Wednesday, August 08, 2007

before the half bat...

italianguitar1

italianguitar2

when i was a kid we used to play baseball by trying to hit a tennis ball over my friend's neighbor's hedge. "dork" had a nice selection of bats, but for some reason we always gravitated towards using the one which had been broken in half, split down the center of the "barrel" so that if you looked at the top of the bat it was not an "O" shape, but a "D". we always called it the half bat.

well, here's a nice italian printed postcard (not an RPPC), of two professors with a seemingly normal mandolin, and some kind of odd looking harp guitar. what's even more interesting is the instrument on the left edge that looks like the half bat's distant cousin. it seems to be a guitar sawed in half with the bridge and strings going across the depth rather than the half "face" of the shell. unlike the half bat there's also a little "horn" attached to its side for sound amplification. maybe it is some strange monochord or ??? if anyone has any info on this one, i'd appreciate it. i would of course love to hear what this thing sounded like!

(and speaking of timely half bats, in light of tonight's giants game; i reserve the right to continue to view hammerin' hank as the all time home run king...)

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2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

It may be the anatomist in me but I can't take my eyes off Prof Bosio's profile. There is something unreal about it. Let alone the very delicate way he is holding his instrument in one hand gently resting his little finger on the music stand. I don't think he is real!
jeremy

2:02 AM  
Blogger sroden said...

yes, i kept thinking the proportions were off and their head look a bit too big or something odd about them. glad you picked up on it because i just thought i was seeing things. they look like stuffed people or wax museum figures...

11:12 AM  

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