as
I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand still. Everything
moved in slow motion. Just before I felt searing pain to my mouth, I
could swear I heard a voice with an Austrian accent say, 'Fur every
akshon zer iz un eekvul un opposeet reakshon!'"

Well, this should come as no surprise, for Paolo had set himself up for
a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics. Having
failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he allowed the energy of
the blast to send a superheated jet of gas backwards through the tubing
of the trombone, through the mouthpiece, burning his lips and face.
The pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force of the blast was so
great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right down the middle,
turning it inside out, while at the same time propelling Paolo backwards
off the riser. And for the grand finale, as Paolo fell backwards he lost
his grip on the slide of the trombone, allowing the pressure of the hot
gases coursing through the horn to propel the trombone's slide like a
double golden spear into the head of the 3rd clarinetist, knocking him
unconscious.

The moral of the story? Beware, the next time you hear someone in the
horn section yell out "Hey, everyone, watch this!"

--part1_ae.bb8dac.25c71650_boundary--

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]