Yuck!

Schickele Mix Episode #153

Part of The Schickele Mix Online Fan Archive

Official description
More about … er, bugs
Premiere
1998-01-14
“Peter, are you ready?”
Can't say I'm not.

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You can listen to this episode on the Internet Archive, and follow along using a transcript.

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Transcript

[This is a machine-generated transcript, cleaned up and formatted as HTML. You can download the original as an .srt file.]

Can't say I'm not. Here's the theme.
[No speech for 15s.]
Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. And how good, in the sense of suitable, it is to acknowledge the munificence of our benefactors, our creditors being satisfied by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by this perspicacious radio station, where my septiquotidian labors result in auricular constructs whose distributional requirements are fulfilled by PRI, Public Radio International. And I'd like to think that habitual experiencers of these auricular constructs, which the rude multitudes call radio programs, I'd like to think that regular listeners, listeners to Schickele Mix, learn as much about entomology, the study of words, as they do about music.
Entomology is an area of particular interest to me. I just love words, don't you? And there's one... Oh man, sorry folks, I can't turn it off. Hello?
No, etymology is the study of insects. Entomology is the study of words. What? Well, you're wrong, Mr... What is it?
Okay, listen, Mr. Chomsky, I have a dictionary right here, and I will look it up as we speak, okay?
Entomology, E-N-T-O, is the study of, like I said, insects, which means that etymology is the study of words, right?
Well, I'm glad you're man enough to admit that you've made a mis... What? What? Oh, I do too know what proctological means, and the same to you, buddy. Man!
Well, what I was trying to get at before I was so discourteously interrupted is that sometimes when I find out about the derivation of a word, I have two feelings. One is a slap-your-forehead feeling, of course, why didn't I think of that? And the other is simple delight at the niftiness of the information. Did you know, for instance...
That the words bisect, trisect, and intersect, those words having to do with cutting up or across, they have the same Latin root as the word insect. The Latin insectus is the past participle of insecare, which means to cut into, which is what a lot of insects do. Munch, munch, munch.
You'd think they have nothing to do with their lives but eat. And a lot of them eat. Things that we want to eat before we can get to them. Or they eat us, which isn't fair. We're supposed to be the top of the food chain.
Well, there's probably no area of human concern that hasn't been dealt with musically. And there certainly is plenty of insect music. Now, I'm using the term insect loosely, by the way. Please don't call me about well-defined thoraxes and number of legs and unsegmented...
I'm talking here about tiny little creepy crawly things that make you say yuck. Which, as it happens, is the title of today's show. These things may be small, but they're voracious. I once saw a super magnified photograph of a flea on human skin. And the human hairs looked like strange prehistoric trees. And the flea looked like a cow contentedly grazing away. Munch, munch. That's all they think about. And you and I might be the munchies.
Well, we deal with fleas on another edition of the show. But here's a menagerie of more menacing micromonsters. Diligently dining denizens of our dens and dales. Yuck-provoking parasites and pariahs. Hey, any one of those phrases would be a good sweet title. But let's call this the Small Scourges Suite. It has four numbers.
And I'll read... I'll read you the text of the first. It's in English, but it's a little hard to understand. He spake the word, and there came all manner of flies and lice in all their quarters. He spake, and the locusts came without number, and devoured the fruits of the land. I'll see you in about 11 minutes.
He spake the word. And the flies and dales.
He spake the word.
He spake the word. He spake the word. And the king of my school.
He spake the word.
When the shades of night are falling, and you climb into your bed,
there is no need for loneliness and crying. For there's always someone with you, even in the darkest night. And that's you. Though you cannot see them, I'm not lyin'.
Teeny little dust mites, ultra tiny dust mites, bout two million in the average bed. Bunches of them dust mites, munchin' little dust mites, snuggled warm and cozy neath your head. There are little eight-legged daddy mites, and mama mites, and baby mites, doin' what a mite might like to do. You can wash the sheet, or spray the mat, or beat the bed with a baseball bat, but they will stay no matter what you do. It's those teeny little dust mites, ultra tiny dust mites, bout two million in the average bed.
Bunches of them dust mites, munchin' little dust mites, snuggled warm and cozy neath your head.
Now each and every human being is shedding flakes of skin.
About 10,000 drift each minute, and those dust mites smack their bony lips and eat that skin like taco chips. It's a rain of mana from the sky.
It's those teeny little dust mites, ultra tiny dust mites, bout two million in the average bed.
