Daily Archives: January 28, 2008

Finished!

I have just returned the copy-edits/rewrites for the Pagan Pregnancy book. Go me! Finished in under a day, with a minimum of trauma and angst! Okay, that may have been because I let the suggestions and questions and deletions brew in my subconscious for a week… but whatever and however, it is done and I am awesome.

For the first time in a while I feel like I actually did some work, as if I accomplished something. I’m having so much trouble settling into the hearthcraft book — it doesn’t feel coherent or cohesive yet, and every time I sit down to work at it feels like a struggle — so this was a relief. I never thought I’d see the day where I thought handling copy-edits for a book I’d written were a relief.

The next time I see this should be when the Fed Ex delivery person hands me the box of page proofs.

Reimagining Classic Design

When luthiers say that the basic design for the violin family of stringed instruments hasn’t changed in four centuries and talk about ways to improve upon it, this isn’t exactly the kind of redesign they mean.

In a clever feat of musical ingenuity, an orchestra playing instruments created entirely from car parts performs the soundtrack to the new Ford Focus television commercial. […]

Milbrodt’s team took apart a Ford Focus five-door hatchback that had, literally, just come off the production line. “When we got it to the mechanics shop, it had less than a mile on the clock. We took the doors and fenders off, but we had the body shell intact and we later cut out of that the parts we wanted,” said Bill Milbrodt.

By the time the orchestra had been assembled for the photo shoot at Universal Studios in California, Milbrodt’s team had constructed 31 instruments. Each has a name that instantly identified its origins, such as the Transmission Case Cello-Dulcimer, Clutch Guitar, Rear Suspension Spike Fiddle, Fender Bass, Hatchback Kick Drum, Handheld Gear Tambourine and Door Harp.

No doubt the commercial will be uploaded to YouTube the night it airs, or maybe it will be available on the Ford web site.

I wonder what it’s like to play.

(Did you notice the bow? It’s a windshield wiper.)