Good evening, Kibitzers! In retrospect, it should not surprise me at all that my brother would have sent me tonight’s video. He has always been fascinated by machinery. When he was little (he’s 8 years younger than me), he was constantly begging for coins to feed into any vending machine he passed. He did not give two hoots what the machines were vending; he just wanted to watch them work. If they did something complicated, so much the better.
No wonder he was fascinated with the Marenghi Dance Organ in the collection of Bill Nunn of Minnestoa. The fact that, in the video below the fold, the organ is playing Bohemian Rhapsody is just a bonus.
Mr. Nunn trains horses and teaches riding at his Skyrock Farm horse ranch near Minneapolis. But it’s also possible to tour, or book for private events, his restored antique carousel and 19th-century dance organ collection (this link is to a PDF with a detailed description of the collection and its restoration and maintenance as of 2007 — great photos).
The instruments do not just sit on display, but are played. This organ runs on long, accordion-folded strips of cardstock that are punched like a player piano roll. As you might imagine, even the most recent pieces originally played by the organ have rather old and delicate cardstock “books”, so Mr. Nunn has gone about devising an automated way to punch new ones. At the end of that 2007 PDF linked above, that method was in the works, as was the organ, but plainly they’re both up and running now, for old and new arrangements. This is a new one, and it’s pretty awesome.
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by and tell us about your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper. Newcomers may notice that many who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.