Bunches of them dust mites, munchin' little dust mites, snuggled warm and cozy neath your head. Teeny little dust mites, ultra tiny dust mites, bout two million in the average bed. Bunches of them dust mites, munchin' little dust mites, snuggled warm and cozy neath your head.
Ay que buena pa' bailar, que sabrosita que esta, la cucaracha ya, la cucaracha ya. Ay que buena pa' bailar, la cucaracha ya, la cucaracha ya.
[No speech for 339s.]
The Small Scourges Suite began with an excerpt from that compendium of terrific program music handles Israel in Egypt. Simon Preston conducting the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral and the English Chamber Orchestra on a gorgeous London recording. Then we heard Haywood Banks singing dust mites which is I must admit the only song about dust mites I know that was followed by La Cucaracha Cha with the Peter Lowland Orchestra I guess in English that would be the cockroach a cha something like that anyway that's from a CD called another crazy cocktail party it says be easy and retro hip on the front on the back right under the catalog number it says file under grunge that's a new one on me I guess that's grounds as in grunge and lounge right I can just hear my kids saying oh dad you didn't know that anyway we wound up with Molly O'Brien singing boll weevil holler from her album tell it true which is what I always try to do by the way speaking of of of
[No speech for 11s.]
course means outcast comes from an Indian word in Tamil pariah means drummer it figures right very low cast I mean like what do you call a drummer without a girlfriend homeless and what do you call me if you're a drummer you call me a jerk or wordless or a composer others call me Peter Schickele and the show Schickele Mix from
PRI Public Radio International today's show is called yuck and I was thinking yuck is an interjection that is usually provoked by one of two things something gross and messy like the product of emesis which the rude multitudes call losing your cookies or small creepy crawly things and in the past I've been in the latter case small seems like a necessary attribute of the provocative agent I mean if you saw a bunch of cockroaches swarming all over your cat's food you might say yuck now a grizzly bear is a lot more dangerous than a cockroach but if you saw a grizzly
bear up close you wouldn't say yuck you'd say small things particularly in large numbers
can be unsettling but what if they're small things can be unsettling but what if they're so small you can't even see them germs can be just as dangerous as grizzly bears and the only reason they're not yuck inducing is that in everyday life we can't see them thank God now I'm going to depart from usual sickly Mix policy here this is of course primarily a program about music but the spread of disease is such an important issue that tidbit time today is going to feature a rather lengthy selection involving the spoken word this dramatization concerns the germ as a transmitter of disease and although it was recorded in the 1940s I think after hearing it you'll agree that it's just as timely now as it was then pardon me is this the bird's eye open house that advertises frozen food
and I presume you're Miss Dinah sure
then this is the program on which Mr Groucho Marx is supposed to supposed to what uh-huh would you mind uh would you mind stepping aside so that I can spray the microphone no wait a minute now wait don't spray the microphone stop this my obese friend who are you my name is amoeba J back
I am Mr Marx's personal disinfector and I'm supposed to sterilize everything you may not remember but
nasty. Cold? No, I'm just comfy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to spray the rest of this.
No, no, no, wait. Now, just a minute, Mr. Bacteria. I've got something to say about this.
Hello? Hello, Dinah. This is Groucho. Did my personal disinfector get there yet? Yes, Groucho, and I wish you'd come over and stop him. He's disinfecting everything in the studio.
Where is he now? He's going around Harry Bonzel with a spray gun.
Well, that's quite a trip. You better get a road map and tell him not to take Route 7. The bridge is out. You better tell him that yourself. I can. My bridge is out, too. Mr. Bacteria, Mr. Mark wants to talk to you. Thank you. Did you use this telephone to talk to Mr.? Mark? Uh-huh. Excuse me. Hello? Hello.
Hello. Is this Mr. Bacteria? You were expecting maybe Mrs.? Did you take care of everything? Uh-huh. And I figured it'll cost you exactly.
Well, that's reasonable enough. I'll send you a check. Just send it to. It'll be a pleasure. I didn't know you moved. I didn't move. They just changed the address.
I'll just drop it in the mailbox. Which mailbox? I don't care. Have you any favorites? Oh, yes. Margaret? O'Brien. Ask her if she's got a friend. I'll call you back in 12 years.
Tell me sure. I'll be right over.
Huh?
Just a playful little spray fool. That means I love... Uh-huh.
Oh, isn't that... Oh, now, please.
Dinah, listen. We've got to do something to get rid of that little bug killer.
