Dear Puffin

You may have noticed that I haven’t been around much lately. There have been road trips, graduations, concerts etc. Heck it sometimes feels like my computer and I no longer have any kind of working relationship. Unfortunately this situation wont be improving at all over the next few days, since I have to put another couple thousand miles on my car and see my brother’s graduation. So in the mean time I leave you with some fabulously funny musical comedy (no not that kind of musical comedy).

Igudesman & Joo are the comedy duo from London behind the show A Little Nightmare Music. And while the show itself is great they really bumped themselves up into the stratosphere by writing the funniest bios I’ve ever read.

Aleksey Igudesman was born in Leningrad at a very young age. He has never won any competitions, mainly because he has never entered any. During his studies at the presti­gious Yehudi Menuhin School, he read the entire plays of Bernhard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Anton Chekhov, which didn’t improve his violin play­ing, but made him feel foolishly somewhat superior to other less intellectually endowed, yet harder practising, colleagues.

Back at school he met his “IGUDESMAN & JOO” partner, Richard Hyung-ki Joo. After a few initial small differences, resulting in several people holding them both back from smashing chairs and music stands on each other’s heads, Joo offered Igudes man some fish and chips, which he simply could not refuse. This in turn led to collaboration over many years, which culminated in the creation of “A Little Nightmare Music”, a show they tour together making people laugh.

Hyung-ki Joo was born. He is British, but looks Korean, or the other way around, or both. He showed his first signs of a sense of com edy whilst nappy-changing and shortly thereafter, showed his love for music when his parents would find him at the record store listening for hours to every thing from Mozart to Bee Gees. (Although the two are never to be confused, Hyung-ki is often heard singing “Don Giovanni” in the style of Barry Gibb).

He started piano lessons at the age of eight and a half and two years later won a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School. There, he discovered that he was among geniuses and child prodigiesand was con vinced he would be kicked out of school, year after year. In fact, he was not kicked “out” but kicked “around” by teachers and fellow students, such as Aleksey Igudesman. After these painful experiences, Joo invented a new type of piano playing known as “Karate Piano”.

Hyung-ki, spelt R-I-C-H-A-R-D, and pronounced “Dick”, is the only Korean Jew, (spelt J-O-O) in the world. Hyung-ki has small hands, (but only hands small), and there fore finds some piano repertoire quite dif­ficult to play, such as the music of Rachmaninov, who had Big Hands. Anyway, even with this small hindrance, he happily performs chamber music, recitals, concertos, his own compositions, and anything else that includes a piano part.

At about the 1:25 mark I began rolling on the floor sobbing with laughter. I also strongly deny the rumors that I now sing I Will Survive in a thick Russian accent in the shower. I don’t know what you’re all talking about

This one is my favorite

The fact that the musicians were able to do this so flawlessly absolutely blows my mind

Go play around on youtube and you will find much hilarity from these two. I think I’m in love. You can also buy their whole A Little Nightmare Music show on DVD here.

And on that note, I’m off to Ithaca to see my amazing brother graduate from Cornell. Congrats brother dear, and congrats to the entire class of 2011. GO BIG RED!

Love,

MacGuffin

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