Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal
An evening pause: Played on an instrument which the website calls L’orgue de barbarie. To me it resembles a glorified organ grinder, except that it plays a wide range of midi-type sounds. Very clever. And it succeeds in making a Michael Jackson song sound interesting to me, for the first time!
Hat tip Rocco E.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Beautiful!
Apparently, these barrel organs are of modern manufacture, assembled by hand at the makers, Orgues Odin, in France. This model has 114 flutes, and excellent tone.
Thanks, Rocco E!
That’s pretty cool but I kept wondering why the guy was doing this in a scrap pile of wood. Also, looks like if he ran a bar across part of it, he wouldn’t have to use his hand to keep the paper in place.
The woodpile? Probably artistic license, based on a feeling that the juxtaposition of beat-up, weathered wood with a finely crafted wooden object is interesting.
Other players just crank out tunes on this instrument without trying to smooth the moving cardboard, but most music doesn’t require piercing as intricate as what’s seen here. Mathis must be thrilled to know that he racked up over a million views in a day, following HuffPo’s posting of his video.