I know it, Harry, but I'm not worrying about that so much. What we have to do is cure Groucho's complex. I wonder if I could use psychiatry on him.
Psychiat... Dinah, what do you know about psychiatry?
Well, I've seen all the latest movies, haven't I? Yeah. Oh, I... Well, now, just what will you do? We'll just have to delve into his past and find out if anything ever happened in his childhood that might be troubling him now. Oh, fat.
How can you cure him now by finding out what happened to him when he was a kid?
Look, Harry, if Ingrid Bergman can cure Gregory Peck's brilliant mind, then I can certainly cure... You're a Groucho Marxist. Mind?
Oh, not at all. I'd love to. She...
What was that? Oh, wait a minute. Here comes Groucho now. He's right behind Mr. Bacteria.
Company, halt! So far, so good, Bacteria. Now, are we ready to go on with the show? Uh-huh. Very well. Hot water? Hot. Disinfecting soap? Disinfecting. Sanitary mask? Sanitary.
Okay, Dinah, you may kiss me now.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
What are you brushing off your suit that with?
James, James, millions of them. James with green heads, with blue heads, with red heads. Red heads? By the way, whatever happened to that little waitress at the Brown Davies?
Oh, you're just imagining all this, Groucho, but if you'll cooperate with me, I'm sure I can cure you.
Oh, now, see how lucky you are? You now have a lady doctor. Give that lady ten silver dollars.
And now, madam, what is my problem?
What is your problem?
Your problem is that you're all... Always brushing imaginary germs off your suit. Now, look, Groucho, just relax your mind and think of nothing.
How can I do that?
Well, try it this way. Think of a round circle. But there's nothing inside of it. That's it. Then your mind's a blank? A complete blank? It's a big improvement, too.
Bonzell, if my mind weren't a blank, I'd tell you where to get off. If I was running a bust.
Oh, boys, please, come on now. Don't interrupt the experiment. Groucho, are you thinking of a... A circle? Yes. Now think of an X. I've got it. Now a circle. Go ahead. Now an X. Right. Now a circle.
Hold it.
What happened? I just beat myself a tic-tac-toe.
Groucho!
But I mean it all, Groucho. Now, please stop brushing those imaginary germs off your suit.
I can't help it. I can't help it. Mr. Bacteria!
Thank you very much.
Gosh almighty. He's really got it bad, hasn't he, Dinah?
Oh, I should say. Maybe I ought to try to analyze his dreams. Dreams, dreams, that's right. Every dream has a hidden meaning, doesn't it? Yeah.
Groucho, have you had any beautiful dreams lately?
Yes. Once I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls.
Ah, I wonder what that means.
I fell asleep in the bathtub.
Well, if... You take him, Dinah. Okay.
But wait till I get out of the tub.
Groucho, you know you should never fall asleep while you're taking a bath. I wasn't taking a bath. I was just lying there thinking about it.
Groucho, look, concentrate. Let's...
It's my wedding and they were giving me a shower.
Let's go into this just a little more deeply. Can we...
Oh, we'd like to turn off the water.
Do you... Do you have any dreams that occur frequently?
Yes. Every night in my dreams I come to a door with a big sign on it. Then I push it and push it with all my might, but it won't open. Well, what does the sign say? It says pull.
Do you see the cause of your frustration? I see it all. You're trying to get back into your past, but you can't open the door to it.
Now, do as I say, Groucho. Let's go back to your childhood. Okay. I'll bank the eight ball in the side pocket.
No, no. I'm talking about another part of your childhood. Okay. Shoot the $20.
I'll take ten of it. Wait. No.
You see, Dinah, it's no use. Ten open here. Ten open. Oh, stop it.
Don't you understand, Dinah? His mind is all cluttered up with the wrong things.
Just a second, my well-rounded. Eager freezer. How did you spend your childhood?
Me? I lived in a little romantic town, Groucho. Yes. On cold winter nights when the moon was shining, the girls and boys would go down to the pond and we'd ice skate. So far, nobody's made a buck.
Make fun if you want to, but it was really wonderful. After a while, we'd go off in couples to the side of the lake and see who could freeze their spinach first.
As a matter of fact, the winner was entitled to be called Birdseye for the rest of the year.
And the winner would be the winner of the rest of the week.
Now, you see? Beautiful.
You see, Groucho, that's exactly what I mean. Can you think of any outstanding incident in your youth? Yes. It happened one night while I was taking a walk with my sweetheart and her boyfriend.
