The Sound of Music

Friday, Saori took the day off and I was off for Recession Friday, so we hit the town after sleepy morning of bacon and eggs. It's been a few months since we last got a Jamba Juice, so we grabbed some drinks and headed to Scottsdale. There's something about Jamba that makes it feel like a public pool. There's the lightly chlorinated smell, the smell of plastic and bare concrete floors and bright colors, and calisthenics, and the people there are all getting grass shots and boosters like we've returned to the days of sanitariums.

Anyway, we went searching for the Musical Instrument Museum, a new, ambitious institution built on the edge of Scottsdale just south of the 101 off Tatum. The building feels massive- large volumes clad in sandstone, with a central spline (curvy linear shape) clad in copper panels. As far as I can tell, the museum was the brainchild of none other than the CEO of Target, and Target bore the majority of the funding for the endeavor, as well as providing their architect who designed the museum. However, apart from one large logo on the donor wall, the museum attempts to keep itself relatively non-commercial. (although there are special exhibits which blur to advertisements for Steinway, Sennheiser, and Fender among others). The place is big, clean, and cold, so bring something long sleeved if you go.

Thousands of instruments, grouped according to nationality, with video screens for each country playing loops of clips of various musical works. When you enter, you are given headphones and an audioguide type clip on. However, the audioguide is automatic- whenever you approach a screen with a musical performance on it, the player fades in the soundtrack to that player, so there's no fiddling or punching in numbers, which is kind of a "why didn't museums do this sooner" kind of feature.

All the countries of the world kind of wash over you after awhile, even if not all the countries have videos and even if you don't stop for all the videos. I got kind of numb to it all after about two hours. It would have been nice to have some kind of interlude built into the gallery setting. The other thing is that many countries don't necessarily have a national musical tradition, or share musical traditions with the neighboring nations. I'm thinking of the display for Monaco and Lichtenstein, both of which are essentially city-sized countries, where they showed almost token German brass or French strings.

After visiting the country galleries, we wandered downstairs to some more popular exhibits, a gallery of musical paraphernalia owned by various musical stars. One of John Lennon's pianos upon which he composed "Imagine", a few Carlos Santana guitars, a drum from the Beijing Olympics opening,  Jake Shimabukuro's ukelele, and various instruments owned by Bob Dylan, etc.

By far, the highlight of the museum was the "experience" gallery. This was a largish room lined with musical instruments meant for the public to touch and play. There was a theremin in the corner, guitars, tons of drums and xylophones from around the world, harps, rattles, taiko drums, an 8' metal gong ( "Please only one hit per guest" ). It was a lot of noisy fun. Best to experience on a slow day so there are fewer people making noise. The small guitars were impressive in how they were built very cheaply and ruggedly with very soft strings, but still managed to give a convincing sound when played. For me, it was almost worth the $15 admission to just play around in there.

I talked briefly to the two supervisors watching the room and commented that they probably needed to stock serious amounts of painkillers. They told me that today was really not bad, the worst was when a load of 20 elementary students came in, each apparently after the goal of making the most noise possible. Fortunately, they only have to work four hour shifts.

Thinking about dad

A few weekends ago, dad came out to visit me and Tay for a few days. We actually got to spend the weekend together, although dad's jet lag did tend to knock him out a bit in the afternoon. Friday, we went to go see Speed Racer at the IMAX and then the following evening we saw The Hulk with Saori at the Cine Capri. Afterwards, we grabbed a bite of Sushi at a Crazy Fish, a sushi bar that was pretty deserted at that time of night. It was cool though, we got a table in the back, it was quiet, and we got some pretty good sushi. Dad kept hounding us for decent Mexican food, so he went to La Parilla Suiza when he got the chance.
Tuesday, after work, I drove down to Tempe and we grabbed a beer at FourPeaks. Good beer, my favorite watering hole, but really crowded and noisy with the basketball playoffs. We split an order of beer fries which whetted our appetites, so we drove down to Joe's Real BBQ in Gilbert. Dad picked up a new gps gadget from BestBuy while he was here- its pretty cool. Loaded up with the US maps, it knew where we were and (mostly) how to get where we were going.
After dinner he dropped me off back where my Prius was parked in front of Four Peaks, and we said our goodbyes. It will be awhile before I see him again at Christmastime. Anyway, he was off for a few days of training in New York before continuing on his work and travels.

When I turned sixteen, instead of buying me a used car (I was definately not into driving at the time), he took me to a really good audio store in Scottsdale, and bought me a set of high-end speakers and a Yamaha receiver. When we got home, he passed on his Denon CD-player which he picked up before I was born. That CD player is the best-enduring peice of high technology I've ever seen. The only thing it doesn't do is play MP3s, which were about 15 years after its time. So, instead of wheels, I got music. Loud, rich, music. This set up has been the centerpeice of my living spaces ever since, and I use it nearly every day.

Bits and Peices

Thursday night, Saori and I met one of her coworkers for some live music at the Rhythm Room, a small venue close by. It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, but Saori played me some of the band's music the night before, and I was intrigued. The band is called the "Asylum Street Spankers," hailing from Austin, Texas, and they are a kind of folk/old country/ jamboree bears kind of show complete with a washboard vest, saws, jugs, and of course steel pot lid guitars and banjos. Its fun and refreshing music and the band is incredibly talented both musically and also vocally. Check out thier website if you get a chance. The songs are a mix of original bawdy or socially satirical tunes, or very old music from the 2o's-40's. It's really great and they put on a great show.

Interestingly, Saori and I have built up an impressive camera collection out of $20, which we paid for an old Practika SLR from the 70's. We're up to five cameras now. The most recent acquisition is an excellent canon EOS SLR. I've spent the last few days playing around with its automatic focus and different zoom lenses.

Cassie, an old friend of mine from high school, was in town yesterday, we met at a Starbucks and caught up. It's a funny coincidence, she works in a bioscience laboratory, and I happen to be in the middle of laying out one at work. Her main complaint was the amount of stuff they have on the floor, and not enough storage space for large pieces of equipment.

This morning, Saori and I got up early and hit a tiny coffee and donut shop before striking out for the Chinese grocery store Ranch L market. Ranch L used to be Ranch 11 market, although neither name makes sense to me, especially for a purveyor of oriental groceries. This afternoon, (contain your excitement!) we worked on our taxes together, and I actually finished mine. The free software helps.