!!!!

This isn't film related, but it was so cool.

I visited my grandfather on the north shore of lake Ponchetrain(outside New Orleans) over the weekend and last night as we were sitting on the porch drinking coffee we started talking about... well shit, I don't remember. Somehow music machines came up, and my grandfather pipes up with "My neighbor Randy collects antique music players and machines, why don't we go and ask him to show us?" We call Randy up and moments later he is graciously ushering me into the house, obviously tickled that we asked to see his collection, of which, my grandfather has told me, he is very proud. He starts in the dining room, with an old gramophone and a 50's juke box he has restored, with before and after pictures. Then he showed us the phonograph cylinders, and several music boxes that dated back to the 18th century, more juke boxes, and all kinds of things I can't even remember the name of, before taking us back into the room where he kept all the really good stuff. I don't even know what to call the thing I saw.... It was, I guess, a fully automated band from 1918, which read from a paper roll. It had been re-done in the 30's when an accordion was added and it was given an art-deco makeover. Apparently there are people, somewhere, who still transcribe music onto rolls for these things, and Randy said he had a bunch of Beatles and some Hank Williams from sources like that. Did I mention the size of this thing? It was monstrous, with the instruments a few inches above eye level and a giant organ in the back, filled with pneumatic tubes and machinery behind the green art-deco facade. He had it play us a few songs, and he showed us the Mills novelty Co. Violano-Virtuoso, which is a self-playing violin with piano accompaniment. So awesome. I might be 5 years old, but I love watching the keys on the piano move by themselves. And as a true appreciator of genuine weirdos, I have to say that this is one of my favorite types: the crazy collector in backwoods Louisiana whose hobby is worth WAY more than his house, and is totally awesome. If anyone else ever finds one, tell me and maybe I'll make a movie about it. Oh yeah! He also had a piano that could record and play back those rolls, how cool is that?