At that time, we lived in a tough neighborhood.
There was an old house on top of the hill.
Nobody ever dared go near it until that fateful night. Hey, fellas. Come on, let's take a walk over to the haunted house, hey?
Oh.
Oh, boy, that's a swell idea. Hey, maybe we can find a couple of ghosts, huh? Wow. Boy, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could get my mother a sheet for her bed, huh? What do you say, huh, Marks? Huh, Marks, huh? Personally, I'd rather get down to the drugstore and have a Coke. A Coke? What fun is that? You can't get killed that way. I can choke on a straw, can't I?
Oh, boy.
Just listen to the wind whistle through that old haunted house.
Whistle. Whistle. It must have...
There must be a sailor on the roof.
Ah, don't be silly. What would a sailor be doing up there? Why not? It's a tar roof. Some of those guys got shingles.
I ain't going in that haunted house. Now, wait a minute, Marks. You know we don't like sissies. Either you come on up with us or you'll get what you're looking for.
Since this was no place to get what I was looking for, we continued on our way up the hill. Then in the eerie blackness of the night, I saw a white owl. Naturally, I picked it up and smoked it.
It was the first time I'd ever smoked a cigar. And after two puffs, I realized I was a man. A sick man.
LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Suddenly, I was in the топ. Suddenly, there was a bolt of lightning. Hey. Hey, Marks, where are you?
I'm over here, behind this tree. Ah, what are you running away for? If lightning's gonna hit you, it's gonna hit you.
Well, if it's gonna hit me, at least let it look for me.
Ah, wait a minute. You can't kid me, Marks. You're scared to death. I am not.
I always wear my hair straight up.
Hey. Hey, listen to that dog growling.
Yeah.
Look, Marks, you go up there and take care of him. Take care of him? I've got three uncles now I'm taking care of.
Now, don't worry about the dog growling. It just means he's smiling.
Yeah, the last time somebody told me that, a dog smiled right through the seat of my pants.
Hey, now, just a minute, Groucho.
I thought you said you'd face death for me. Yeah, but that dog isn't dead.
Now, listen to me, Marks. You know what I think of cowards. If you don't come along, I'll knock your ears off.
Since I didn't want my hat to fall down over my eyes, I continued with them.
As we came to the door of the house, we sensed an order of Limbic of cheese. It had always been part of our neighborhood, but never as strong as this.
Stand back, everybody. I'm gonna open that door.
Big boxes in there, one on top of another.
I'll go in and open one of them. I'll prove to you that I'm not a coward.
My hero, what a man.
My friend, what a god. My goodness, what a smell. I was almost overpowered as I entered the old house.
There was cheese to the left of me, cheese to the right of me. And there I stood, smell-bound.
What happened after that? There must be one more thing.
Finally, when I got outside, I found out that my loyal friends were halfway back to town. What did you do? I ran after them so fast that I became overheated and caught a bad cold.
Now, that's it. That's the answer. The memory of that cold is so unpleasant that it gave you a germ complex. That's wonderful, Dinah. I'm so glad you cleared it up for me. I feel like a new man. It's great to be rid of those awful germs.
And Harry, Harry, what are you doing? Brushing these germs off my suit. Hey. Dinah, look, now Harry's got it. Well, tell him to stop brushing them on me. Oh, Mr. Bacteria, call a filler bacteria. Oh, Mr. Bacteria, call a filler bacteria.
Nerms and Groucho, from a CD called Gratuitously Groucho, Rare Audio Artifacts of That Man Marks. Groucho wasn't his real name, of course. His real name was Julius Henry Marks, J.H. Marks. Hey, we have something in common, Groucho and I. Our first initial, J.H. Marks, J.P. Schickele. Now, Peter is my real name, but it isn't my first name. It's my middle name. That's really true. I've always been called Peter, but... Hello?
That's for me to know and you to find out. Listen, everybody, as far as you're concerned, my name is Peter Schickele, and that of the show is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Yuck! That's the name of today's show. It's not what the show is about. It's what many people's reaction to what the show's about might be.
So far, we've heard about flies, lice, locusts, mites, cockroaches, boll weevils, and germs. For the rest of the show, we'll be dealing with a very special animal, the spider.
As they do with snakes, a lot of people have a love-hate relationship with spiders. Spiders are cool. Hardly anybody would call cockroaches cool, but spiders are cool. It's not just the amazing web thing. It's also the color. I know. All spiders. Spiders aren't black. But we tend to think of spiders as being black. And black is a cool color.
