far too serious

Diego Stocco - Bassoforte from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Todays project: refurbishing a maggini copy. An otherwise jaw-droppingly gorgeous instrument, this imperfectly cut f-hole is the only thing I can point to that would make this a copy. The inside label reads “Giovan Paolo Maggini, brefcia 1694.”

His greasy hair is a bit long, but the attempt to control it was made. Heavy glasses, plodding stride, he aggressively makes his way through the crowd of strollers and mess of tropical landscape.

He has an admirer. A strange little bird with a colorful beak flies low, startling the aquarium goers, and perches on a wall. It’s entire focus is toward a small box in the man’s hand. He starts booming facts about the little guy while fishing through the box, pulling something out, and feeding the critter.

Kids are lining up. More booming, as he puts food in their hands for the bird. I can’t tell at all what he’s saying. He sounds like someone who is incredibly interested in facts. Someone who would enjoy discussing technical details of a Star Trek episode.

My curiousity is piqued, so I head over I put out my hand for some bird food. Even this close, and with his volume, his words make no sense to me… something about habitat.

He places a small worm in my palm. And for a moment, I lose my cool, and squeal like a little girl.

Let yourself feel.

On Valentine’s day during a rare snow, a cold february during a heated housing market, we had just purchased our first home. We had sandwiches for dinner and spent the evening stripping away the old layer of floor finish. The power sander would stir up so much dust, I would be wiping it off the walls for years to come.

We have let ourselves fall hopelessly in obsession with the tiny place, debating over paint colors and furniture placement and wasting reams of graphing paper on remodeling ideas. Whole evenings we’d devote to the drawing and revision of an addition, an addition that will never happen, but we had to explore the possibility.

And the obsession moves on, it has spread it’s tentacles out the back door, where we are building The Deck. No ordinary deck, mind you, but a special Deck with special levels and surrounded by special plants with room for a special modern deck chair for the lounging of our very special dog. And Brandon got so involved in the planning of this deck, researching and consulting, drawing and revising, that I caught some of his viral obsession and suddenly had to sew new pillows for the entire house.

Yet the house argues with us, refusing to oblige to our dream of house perfection, with it’s old wiring and cracking sheetrock, and the critters find their way into it’s holey attic every winter. The possums sneak into our garage. The ants crawl through the windows. And a wall, in it’s annual resettling, has come to rest firmly and immovably on an awkwardly placed extension cord and a swiffer.

I can’t get enough of these. I may never answer my phone again.

“My name ___. I tried to, you know arrange Edwardo(?) in a violin(?) for my daughter. She is 81(?) years old. I wondering you know you can anyway can send me you know application form for your rental and all the ___. Just give me a call first you know. My number is #### or call my cell.”

“Dan this is joe i am headed over why um call me (?) that’s not supposed to be okay i have a set of canada.”

Seen here is a ferrofluid reacting to magnetic fields; this is an art piece by Sachiko Kodama. Ferrofluids are, most simply, nano-sized pieces of iron in a suspension mixture with something else - water, for example.

It’s not all for art - ferrofluids are used for many practical applications, such as providing a liquid magnetic seal around your computer’s hard drive, keeping it clean.

I signed up for a phone service a few months ago which takes my voice mails and transcribes them, then sends them to my email. I friggin’ LOVE it - listening to voice mails is a huge pain, especially since many of them go something like this:

“Hi, um… my string is broken? Can you come to the school to fix it?” click

I like getting all my messages in one place, all written down, nice and tidy. However, some transcriptions get pretty interesting. Most often, I can figure out what they’re really talking about, but some messages remain mystifying:

“Hey driven this is finished friday the hon you told me to pick comes um (?) you look pretty awesome the shop i’m i turn the water on the music now can you please give me uh um i’m going to list from the water when i do for monday would and I will pick up the new 1 in the evening from the shop okay hi give me call my name at [phone #] when they think.”

context clue: water = viola, music now = music store

“Hi. Good morning, Rozanne. This is Nancy Tiffany Bong’s(?) mom. We’d like to let you know we don’t consider to rent a ___ this year. And I will have one I want for her. And I would like to ask you whether you have a boat for sail or for wind a boat. Please call me back, [phone #].”

context clue: boat for sail = bow for sale

“Um hello ever seeing this is jody and um i’m not sure yet about terrorists and uh darkman so um i know that ross he’s not going to re news a few they are gonna play their instruments today so if you wanted to stop at um uh school start missed maybe um i would suggest maybe.”

context clue: terrorists and darkman = Terrace and Dartmouth Elementary

“Hi my name to my son uh jeff tonight and squeeze in jackson technology even today wire and then put them you and the beginning of the deal um and ah no uh i if they would estimate but you know things that to you how uh they couldn’t pay it back or something like like that because you are well.”

context clue: I have no idea

Whoever transcribes these, I hope they’re not too afraid of my customers.

For your enjoyment: a painting by Raphael, circa 1510, with a deteriorated instrument, member of the Viol Da Gamba family, at the feet of St. Cecilia. Some advances since then: a longer fingerboard for greater playing range, and a concave bow, to accept greater pressure to the strings. The modern bow profoundly affected the volume capabilities of the instrument, which helped develop the violin into the solo instrument it is today.

School is out tomorrow, and I’m ready to have a few relaxing weeks ahead.