Hi, I'm alive and writing issues for the moment. I'm probably rusty. Oh well.
This is largely based on a case in Boston with Igor Stravinsky and the Star-Spangled Banner.
If someone has an idea for another "allow them to perform, but with drawbacks" option, I'd be much obliged. I'm trying to prevent the issue from having the vast majority of people picking option 2, but I can't think of a serious alternative, so I have a silly one.
[description] Modernist composer @@RANDOMNAME(1)@@, among the most celebrated @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ composers, has completed a suite of patriotic songs scheduled to premier soon at the @@CAPITAL@@ Center for the Arts. However, the Center is worried about performing @@HIS(1)@@ arrangement of the national anthem, which contains several sharp dissonances and rhythmic liberties.
[validity] has a national anthem
[option] "Our nation's anthem is not something to be tampered with in the way @@LASTNAME(1)@@ has!" asserts elderly composer @@RANDOMNAME@@, a long-time rival of @@LASTNAME(1)@@'s. "@@HE(1)@@ has changed our simple but beautiful melody into an atonal mess. Composers should be fined for tampering with the national anthem. If an ensemble wants to perform a more advanced arrangement of the anthem, I know just the composer who could write one..."
[effect] school choir directors are fined when their students sing the national anthem off-key
[option] "@@LASTNAME(1)@@ has created a masterpiece, I'm sure of it," says your Minister of Culture, @@RANDOMNAME(2)@@, taking a break from writing an opera about your cabinet. "I understand that there are concerns, but artistic expression should reign supreme. And knowing @@HIS(1)@@ skills as a composer, I'm sure any arrangement of the national anthem @@HE(1)@@ wrote is a masterpiece that we should all be proud of. We should make it the official full arrangement of the national anthem, and have it performed at the end of every concert in @@NAME@@!"
[effect] concert halls always seem to empty with one more piece left
[option] "Of course it's a bad arrangement, and that's what makes it good!" cackles anarchist @@RANDOMNAME@@, snatching a sheet of the Minister's opera from @@HIS(2)@@ desk. "The national anthem has always been a ridiculous idea. But this has shown me that there are better things to do with it than simply not have it. Instead, you should run a contest on who can write the most progressive, disrespectful arrangement of the national anthem possible! It will get us freedom-lovers to support the national anthem again."
[effect] an eight-year-old is the nation's premier musical talent for arranging the national anthem for fart noises