Johnny Cash doesn't wear cockroach brown. For many years, in our place in the country, my wife and I slept on a mattress on the floor in the attic. And every once in a while, she'd get bitten, apparently by a spider. They didn't seem to like me, but they got to her. But in the other sense, they didn't get to her. She's not a spider squisher. If I'm cleaning, which I do every five years, I never disturb a working spiderweb. If it's got dust on it, then it's fair game for the broom. But otherwise, well, it would be like taking flies out of their mouths. They spend a lot of time and energy setting up those websites. What, am I going to be some kind of hacker who goes in there and messes things up? They're frightening, but fascinating.
I think both of those characteristics are reflected in our first batch of spider pieces. There are three numbers, and they last about five minutes.
I call this suite the Eight Arms to Hold You Suite. Ladies and gentlemen, the Spidey Cube Kiddy. Spidey Cube Kiddy. Spidey Cube Kiddy. Spidey Cube Kiddy.
Spider.
He is our hero. Spider.
Get rid of. Spider. Step on spider. Spider. We love you, spider. I promise not.
To kill you. Spider.
We love you, spider. Spider. Get rid of.
Spider. Must stop. Spider.
He is our hero.
Spider.
[No speech for 12s.]
I fought a grizzly bear, tracked a cobra to its lair, killed a crocodile who dared to cross my path.
But the thing I really dread, when I've just got out of bed, is to find that there's... in the bath
I've no fear of wasps or bees mosquitoes only tease I'd rather like a cricket on the hearth but my blood runs cold to meat in pyjamas and bare feet with a great big hairy spider in the bath
I have faced a charging bull in Barcelona I have dragged a mountain lioness
from her cup
I've restored a mad gorilla to its owner but I don't dare face that cup what a frightful looking beast half an inch across at least it would frighten even Superman or Goth there's contempt it can't disguise in the little beady eyes of the spider sitting glowering in the bath
it ignores my every lunge with the back brush and the sponge I have bombed it with a present from Penarth it just rolls into a ball doesn't seem to mind at all and simply goes on squatting in the bath for hours we have been locked in endless struggle I have lured it to the deep end by the drain at last I think I've washed it down the drain down the plughole but here it comes a crawling up the chain now it's time for me to shave though my nerves will not behave and there's bound to be a fearful aftermath so before I cut my throat I shall leave this final note driven to it by the spider in the bath
pulling up my walk
feels very very smart I'm going to go now he's up above my head
I need my own head to breath Paul is the spider Paul is the spider
now he's trotting to the floor
heading for the bedroom door maybe he's as scared as me where's he gone now I can't see
Paul is the spider Paul is the spider
creepy cawly creepy cawly creepy cawly creepy cawly there he is ruts in the ball creepy cawly creepy cawly creepy cawly
creepy cawly creepy cawly creepy cawly doesn't seem to move at all doesn't seem to move at all doesn't seem to move at all
perhaps he's dead I'll just make sure
pick this book up off the floor no Paul is the spider Paul is the spider
creepy cawly creeps
he's come to us again
I'm hearing f llega
[No speech for 22s.]
The Eight Arms to Hold You, sweet, began with Spider by They Might Be Giants. What is that little thing, a song?
A little play, a ceremony, whatever it is, it's a gem. Then Flanders and Swan sang The Spider from their Bestiary album. And finally, to my mind, the definitive Spider song, in spite of John Entwistle's less-than-charitable attitude towards the subject of the song, Boris the Spider from Happy Jack, which was, I believe, The Who's first album.
Okay, as I said before, spiders, to most people, are attractive and repulsive, at the same time. And that's reflected in the music inspired by spiders.
If you hear a song about a broken-hearted lover, or somebody dying, the chances are the music is going to be sad. If you hear Leonard Cohen singing Famous Blue Raincoat, or anything else for that matter, it is sad. But these spider songs have a gleefully sinister quality that belies the fear of the world.
