Artsty Fartsy

There is some sort of art event going on here. I may go check it out. It has to do with Dadaism - better known as strange art films. It was a whole movement back in the early part of the 20th century. That is about all I know of it.

The feature of the event is a piece called "Ballet Mecanique". Here is the soundtrack to the film.

What you see are 16 player pianos, 4 xylophones, a siren, a gong, some alarm bells, and a bunch of industrial fans - all played by robots. The original score called for player pianos - but as there were no plater xylophones some humans were needed. The problem was that there was no way to coordinate all the pianos properly.

So the person who wrote this piece never heard it performed properly. And neither will we, as the original score called for airplane propellers. But at least there are computers now that can synchronize all the other things.

In another twist, the soundtrack is twice as long as the film. It seems that the film maker never told the composer how long to make the music last. And I think that the film was made before "talkies" so I have no idea how the whole thing was supposed to work in the first place.

But somehow I think this was the point of Dadaism.

And how about the film? Well I found this on You Tube. I do not know if this is the whole film or not. It is silent.



So it is in town till December 11. This means I have to go see it when I can - for the exhibition will not be here forever. This is a good thing, because if it was not going to be a limited time thing I would just say "hey that is cool - but Ill go some other time". I would keep saying this forever and probably never go.

Like the Winterfest Boat Parade. I have lived in South Florida all my life and have never gone to the stupid boat parade. This could be due to my total lack of interest in it. Also I know it is here every year - so I always think "Ill just go next year" and of course I never go. I also do not want to put up with the traffic and idiots and all, just to see a bunch of boats with Christmas lights on them. Yawn. Don't care.

But this year will be different. I might be a control boat for the event. If this is the case I can watch the event from the water while doing something "official" for the event. Whatever this is.