Thursday, August 4, 2011

Late night thoughts on listening to Charles Ives

I thought, "Ives Lives."

But then I thought,

Wow.

"Ives Lives" should rhyme.

But it doesn't.

That's so freaky.

3 comments:

Daniel Wolf said...

More than 30 years years ago, I went to a lecture-recital by Nicholas Slonimsky in LA. Throughout he kept his coat buttoned up, until the end when he opened it up to reveal a T-shirt with Ives's image on it and a button that read "Ives Thrives!"

Joe Barron said...

As indeed he does. He also jives. Or gives. English is an orthographically and phonetically infuriating language. A cat lives nine lives. Yeesh.

Apologies in advance for this one:

A daring composer named Ives
Ate nothing but onions and chives.
Though his grand compositions
Drew praise from musicians
His breath made them run for their lives.

Cal said...

Why did I never see this before? It made me smile on a day when I didn't feel like smiling. Thanks.