Owners and operators of ice cream trucks in southern Utah are receiving accolades for groundbreaking performances from the classical repertoire that are quickly changing the face of classical music today across the globe.
“We were at the splash pad last week, and when I heard a blazing rendition of the third movement of Samuel Barber’s violin concerto coming from the parking lot, it sent ecstatic chills down my spine. I knew right then that I just had to have a Choco Taco,” gushed Lynn Blurt of Ivins.
Elliot Hamsandwich, a virtuoso violinist and Julliard graduate as well as owner and operator of Fun Freeze Ice Cream, says that this is a way for him to keep performing while also pursuing his passion of dispensing nutritionally dubious frosty treats from a mobile location.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” confessed Hamsandwich. “I feel like the public has wanted this. And I’ve been ordered by a judge not to bring ice cream into concert halls anymore.”
Other local ice cream vendors have taken note and followed suit. Todd Eggpickle, a lyric tenor and former singer with the Minneapolis Opera who now owns and operates Jolly Time Ice Cream, is giving daily performances of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”
“Brittany and Landon were on the swings at Vernon Werthon Park when Landon stopped and said, ‘Is that the Tristan chord?’” said Harriet Mudhauser of Hurricane. “Brittany thought it was just a half-diminished seventh chord, but it just didn’t make sense in context. We all turned to look, and next thing you know it was Bomb Pops and a chromatic romp through the landscape of medieval Germanic poetry.”
Eggpickle says that this is a way for him to integrate his life’s passions: German opera and selling carcinogenic garbage to children.
“What we’re trying to do is reach the community through the majesty of Romantic orchestral music in order to distribute frozen confections, which is what I think Wagner’s original intentions were,” said Eggpickle, who arranged the opera for MIDI, sings both the parts of Tristan and Isolde, and makes his own ice cream sandwiches by hand using his own breastmilk.
“Yeah, I lactate,” added Eggpickle. “It’s weird.”
This reinvigoration of the classical genre is making ripples that are already being felt across the Atlantic.
Heinrich Schnitzel, owner and operator of Scheiße Mahlzeit in Bavaria, is arranging the works of Karl Stockhausen for ice cream truck.
“I’d heard of Eggpickle’s work and traveled to St. George to see it in person,” explained Schnitzel. After a tear-jerking performance of Alban Berg’s ‘Wozzeck’ as well as my first manmilk ice cream sandwich, I knew exactly what I had to do when I returned to Germany. I want to get this music out of the recital halls and universities and into the public spotlight. This is the music of the people, and it was meant to be enjoyed by the people along with Push-Up Pops and Sonic the Hedgehog Bars.”
“I also begin hormone therapy in September,” added Schnitzel, who was massaging Badger Balm onto his bloodied, chafed nipples.
Meanwhile, others in America are taking the genre even further. Last week at the Harris Concert Hall in Aspen, Colorado, composer Sara Splat conducted a spellbinding performance of her most recent work commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival: Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4, arranged for 75 ice cream trucks.
“While Lustre’s performance of Ives’ crowning achievement alone was undoubtedly one of the most groundbreaking musical events in American history, her decision to serve nothing but cherry sherbet was one of the most sublime and powerful political statements — a blistering indictment of global imperialism and the assault of the ice cream industry on lactating mothers — and fathers — everywhere,” raved Anne Sophie-Mutter.
At press time, the rate of diabetes diagnosis had risen worldwide by seven percent.
Editor’s note: This piece is satire. Southern Utah ice cream trucks are still doing little to advance the arts, and The Independent does not recommend attempting to make your own manmilk ice cream sandwiches.
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