that we feel. Now, that's not right. The gleefully sinister quality is there because of the fear we feel, but it's like recognizing that the devil is attractive. If you're making a James Bond movie or one of those movies like the ones in the Die Hard series, the key thing is to have a good villain. If you don't have a good villain, forget it. And I wonder if having the music be really cool in a spider song isn't a way of actually dealing with our fear of spiders. Sort of like a voodoo thing, as if giving them attractive qualities and identifying with them is maybe a way of controlling them. I don't know. Do you think that's far-fetched? Yes! Well, you don't have to shout. Whatever. Anyway, you don't want to underestimate the fear of spiders that some people have. Our last suite, or rather, suite-let, is about nightmares. The first of the two pieces is highly self-explanatory, but I'd like to quote a comment by the composer of the second one. He says, the music was inspired in part by my daughter, Selena. When she was very young, she had a series of nightmares she called her spider dreams. She would come upstairs into our bedroom in the middle of the night, tell me these terrifying visions she had, then curl up at the foot of our bed and go to sleep, while I would sleep. She would sleep, and I would sleep. And I would sleep. And I would sleep. And I stayed awake worrying about her. During that time, I was experimenting with modifying one of the double shuffles used in bluegrass classics like Beaumont Rag and Orange Blossom Special. The result had a menacing quality, which reminded me of the alien terror so vivid in a child's dreams. I call this suite-let Arachnids in the Night, and it lasts about six and a half minutes. I'll be back.
[No speech for 19s.]
Spiders. Creepy, crawling spiders. Spiders in the web.
The fly is in the web. The spiders.
The spiders. Crawling. Closer. Creeping. Closer. Closer to the fly. The fly. The fly. Cock, cock, in the web.
The spiders. The spiders.
[No speech for 305s.]
Arachnids in the Night. First, we heard the spider and the fly by a group called The Wicked. It's on a truly weird compilation CD called Only in America, released on the ARF ARF label. By the way, I don't want to give you the wrong impression about the ARF ARF label. The back cover art makes it very clear that each of those ARFs is uttered by a different dog. You know, it's not just... It's like one dog repeating himself.
The second piece in the suite-let was an excerpt from Spider Dreams by David Balakrishnan, performed by the Turtle Island String Quartet and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Naima Yervi.
Oh, brother.
Hello? Look, I told you before. That's for me to know and you to find out. I'll only tell you J. Peter Schickele. You have to figure out the J for yourself. Listen. There are reference works and it's not like it's any state secret or anything. It's... Well, I like to have a little mystery surrounding me. I don't tell anybody my shoe size either.
Okay, okay. I'll give you a hint about my first name. Luke Skywalker's buddy is walking through Harlem and somebody calls out to him. Yeah, that's it.
Bye. Bye. Sorry about that, folks. I mean, who cares, right? I don't know your name. Why should you know mine?
Okay, back to spiders. One of the most interesting bits of musical Eric Nidiana is the tarantella. I've always thought the dance originated as a cure for spider bites, but apparently that's not necessarily true. Now, I'm just Peter Schickele, a humble composer. I'm not a musicologist. So I've invited Johan Schickele. He is a musicologist on the show today to tell us about the background of the tarantella. Thanks for coming by, Johan. It's my pleasure, Peter.
The tarantella is a folk dance of southern Italy also used in art music. It derives its name from Taranto, the ancient Tarantum in Apulia.
The tarantula also derived its name from the town of Taranto, a coincidence that may have given rise to the popular but repeatedly discredited Tarantula. The Tarantula is a folk dance of southern Italy, and it is believed that the dance was a cure for the mildly toxic bite of the spider. A disease known as tarantism, prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th century to the 17th, seems to have been more a form of hysteria than a consequence of the bite. That's it?
Yes, that's the pertinent information. You just...all you did was read that out of Grove's dictionary. That's right. But I thought you were a musicologist. I am a musicologist. Being a musician. Being a musicologist means knowing where to look things up. But I have a Groves. I could have looked...I could have read that myself. Well, why didn't you? Well, I thought you'd go into it more deeply than...
Look, let me remind you that I didn't have to traipse down here and sit here for almost an hour without being asked a thing. You know, I could have given you a lot of background on the composer of Israel in Egypt.
Groves must have 60, 70 pages on handle. Look, okay, let's forget about it, okay? We're running out of time here. Thanks for dropping by. Okay, well, maybe next time you could give me a little bit more to sink my teeth into. Okay, I'll remember that. So anyway, folks, whatever the truth is of the legend about the tarantella curing spider bites, as a concert piece, it's a wild and crazy dance in 6-8 time. We're going to go out with a real virtuoso tarantella by Franz Liszt from his Année de
Pelerinage, Years of Pilgrimage. Well, here is my list. The pianist is Lazar Berman.
[No speech for 163s.]
That's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made... Now, that's fine. I can do the whole thing by myself, okay? Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this radio station and its members. Thank you, members. And not only that, our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 153. And this is Peter Schickele saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.