I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: Nyckelharpa (2012). 

At ScanFest we also heard the American Nyckelharpa Association play a few tunes.  Like most of the  world, I had never heard of a  Nyckelharpa , but since I love unusual instruments, I couldn’t wait to find out more about it.    From the ANA website:

The modern chromatic nyckelharpa has 16 strings: 3 melody strings, one drone string, and 12 sympathetic vibration (or resonance) strings. It has about 37 wooden keys arranged to slide under the strings. Each key has a tangent that reaches up and stops (frets) a string to make a particular note. The player uses a short bow with the right hand, and pushes on the keys with the left. It has a 3 octave range (from the same low “G” as a fiddle’s 4th string) and sounds something like a fiddle, only with lots more resonance.

It was really neat to watch half a dozen or so people playing this odd instrument with all those strings.  They held it like a guitar and the bow is really short.  And, indeed, they were playing the keys instead of the fretboard.  How cool!  I didn’t really get to experience the sympathetic strings in the auditorium (I honestly can’t even imagine how that works), but it sounded wonderfully folksy.

Check it out!

[READ: June 6, 2011] Squish: 

This is a weird experience for me–I’ve now read the new Squish and the new Babymouse pretty much right as they came out.  Wow!

The Power of the Parasite continues the interesting juxtaposition of what Squish is reading (a Super Amoeba comic) and what’s happening in his life.  In an interesting graphic choice, the comic book is rendered in black and white while the scenes of Squish are lovingly rendered in the creepy green that they use.

In this story, it’s summer vacation and time for camp.  Interestingly, Squish’s two best friends Peggy and Pod go to ballet camp while Squish opts for swim camp (not that there’s anything wrong with ballet camp).  This means that we don’t see much of Squish’s cohorts.

When he gets to camp, he is pretty unimpressed (and he’s afraid of water) so he decides that he will avoid the SUPER AWESOME FUN that the counsellor promises.  Instead, he reads his Super Amoeba comic.  But then a new character Basil,a hydra, comes along and bonds with him (not literally, although he is capable of growing  a new limb (or tentacle or whatever) when one breaks off.  Basil also has the ability to shock others.  Yes literally.  (scientific fact: A hydra’s tentacles can paralyze you!).  And when he is bored, he uses this to make more fun.

Super Amoeba makes a friend too, the titular Parasite.  Parasite proves to be quite a help to Super Amoeba, until he starts going too far in his quest for power (like he won’t rescue a cat from a tree!).  At the same time, Squish finds Basil’s shocking business funny, but he wonders if it goes too far.

There’s an obvioous payoff and a wonderfully surprising payoff as well–the narrator told us ballet was important.  There’s also a lot of extra fun things in the book.   There’s a lot of very funny little asides that the “narrator” throws in (like “clean you room” and “nice advice, next time ask your mom”).  And the end offers some scientific tricks (make an egg swim) and a tutorial in how to draw Basil.

Another successful book from the Holms.