"…and let's have another piece of pie."

"Brrrrrandy, More Brandy!" shouted Jack Lemmon in "The Great Race" as he was hit in the face with a particularly delectable pie. Let's talk about those delightful, unsuspecting surprises...I was just hit in the face by a lutheal.

I was talking about a CD containing the Suite populaire Espagnole by de Falla, played on violin and lutheal, a word I'd never seen before. Apparently Mirriam-Webster had never seen it before either, because it wasn't in the dictionary. Wikipedia had it though, a piano-like instrument with registers, one of which sounded like a cimbalom. The sound was plunky and lute-like and delightful, and I was happy to have been blind-sided by a new experience.

I felt the same way the other day listening (really listening) to an early Haydn symphony. It's so easy to think you've heard it all, and then you hear something new in something quite old. Now I'm going to see if the record library has Henry Mancini's "Pie in the Face Polka," and see if I can throw it at you sometime!