Weird Thorens music box

I saw this little Thorens music box in an antiques store a few days ago. I had to spend a few minutes examining it (trapped as I was _outside_ the locked display case) to work out what it was: A music box that used swappable disks as the "programs" for the music, played by a mechanism otherwise familiar.

• <https://goo.gl/photos/MUheQHyzNSbH6Xsk8>
• <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorens>
• <http://www.thorens.com>
• A guy's history & collection with images: <http://keithwright.ca/Thorens/Thorenspage.html>

Thorens made some really amazing and wonderfully weird high-end turntables--including some changers that used machinery different from what most of us had during college: Thorens TD 224. Consult your Google image search for pictorial evidence: Antique Thorens, for example.

Aside: There was at least one changer mechanism that automatically flipped records and played their "B" sides: 1938 Garrard RC-100 Turn-over Record Changer.

And who wouldn't want to play the black vinyl (lacquer, actually) on something that looked like this?: 1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph. Look at the thickness of the record being played.


Mark_
26 February 2017

Pictures from another fine early-Spring afternoon.

<https://goo.gl/photos/EwtTrfXMx3ZUNCU76>

Mark_ 

22 February 2017

Chinook Winds Concert @ Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Excellent recent concert by the double wind quintet ([flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn] x 2) Chinook Winds in the historic Good Shepherd Center's (former) chapel.

• Pictures (only a few): <https://goo.gl/photos/R8BycMKZPJwqyPzW9>

• Good Shepherd Center: 

 - <https://historicseattle.org/project/good-shepherd/>

 - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_of_the_Good_Shepherd>

This was a very nice evening of pleasantly interesting music in a fine old Seattle landmark building.

Mark_ 

17 February 2017

Spring @ Home 17 February 2017

Today has dawned brightly sunny, and the crocus make us tend to believe that we could eventually have something like Spring.  This would be good.


<https://goo.gl/photos/kgXpv5195TEMPg7VA>

Mark_
17 February 2017

Music and art can coexist: some evidence

I think this art installation, which has spent time in Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Art Museum (among many other places), is brilliant: <www.nelson-atkins.org/art/exhibitions/janet-cardiff-forty-part-motet/>.  (Be sure to watch the video on that page.)  

I could imagine doing the same thing with small instrumental ensembles, as well, pairing the loudspeaker with a video screen showing the player while playing the music being heard.  This might be an interesting and engaging way to illustrate what a musician does--perhaps as a tool for recruitment of future musicians.  Such an installation could even travel to schools.  As an entertainment, it might be fun for people who have not spent much time intimate with music. As an actual educational tool, it might help "civilians" to understand music on a deeper level.

Oh--for additional fun I might enhance that:  Two screens, back to back, and the ensemble arranged as it might actually be on stage.  One screen shows the musician playing the part, and the other shows what the musician is seeing: conductor (where applicable), music on stand, backs of the heads of the players in front of this one, even audience in hall.  Etc.  (Some small ensembles don't have conductors, and play in different physical arrangements.)  Full binaural sound would be nice, although a good experience might be difficult in this context.

This music is wonderful; several performances are on Youtube: "40-part motet".

And this is yet another reason why I should be pretty bent if some ill-considered (and highly profitable?) human activity were to result in our extinction.  I can deal with the fact that I won't be around to see what a Tallis motet might sound like when sung a hundred years hence, but if the answer is "nothing, because there isn't anyone here to sing it or hear it", I shall be quite irate indeed.


Mark_
16 February 2017

Society needs humanities majors

Recent commentary found on _The Seattle Times_:
<www.seattletimes.com/opinion/society-needs-humanities-majors/>

Hear, hear.


(If you have already read your allotment of free articles, either use a different browser [Chrome, Firefox, Opera], or _open a "private browsing" window and paste in the URL [the link].  These techniques will serve on smartphones and tablets, too.)

Mark_
16 February 2017

Trump's Handshake

Months ago Cindy & I had discussed the obviously aggressive handshake-and-jerk Trump had used on Mike Pence when he announced Pence as his running mate (I think that was the event), but this is the first I have heard about the Trump-shake's being discussed more widely.

Very interesting--very telling.

• <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/justin-trudeau-trump_us_58a1dc96e4b03df370d8a29b>
• <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-justin-trudeau-handshake-twitter-reddit-photoshop-battle_us_58a206b0e4b0ab2d2b17d7e7>

I shall advise that if you are a musician, protect yourself by never shaking hands with this guy.

UPDATE: There are dozens of videos online showing the handshake, satirical presentations of the handshake, and at least one (tongue-in-cheek?) method for defending against it. YouTube is your friend and protector.  17 Feb. '17.


