Imagine an urgent Leonard Cohen armed only with whisky and a blown tube amplifier, lost in the sprawling Midwest, driving his solitary heart toward an uncertain future. Exploding the usually hidden place between love and sadness, where melody and hope tiptoe warily. As though climbing the arching tree to recover the fallen bird's nest ...
Brian Straw grew up in Richmond, Indiana, an idle town off I-70 that first set the tone for the soundtrack Straw carried with him. Songs began to pour out of him there and the town's windows cracked open as the hearts and ears that Straw implored began to listen. To harness his creative impulses Straw left Indiana and drifted from New York City to Bellingham, Washington and a few places in between. Garnering a base of supporters and critical praise along the way, Straw has toured nationally and in Europe, sharing the stage with the likes of Calexico, Jose Gonzales, Andrew Bird and Devendra Banhart. As an independent operator Straw has self-released two EP's and two albums. In 2001 his first full length album 'once you're lost you're encouraged to stay lost' and the EP 'Backfeed Pools' were released, to be followed in 2003 by the live collection, 'what finds you is not yours, what leaves you is not stolen.' In 2004 , 'Bleeding Sun', an EP recorded with backing band, the Six Parts Seven, was also released. As a collaborator with the acclaimed instrumental band, the Six Parts Seven (Suicide Squeeze Rec.), Straw turned in a twelve minute opus for their remix album, 'Lost Notes From Forgotten Songs', complete with ghostly samples, ebbing soundscapes, delicate banjo, and his mournful baritone voice - a performance 'Splendid' highlights as "an epic but intimate gothic ballad that recalls recent Nick Cave." ...
Currently in Cleveland, Straw recently finished work on his most focused album yet, the release of which will soon be announced.
In 1862 Rudolph Koenig (1832-1901) developed the manometric flame apparatus, which was used into the first decade of the twentieth century to examine the wave-shapes of sounds. The heart of the apparatus is the manometric flame capsule. In the Kenyon apparatus, sound enters the capsule from the left-hand side (probably conveyed there via a funnel and a length of rubber hose), and impinges on a rubber membrane placed between the two halves of the capsule. Illuminating gas enters at the bottom of the shaft and burns in a small flame at the upper right-hand corner. The oscillations of the membrane modulate the gas supply, and the height of the gas flame varies accordingly. The oscillating gas flame is viewed in the rotating mirror, which supplies the necessary time base to make the waveshape visible.
The manometric flame in the Kenyon apparatus was made by Central Scientific, and the rotating mirror by Knott of Boston. The latter was sophisticated (and cost $9.75 in 1916); inside the mirror is a mechanical governor to keep the rotation rate constant. The capsule from St. Patrick's College (Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland) is by Yeates of Dublin, and has two mouthpieces attached to it, one being used as a base. In use, one of the mouthpieces would be attached to the sound input tube on the left-hand side.
REFERENCE: Thomas B. Greenslade, Jr., "The Rotating Mirror", Phys. Teach., 19, 253-254 (1981)
Kenyon College Grinnell College
St. Mary's College St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland This unmarked apparatus at Duke University combines the capsule and the rotating mirror on one base. It is probably German and from the first years of the 20th century. At the left is a large manometric flame
Say, don't you have a calendar on this thing? We are all moved to Tremont so as soon as we get somewhere for guests to sit you will have to come over, and bring your little lady
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