Music for Atriums

[ateolf]

Yesterday Mary Beth and I went up to Crosstown first thing to watch/hear Eudaimonia Collective perform a four-flute adaptation of Music for Airports. This was Jenny and her usual partner-in-flutes Philip and two other flautists. It was good! They played in the atrium so in a very public space with lots of people walking around and sounds of coffee grinders and other machines at times. (They also played at the actual airport the day before, but we were obviously not at the airport.) It was fun hearing how much was similar or different in the music. After that we went and got lunch buffet at India Palace (and filled up so much we didn't need to eat the rest of the day). I got a few cds in the mail: Ana Fosca: Poised at the Edge of Structure, Omit: Interceptor, Matt Shoemaker: Spots in the Sun, and B J Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa: Víkinga Brennivín. I got some batteries and tried to test out my new tape machine (it's maybe the first electronic item I've seen that uses two different types of batteries, one 9V and two Cs). Well, it comes on and gets sound but it doesn't want to move very much. I found I could get it to play in short bursts if I manually spun the wheels (or whatever you call them) and I noticed that they'd make a complete rotation and then stop. I took it apart to see if there was any obvious physical impediment. I saw that there was a notch in the wheel that I assumed was supposed to be there, just figured another mechanism was supposed to keep it from locking. I found a youtube video of a guy unboxing and repairing one of these old machines (Continental) and then noticed, among other things, his had the same problem! And he opened it up and showed that problem was caused by a piece of the motor sinking into the rubber of the tire as it sat unmoving over the years and forming a little notch for it to always get stuck in. So he fixed it in the video with a little bit of sealant glue. Maybe this is something I can fix. Maybe!?