The Arts: June 2005 Archives

One of my favorite Far Side cartoon shows heaven and hell. The punch line is something like "Welcome to heaven here is your harp; welcome to hell, here is your accordion. Whenever someone new joins a project I am part of, I explain to them that "we are, unfortunately, fresh out of accordions", just to see if they are among the Far Side cognesceti. If they are, they gain valuable project insight. If they know nothing of the Far Side, it serves to cement my reputation as a loon.

[Photo courtesy of JReid]

So when I saw this digital accordion on Gizmodo I immediately wanted to get one and start taking lessons. My awkward lack of rhythm and near tone deafness may make this one of my worst ideas to date. Still the idea of the all electronic accordion amuses me. You can plug in headphones and the device will appear silent. What a boon that must be to the parents of fledgling accordion players. Can you imagine seeing people playing these on the subway and no noise coming out?

This isn't related in any way, but I found this Larson/Goodal controversy funny. It would fit better into this post if a wild chimp had thrown an accordion at Larson, but we'll stick with the truth for now.

On our way back from the "Stone Arch Bridge Art Festival" Matthew and I passed a typical warehouse building with an odd sign out front, "Soap Factory Open". I couldn't resist investigating what that might mean. So in we went. It turns out that the "Soap Factory" is an art space for experimental art. We walked in and Matthew announced loudly to the volunteer/docent "It stinks in here."

Here is what appears to be an enormous knit shawl. It's easily 12 feet across. I would hate to see the size of the knitting needles.

This was easily my favorite installation. It was a rickety rube goldberg-esque ride where you watch a small translucent piece of paper. As the wooden cart moved around the room, the scene projected on the paper kept changing. Matthew seemed to have enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

Matthew isn't yet burdened with the adult notion that art needs to mean something, so he has always enjoyed avant-garde art.