sock monkeys and phonographs
quick note...I'm back!
quick note #2...this blog is better if read aloud in an English accent. I wrote it after watching The Queen, and i was consequently thinking and speaking as a bit of a Brit.
Andrew Bird played at the Sokol Underground this past monday, and i happened to be there in tireless pursuit of being irresponsible during dead week - in honour of my last real week of undergraduate education. it was well worth it.
Mr. Bird is an odd combination of a happy poet and mad scientist. He strikes me as someone who got bored with a classical musical education and decided to create new sound experiments with looping machines and spinning, double-horned phonographs. These "instruments" created some of the oddest waves of ebbing sound that I've ever enjoyed. (side note: the word phonograph and gramophone are somewhat interchangeable...hmm... thank you wikipedia. also, do you call the part that emits sound a horn?) Anyway, his experimentation included some intense fiddling and a lot of whistling. On his records, his whistling doesn't sound as though it comes from him, and I must say it sounded just as inhuman and surreal in person.
At one point in the show, which happened to resemble a communal sauna more than a concert due to a severe lack of air circulation, Mr. Bird brought a sock monkey on stage with him. "A sock monkey at a concert?" you may say...but it's true, and it was the most amazing sock monkey ever designed. It had a wee, pin-stripped suit with a pocket watch and fob. Even more amazing, it had a mini violin in a itty-bitty case with a camouflage strap just like his. a fan had given this doll/work of art to him at a show in the past, and naturally, someone like andrew bird would share such a thing. He's the type of person that writes songs about chickens with whom he once had "a brief, paternalistic relationship" and the Scythian Empire.
The monkey just made me wonder about how odd it must be to have "fans" - like friends that you never made - what a strange, unsettling sensation. It must feel like you have a split peronsality. Nonetheless, i guess i'd have to say that i am one of his fans now. he's brilliant and strange and dramatic in an unpretentious way. If you ever get the chance to see him, go.
(This ad was sponsored by...just kidding. sorry if it sounded too much like that, but he plays the violin so you've just got to love him. : ) )
quick note #2...this blog is better if read aloud in an English accent. I wrote it after watching The Queen, and i was consequently thinking and speaking as a bit of a Brit.
Andrew Bird played at the Sokol Underground this past monday, and i happened to be there in tireless pursuit of being irresponsible during dead week - in honour of my last real week of undergraduate education. it was well worth it.
Mr. Bird is an odd combination of a happy poet and mad scientist. He strikes me as someone who got bored with a classical musical education and decided to create new sound experiments with looping machines and spinning, double-horned phonographs. These "instruments" created some of the oddest waves of ebbing sound that I've ever enjoyed. (side note: the word phonograph and gramophone are somewhat interchangeable...hmm... thank you wikipedia. also, do you call the part that emits sound a horn?) Anyway, his experimentation included some intense fiddling and a lot of whistling. On his records, his whistling doesn't sound as though it comes from him, and I must say it sounded just as inhuman and surreal in person.
At one point in the show, which happened to resemble a communal sauna more than a concert due to a severe lack of air circulation, Mr. Bird brought a sock monkey on stage with him. "A sock monkey at a concert?" you may say...but it's true, and it was the most amazing sock monkey ever designed. It had a wee, pin-stripped suit with a pocket watch and fob. Even more amazing, it had a mini violin in a itty-bitty case with a camouflage strap just like his. a fan had given this doll/work of art to him at a show in the past, and naturally, someone like andrew bird would share such a thing. He's the type of person that writes songs about chickens with whom he once had "a brief, paternalistic relationship" and the Scythian Empire.
The monkey just made me wonder about how odd it must be to have "fans" - like friends that you never made - what a strange, unsettling sensation. It must feel like you have a split peronsality. Nonetheless, i guess i'd have to say that i am one of his fans now. he's brilliant and strange and dramatic in an unpretentious way. If you ever get the chance to see him, go.
(This ad was sponsored by...just kidding. sorry if it sounded too much like that, but he plays the violin so you've just got to love him. : ) )
posted by e at 11:02 PM
1 Comments:
crazy, i haven't checked your blog in eons and here we have a new post!
i think i must be the sounding board for every post you have up here...because shortly after you share a story with me you write about it. :) i like my role as sounding board.
but, aren't you supposed to be studying or writing papers or doing group sessions or whatever last-week-of-school students do??
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