Please enjoy this, which I promised myself I would would share today, it having accidentally made its way into my yesterday evening.
The comments migration is taking its time.
The font thing has been put on hold as I complete some ELISA work.
This song was released 20 years ago.
Twenty. Years.
NOTE: I would urge even those who don’t usually watch videos on 6000 miles… to watch this video on 6000 miles…
Go on – give it a go. What have you got to lose? (spoiler: it’s time and bandwidth)
Herewith Ted Yoder. Ted is one of the world’s foremost Hammered Dulcimer players. If you don’t know what a Hammered Dulcimer is, it’s the thing that Ted is playing in the video below, defined by google as:
a musical instrument with a sounding board or box, typically trapezoid in shape, over which strings of graduated length are stretched, played by plucking or especially by being struck with handheld hammers.
And with a Hornbostel–Sachs classification of 314.122-4.
Obviously, the Hammered Dulcimer is wholly different to the Appalachian Dulcimer, which is always plucked. The Hammered Dulcimer is the one that is always hammered. It’s the Amy Winehouse of instruments.
So, without further ado – Ladies and Gentlemen: Ted Yoder! Enjoy his performance, you must.
I’ve never had that much appreciation from anyone for anything I’ve ever done in my back garden.
Remarkable.
Not the irritating, droning, invasive noise that they produce. No, the microbiological, mycological nastiness that lurks inside them if you don’t clean your instrument often enough.
This paper from Thorax – which is “one of the world’s leading respiratory medicine journals, publishing clinical and experimental research articles on respiratory medicine, paediatrics, immunology, pharmacology, pathology, and surgery, and the official journal of the British Thoracic Society” – fills us in on all the details.
The subject was a 61-year old man who exhibited signs of Hypersensitivity* Pneumonitis (HP) – a sort of allergic reaction to “something”, which damages the lungs and causes difficulty with breathing. Keeping birds can be the trigger for HP – it’s called “Pigeon Fancier’s Lung”, and it is relatively common amongst, well, pigeon fanciers. But upon investigation, our 61-year-old didn’t fancy pigeons.
Fungi can also be implicated as the “something” which sets HP off, but they checked his house out and there was no mould or water damage. There must be some other trigger…
This case highlights the importance of a careful clinical history including hobbies, because in this case, playing the bagpipes, we feel, was very relevant to the development of HP.
Yeah. Look, the title of the post had kinda given the game away anyway.
But yes:
The clinical history of daily bagpipe-playing coupled with marked symptomatic improvement when this exposure was removed and the identification of multiple potential precipitating antigens isolated from the bagpipes make this the likely cause.
And boy, oh boy, did they identify multiple potential precipitating antigens from the bagpipes, including (but not limited to) Paecilomyces variotti, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium species, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, Trichosporon mucoides, pink yeast and Exophiala dermatitidis.
Eww.
So, if you play the bagpipes, for the love of god, please stop. But if you must continue, then at least clean your instrument regularly. And that goes for any other instrument you put in your mouth as well.
Stop sniggering at the back.
Wind instrument players need to be aware of the importance of regularly cleaning their instruments and of potential risks. Physicians should be aware of this potential risk factor and promote wind instrument hygiene.
So then, bagpipes – now added to the list of things which are trying to (and succeeding in) killing you.
* “hypersensitivity” here referring to an overzealous immune reaction, not people seeking attention and validation by “getting offended” over nothing on twitter.
Back to 2012 and some of the sadly now defunct Dry The River.
“Why, oh why did they have to go their separate ways?” he wailed.
At least they left us with two albums. And a few videos too. This is New Ceremony, from Shallow Bed: their debut foray into the world of music.
Set, as you will note, as some sort of series of dioramas of American history and life, is it bemoaning the divisions in that society, begging for some sort of resolution between warring parties?
Possibly. Either way, it’s going to be on repeat on the iPod for this weekend.
A moment of calm. A moment of thought.
Ludovico Einaudi is the man for the job.
This could be a video about man striving to find God. It might be a portrayal of one individual desperate to rise above the clamour and chaos. Perhaps it’s both.
For me today, it merely represents the opportunity to stop and be at peace for 3 minutes.
Thank you, Ludovico.