Free Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus by Dave Barry Page B

was brought in, and we began taping. In the interest of drama I am not going to reveal the outcome of my game, which has not aired yet, except to say, in all modesty, that I did get to the Bonus Round, where I had ten seconds to try to solve the following phrase:
    -OME   -0   L - - E
    You have no idea how truly stupid you can feel until you try to guess a hidden phrase in front of a live studio audience—every single member of which, you are convinced, knows the answer. For ten seemingly endless seconds, sounding like a person with some kind of language-related brain malfunction, you blurt out random incorrect answers (“HOME TO LOVE!” “ROME TO LIVE!” “NOME NO LIKE!” “DOME SO …”)
    Of course I’m sure that you, Mr. or Ms. Smarty Pants Reader, immediately figured out the right answer, which is: “SOME DO DOOT.”
    No, really, I’m sure you solved it. If not, you should watch the show. Or you can contact me. If you play your cards right, maybe I’ll sell you a vowel.

THIS ONE
WILL KILL
YOU

    I  really didn’t want to get into another fight with the classical-music people.
    Awhile back I wrote a column in which I was mildly critical of classical music on the grounds that it sucks and I hate it. Rather than respond to these arguments on their intellectual merits, many classical-music fans responded with snotty personal attacks in which they suggested that I am the kind of cultural moron who sits around all day watching TV with a beer in one hand and the remote control in the other. This is a lie. Sometimes I have beers in BOTH hands, forcing me to operate the remote control with my feet.
    No, seriously, I happen to be a highly cultured individual. I have been involved in tour groups that walked briskly past some of the world’s finest works of art. I personally own several hardcover books and have read
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
out loud at least 400 times. I am perfectly comfortable ordering food in a swank French restaurant (“Mr. Garçon, I’ll have the beef
en route”)
.
    In short, I have culture out the wazoo. I just have never cared for classical music, because I believe that the artistic themes it embodies are not presented in a manner that is intellectually relevant for the modern listener. Take, for example, the following actual unretouched lyrics, written by Lorenzo da Ponte for the Mozart opera
Cosi Fan Tutte
(literally,
Annie Get Your Gun):
    Che sembianze! Che vestiti!
Che figure! Che mustacchi!
    After carefully analyzing these lyrics, the objective critic is forced to arrive at one incontrovertible conclusion:
They are written in a completely foreign language
, probably Spanish. You have to ask yourself how in the world these opera people expected to reach a modern audience if they didn’t even have the common courtesy to write in English. Compare the seemingly deliberate impenetrability of their lyrics with the inviting clarity of the 1964 song “Mammer Jammer,” in which Don and Dewey, exploring the complex depths of human relationships, state:
    You got to do the Mammer Jammer
If you want my love .
    Please do not misunderstand me: I am not saying that people cannot enjoy opera. I am just saying that these people are wrong. They also could be in big medical trouble. I base this statement on an Associated Press article, sent in by many alert readers, concerning an alarming incident in Denmark involving an okapi, which is a rare African mammal related to the giraffe. The article states that thisokapi—I am not making this quotation up—”died from stress apparently triggered by opera singers.”
    The okapi was not actually attending an opera when this happened. It was in a zoo located 300 yards from a park where opera singers were rehearsing. A zoo spokesperson was quoted as saying that okapis “can be severely affected by unusual sounds.”
    So here are the essential facts:
An okapi, minding its own business, was killed by opera music being sung
three football fields