« Vampz | Main | The Most Stupidest Game »

December 07, 2005

Beethoven died of... Lead Poisoning?

True story, involving the "most powerful x-ray beam in the western hemisphere," which you can find here. All of which is just the lead-up to one of my favorite jokes involving a zombie:

So... a musicologist studying toward his masters finds an obscure book printed during Beethoven's life that claims the Maestro was working on a tenth symphony at the time of his death. Since the nine existing symphonies are some of the most popular pieces of music of all time, our hero thinks if he can find the score of the putative Beethoven's Tenth he can strike it rich. He does scads more research and eventually comes across what is usually considered an old wive's tale--that Beethoven refused to let anyone see the unfinished score, and in fact was so serious about it that he demanded he be buried with the only existing copy.

Well... our hero is no meek-hearted musicologist. He gets a shovel and at midnight goes to the cemetery in Vienna where Beethoven is buried. He toils by cover of darkness and finally breaks open the lead-lined vault. Inside he finds Beethoven himself, dead--or rather, undead. Shrunken, dried-out, with hollow eyes and limp, unmanageable hair, the great composer is hunched over a writing desk with a pencil with a worn-down eraser. Slowly, with the spasmodic movements of the dead, he is erasing the notes from the only score of the Tenth Symphony, one note after another.

And... our hero, aghast, cries, "Maestro, Maestro, what are you doing?"

Only to have Beethoven reply, "What does it look like? I'm decomposing!"

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you're too kind.

Posted by Wellington at December 7, 2005 02:50 PM

Comments

Posted by: Donny D at December 7, 2005 04:30 PM

Posted by: Adrian hated that at December 8, 2005 12:18 PM