Mark_
14 February 2017

Trump's State(s)

<http://www.theonion.com/article/secret-service-adds-emotional-protection-division--55263>

This is very amusing lark--except that something like it (laws against defaming the head of state) have been used against political enemies in places where we would not wish to live.  I saw that satirical Onion article today; the possibility had occurred to me a day or so ago.  It is interesting--and more than slightly unsettling--to see that others have had the same worrisome thought.  (Google for "trigger warning" to see that this issue is real and is apparently common.)

So, which seems more likely? 

- He resents a slight, and, realizing that legislation could fix that, (eventually) signs into a law a bar against disparaging a sitting president.

- He resents a slight, and, realizing that legislation could fix that, weighs the damage and decides that such an action would be entirely too petty, too undignified, and too much against what our system has long been assumed to represent, both here and abroad, and lets it go.

Should we be worried?  Republicans have been a bit casual about news reportage and our freedom to express opinions (or, indeed, to report observable facts).  This kind of law would not be entirely out-of-character for them or for him.  I think we should worry--and I have no idea what to propose.

And there is this:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/customs-border-patrol-aclu-lawyer-detain-question_us_589a42d6e4b0c1284f292263?section=us_politics>

If things are _not_ as bad as they seem, what is it that is likely to prevent the worst?  What prophylaxis is in place?  What would stay the hands of people who think that they have finally more or less won it all, and have nothing to fear from any direction?

Is this actually the _end game_ of a longstanding program to subvert & pervert of our system?  Is Trump our time's short-sighted isolationist and probable Nazi Charles Lindberg ("America First!" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#Isolationism_and_America_First_involvement>)?  If these are true, what can be done?

Trump seems to get very little sleep.  He admits as such--or claims it.  I am confident that very little money would be required to buy a computerized mechanism that would cache tweets composed during the day for issue in the small hours--just so one could give the impression of being perpetually awake.  In fact, I think this already exists for e-mail.  (I have said for years that if I were in a position of authority I absolutely would use such a system.) 

Unfortunately, this claims seems to be true; Trump gets very little restful sleep.

I have been saying for some months that sleep deprivation could explain a lot about Trump's erratic behavior; now I see that others have been saying much the same thing.  

The Huffington Post (various authors): 

March 2016 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-bulkeley-phd/donald-trump-the-sleep-de_b_9413588.html>. 

May 2016 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-sleep_us_574606cde4b055bb11710fcf>. 

CNBC January 2017 <http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/17/donald-trump-is-poster-child-of-sleep-deprivation-arianna-huffington.html>. 

On the other hand <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/02/donald-trump-s-4-hour-sleep-habit-could-explain-his-personality.html>.  Except that it is unlikely that Trump carries the efficient sleeper gene mutation; those people don't seem nutty as a result of sleep deprivation.  Or he has both that advantage and some offsetting disadvantage.

Does the cause really matter much?

But now it's personal <http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/08/trumps-nordstrom-attack-blurs-politics-and-personal-business.html>.  

Mark_

My Pictures Online: New System

The picture-hosting service I have been using, Google's Picasa, has changed.  The result is that my friends can no longer see the entire group of "albums" I have put there, but can open only the albums for which they have specific links.

This is a nuisance for everybody; as mitigation I have put album links into blog postings here, labeled as "pictures".  Links to albums posted at the same time may be on the same page; others will be on individual pages.  Use the label links to find all of the picture-link posts, etc.

This is, to some extent, experimental--although I don't actually expect to have to mess with it (much) after this.

Regrets for the inconvenience.


Mark_
06 February 2017

Snow @ Home, 06 February 2017

We have just had a very good snowing; accumulation to roughly 8.5" according to Cindy's little plastic ruler.

Snowfall began last evening, piled up further during the night, and although the air temperature is not particularly low at present (36° F. at noon), it is again snowing lightly even as the trees shed what they had been holding.

Winter wonderland!

<https://goo.gl/photos/5YQCHNiSbM5L45yu6>

Mark_

Yurts in WA State Parks (pix)

We recently "camped" in Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, a few miles nearer the Cascade foothills than our home is.  While there, we saw that a pair of their yurts was grouped at the end of a long, double-wide, RV place.  We inquired, and were told that we might be able to have two trailers on the gravel _and_ two non-RVing, ordinarily-tenting, friends occupying the yurts.

Such an arrangement could make for a nice outing.

Pix of the yurts:
<https://goo.gl/photos/UJxgbJMfxpymiDFT8>

Mark_