Just tangentially, I wonder to what degree big ensembles help/hurt with getting touring visas? For instance, it's my understanding that the Red Army Choir didn't have much trouble getting US visas, but Billy Bragg did.
Billy Bragg, bless his soles, gave me a look of loathing when I handed off guitars to him and sound checked, and stomped off stage after his set loudly cursing "fucking yuppies".
To his credit and defence, it was Perth in the 1980s. Boom years for unprincipled scumbags with hovercraft money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOfd1QTW54 ... Kiss My Art indeed.
Ah trolling gone right (at least as long as I'm an HN orator instead of laborator?)
I'd originally heard it as "M— Ä— Heu?", which sounds even less like the source language, but invites the pedantically accurate reply that no one mows hay: one mows grass.
"Beg to report, sir," said Schweik innocently, "I can't be called upon to zombie properly to-day, as they were all out of B R A I N S in the K.u.K. canteen this morning."
(It's somewhat interesting reading a heavily bowdlerised translation of Hasek after having read Zweig; for instance, I know enough about the sorts of young women who provided —for a modest fee— photos to their fans to make an educated guess as to the suitability of Lt Lukash' album for mixed company)
https://archive.ph/2025.01.07-011400/https://www.politico.co...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41499951
Lagniappe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37433030
(& I'd thought it was a weird IP encoding)