here’s the interview, btw, I think I mentioned it in the podcast thread, it’s pretty great:
It was the first couple of times. Just gotta force yourself out there. A little alcohol would help too.
Ken Parker is a luthier that builds acoustic archtop guitars (think jazz guitar) alone in his New York workshop. He’s probably best known for a line of innovative and radical-looking electric guitars from the 90s bearing his name that are no longer in production:
That project represents a brief stint in his luthiery career and is sandwiched between mostly one-of-a-kind builds of acoustic archtop guitars. The Met has one of each type pictured in its collection. His current models start at around $30,000 and look like this:
The skill and labor hours required to build these correctly is massive. I think Ken builds 5 to 6 instruments per year. Unlike other types of guitars, the construction method is closer to violins and cellos in that the top is very carefully hand-carved and tap tuned for frequency response (the string and wave physics are nothing like bowed instruments though).
In this talk, he explains (mostly from a technical side, mind you) how this peculiar American invention came to be and how it has evolved / is evolving. It’s a bit of a lost art since we aren’t exactly in the Jazz Age anymore, but you can clearly see from his work that some builders are still pushing the envelope. There’s some interesting stuff at the beginning about Gibson’s musical instruments including how they were made and marketed that I wasn’t aware of. This is sort of mad scientist meets Stradivarius but for guitars. Warning: it’s pretty dry. The history part starts at 7:00.
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Yrjö Henrik Kallinen (15 June 1886, Oulu - 1 January 1976) was a Finnish railwayman, cooperative movement functionary and politician. He was imprisoned from 1918 to 1921 for having sided with the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Republic during the Finnish Civil War. From 27 March 1946 to 29 July 1948, Kallinen served as Minister of Defence of Finland.
Quotes:
I promised to myself that I will never again obey anyone or any authority, government, gods or angels in anything else than in what I accept as the right or the best possible thing to do.
I will devote one third of my essence to the cooperative movement. But two thirds belong to humanity and myself. I will always practice new things, everything between heaven and earth. But a third I’m happy to give: and the rest two thirds supports greatly everything I can give to the cooperative movement.
Quote about Kallinen:
The man receives four death sentences - yet lives nearly 90 years. He hadn’t been to schools - yet he was as well learned and wise as the best professors. A great and confident man - yet modest and humble. He had friends from near and far - yet he was an independent lone wolf. Zen buddhist - yet a member of the Lutheran Church. Socialist - yet many capitalists were friends to him.
What a man, this is a taste of his 1971 interview @ YLE (Finnish Broadcast Company). Only English dub I found was this amara-thingie which apparently just dubs over youtube. Caveat Emptor, but it’s good.
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Alcohol.
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Just once I want to see a movie where the guy who owns a wax museum is actually an okay dude.
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Alcohol(houseguest)= houseguest.
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I’m bedeviled by your notation–can you paraphrase?
I guess I haven’t actually defined the function. The function called alcohol obscures its input. Ingestion of ethyl alcohol makes irl houseguests less noticeable.
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Or he was saying Glas! ;)
Only the worst philosophy nerd will get that one.
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I read it ALL in the 90s. I’m sure it took a few years off my life!
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Happy Holidays 
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This guy is obviously having a stroke
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yeah but once you realize this is the way they think, it makes it much easier to understand the GOP. It’s their entire electoral strategy…and it works 