In the wired marketplace, the distance between ‘what is that’ and ‘I want that’ has gotten much shorter. And that’s as true for obscure/niche goods as it is for more mainstream items. Take the Hurdy Gurdy, for instance. I’d say that’s a safe bet for a niche product in 2008. Maybe you have Hurdy Gurdys on the brain because a particular Donovan song is lodged in your subconscious. Or perhaps you have recently fallen in love with Eastern European folk music, and are hypnotized by a strange, pulsing drone/dancing melody and want to know what is making it. So you bring up your portal of record and begin some research.

H…u…r…d…y… G…u…r…d…y

[Enter]. If you’re Googling, you get a Wikipedia entry in pole position, superseded only by a single paid search listing. Below that are a few builders, a series of YouTube videos, and plenty of Hurdy Gurdy revivalists forming clubs around the country. “I am not alone!”, you say. You can discover the principles of construction and learn about the history of this instrument on Wikipedia. And you can see players of all levels have a crack at the instrument - some “How To”s, and many “How Not To”s. Enough to give you a sense of what it takes to learn to play, and what to expect.

And then you find THIS.

And you sit in awe, watching Gilles Chabenat, a master of the Hurdy Gurdy show you that it is in some ways the very first Synthesizer, some sort of Baroque-period Moog (I refer you to the 4:50 mark for more on that.) And that’s it… you’re hooked. And you’re on the hunt for one. If only you knew where to find a builder.

But wait. You do. H… u… r… d…

This year, I spent Independence weekend in Seattle, Washington. My friend Erik lives in a condominium on Westlake Avenue, affording him an excellent view of one of the city’s two main fireworks displays, set off from a barge floating on Lake Washington. A well-crafted fireworks display can be a sublime and wonderful thing, but my love of the spectacle has been eroded over the past few years by repeated exposure to displays that are far from well-crafted. Since 2003, I have lived just over the border from Oregon in Washington State, where it is possible for civilians to obtain and set match to some fairly serious fireworks. No problem in and of itself, save for a higher-than-normal number of cases of lost digits at the local Emergency Room. But the neighborhood celebrations tend to kick off well in advance of the 4th. Being awoken from deep slumber at midnight on a workday because someone with an extra Franklin decided it was high time they wrapped a pack of firecrackers around a couple of M-80s to see what might happen, is not my idea of fun. But the display set off over Lake Washington that night restored my love in full. The terrific view helped, but the set included some wonderful multi-stage, multidimensional fireworks that were seriously impressive (and seriously expensive, would be my guess). My favorite - an modest yellow projectile that almost disappears at the top of its trajectory, only to explode into a huge sphere of purple fireballs. Impressive, but not the end of the story. Before the sphere has finished expanding, two pink rings explode from the epicenter and race out beyond the boundary of the purple sphere. A purple planet, with two perpendicular orbital rings. Like I said… sublime and wonderful.

Max Headroom made a big impression on me. I first saw him on Channel 4, Britain’s edgiest television outpost in the days before satellite. The word at the time was that he was computer generated, which was not quite the truth. It seems obvious now when I look at Max footage that he’s a latex-encrusted live actor, but it seemed plausible that computers were involved (there was little to compare him to at the time). In fact, even the rotating geometrical backgrounds were created using cel animation. All I knew was that he was cool, sardonic, and apparently free of mortal encumbrances. Max was played by Matt Frewer, and the other day I stumbled across these images showing the distinctly analog process that Frewer went through in his transformation from human to digital personality. I’m fascinated by these shots - especially the fiberglass suit/tie combo. For me, it doesn’t shatter the illusion - it only makes me love him (and the team that brought him to life) more.