Saturday, September 27, 2014

What's So Damn Funny?



Sometimes a joke will offer no hint of violation whatsoever, but will instead be a story with an amusing ending. The conductor of a great symphony has a heart attack an hour before performance. The assistant director is on sabbatical. The artistic director asks if there is anyone in the orchestra who has any experience conducting. A modest man from the viola section steps up to say that he had some minor experience conducting a student orchestra in Vienna. He’ll have to do. That night he conducts and at the end his performance is greeted with a 20-minute standing ovation and raves in the next day’s press. He conducts again the next night and the night after to similar acclaim, and takes over the job. Only at the close of the season does the regular conductor, now recovered from his heart attack, resume the podium. The violist returns to his old seat in the viola section. “Good to see you,” the violist seated next to him says. “Where’ve you been?” Nothing violative here in this joke about overrating the importance of symphonic conductors.

Read all of Joseph Epstein's essay in Commentary.

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