Trouble@This Is the Modern World plays a simply divine collection of tracks.

As you can see in the photo of the monkey under construction he sits on a circular ply board that is attached to a bar the other end of which runs in a gear-driven eccentric self-aligning bearing which rocks him with a circular motion. This motion is continuous and draws attention to him. If a coin is inserted into the slot he raises his hat, wiggles his feet and raises a notice from a slot in the base which says ‘Thank You’.

Petrushka, accordeons and theatre lead inevitably to the best film ever:

The tranny plumping up his chest to make the wedding guests smile for the cameraman remind me that this show needs tits. My pink dress–made by Lou B–has suffered over the years. If I knew where she lived I’d try to get her to make me another one.

If you’re interested in organs and theatre, quite soon you will visit Mr Stravinsky & Co and their lenten feast. Some background:

The play Petrushka seems to derive from a native older Russian buffoon and minstrel tradition and the Western European puppet theater tradition with its roots in the Italian commedia dell’arte. Possible evidence of the Petrushka play in Russia is found as early as 1637 in an engraving and description by a Dutch traveler, Adam Olearius. From around the 1840s to the 1930s, the Petrushka show was one of the most popular kinds of improvisational theater in Russia, often performed at fairs and carnivals and on the streets on a temporary wooden stage (balagan). The show was presented by two performers, one of whom manipulated the puppets, while the other played a barrel-organ. Recorded textual variants from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries depict the adventures of Petrushka, a dauntless prankster and joker, who uses his wit as well as a vigorously wielded club to get the better of his adversaries, who often represent established authority. The themes tend to be sexist and violent. Petrushka is usually dressed in a red caftan and pointed red cap, and has a hunch-back, a large hooked nose, and a prominent chin. The most popular scenes involve Petrushka and a handful of characters, among them his fiancée or wife, a gypsy horse trader, a doctor or apothecary, an army corporal, a policeman, the devil, and a large fluffy dog. Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka (1911) is probably the most famous adaptation of this puppet theater show.

Here are two music-box players and dancers competing for public in the first Shrovetide Fair scene, at the beginning of the ballet:

Recalling that a barrel organ is in some ways nothing more than a mechanised accordeon, some more fair soundscape with accordeon noises, here in accordeon transcription (ho!ho!) played by Mika Vayrynen:

If accordeon pastiche can be played on the accordeon, there’s no reason why a ballet about organs and puppets and puppetmasters shouldn’t be performed with organ, puppets and puppetmaster. That’s roughly what Basil Twist seems to have done starting in 2001:

First performed in 2001, this “Petrushka” also involves a conceptual sleight of hand. In the ballet dancers play puppets that come to life. In Mr. Twist’s version, puppets play puppets, and when they come to life, they dance. It works perfectly, plunging us directly into the story’s imaginative universe.

Unfortunately I can’t find video of him in action.

[There's a more interesting introduction to the Russian stuff here.]

He’s got a false arm, he’s a spoons virtuoso, he’s got a good hat, his monkey plays the violin. In short, a genius:

Comments:

1. He’s got a pole support and the organ strapped round his neck, like all the guys in Mexico DF. That’s fine, although I imagine it must cause back trouble, but I like to be able to jump and run about in order to inspire a slightly higher degree of fear in the public.
2. I’m slightly puzzled by the machinery. If he’s got his books spilling all over the place his replacement bill must be rather high. And I can’t figure out what’s going on inside when the front case opens. Are those more puppets inside? The monkey-violin effect must be digital, so is there actually any conventional machinery at all? Whatever, I need to look at more organ innards.
3. We tend to associate the French with accordeons, but in fact their (related) barrel organ tradition (ah! French engineering!) is far more glorious, and to my mind superior to what those cunning Dutch and Germans get up to.
4. Who is this man? What’s the rest of his show like?

“Orgue de Barbarie”

What with QEI having sent an organ to the Turk, it’s only right that the French have their organs come from Barbary. Wikipédia says:

L’explication la plus répandue de son nom viendrait d’une déformation d’« orgue de Barberi », d’après le fabricant italien de Modène, Giovanni Barbieri (début du XVIIIe siècle), mais selon d’autres opinions il vient plutôt du fait que les joueurs du XVII^e siècle et XVIII^e siècle « baragouinaient un français approximatif et qu’ils venaient “d’ailleurs” ».

Une autre hypothèse est une provenance du Maghreb. En effet à cet époque-là, le Maghreb était appelé la « Barbarie » par les Européens. Pour les « vrais » musiciens, les « amateurs » qui se contentaient de tourner une manivelle venaient voler comme des barbares leur musique et leur gagne-pain. Toutefois, l’usage veut que l’on écrive Barbarie avec une majuscule.

Le nom orgue est masculin au singulier, et au pluriel, lorsqu’il désigne plusieurs instruments distincts. Il peut être utilisé au féminin pluriel lorsqu’il s’agit d’un seul instrument. Exemple : les grands orgues de France (plusieurs instruments), le grand orgue de Notre-Dame, ou les grandes orgues de Notre-Dame (un seul instrument). Cette particularité ne s’applique pas aux orgues de Barbarie, pour lesquels on conserve le masculin.

To close the circle, here’s Mozart’s Turkish March (slightly tweaked) played on a Odin Barbary organ:

From an 1854 report of the New York Children’s Aid Society on an Italian school:

There is going on a certain change for the better among this low class of strangers. On visiting them, I have remarked a considerable reduction of organs and monkeys in their apartments, usually filled with such instruments and beasts. The vile traffic of hireling children is also almost extinct, for the organ-grinder can not any more afford to pay for them, as it is becoming day by day a poor business; and in fact, while in former years a boy was invariably attached to an organ-grinder, now never, or very seldom, is one seen in that trade. A girl may be seen now and then, but generally the grinder travels alone.

No plans to employ children or monkeys, and gorillas are out:

A bit of Swedish totty had however crossed my mind–more anon.

In New York the whole business came to an end 80 years later, thanks to mayor LaGuardia says Wikipedia:

Street organs were banned in New York City in 1936 by Fiorello LaGuardia. An unfortunate consequence was the destruction of hundreds of organs. This was unfortunate because the barrels in these organ contained a record of the popular music of the day. Before the invention of the cylinder record player, this was the only permanent recording of these tunes. The law that banned barrel organ in New York was repealed in 1976 but that mode of musical performance had become obsolete by then. However, organ grinders did return to New York on the 9th of April 2006, when the first organ rally in the area was held on Coney Island.