Via Andrea Balt

on Jan 28, 2012

Considering the Accordion. {Video}

(Photo: Robert Doisneau via Tumblr)

A lost art of gypsies & lovers.

Almost a relic now, the accordion is still a meeting place for bohemians, wanderers and tired travelers. It’s the instrument most of us romantics play without knowing, at the exact minute when the sun sets over a wrinkled heart – still too young to fall asleep.

The Accordion is a gentleman; and Nostalgia, his lady. You know, that foreign country where we were born but never visited.

In my days of intense poetry (like, ever since I was a cat in a cat world with a misunderstood cat heart), I stumbled upon a most exquisite description of this heartbreaking music box. I’ve had it on my wall ever since; and I read it every now and then, when I can’t tell the difference between dusk and dawn.

It comes from Al Zolynas‘ ink, a not-so-well-known-but-brilliant, Zen word-accordionist.

The idea of it is distasteful at best. Awkward box of wind, diminutive,
misplaced piano on one side, raised Braille buttons on the other. The
bellows, like some parody of breathing, like some medical apparatus from a
Victorian sick-ward. A grotesque poem in three dimensions, a rococo
thing-a-me-bob. I once strapped an accordion on my chest and right away I
had to lean back on my heels, my chin in the air, my back arched like a
bullfighter or flamenco dancer. I became an unheard of contradiction:  a
gypsy in graduate school. Ah, but for all that, we find evidence of the
soul in the most unlikely places. Once in a Czech restaurant in Long
Beach, an ancient accordionist came to our table and played the old
favorites: “Lady of Spain,” ” The Saber Dance,” “Dark Eyes,” and through
all the clichés his spirit sang clearly… 

[Click here to read the rest. Beauty overdose alert]. 

 

[A romantic's porn: Robert Doisneau photography + an accordion+ vintage Paris]

All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappings and hulls. ~ Thomas Carlyle

*BONUS – Yann Tiersen in one of the best live performances in the History of Harmony. Not only because he’s a god, but because who else plays the piano with one hand and the accordion with the other?

My musicality is sore from so much pleasure.

So, have you played your accordion today?

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Andréa Balt is an unfinished book, garage philosopher, eco maniac, art nut & other unrealistic & impractical things on a bike. She has a BA in Communication, an MFA in Creative Writing & she's a certified Nutrition Junkie. You can connect with her via Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest, or pay her a visit at Rebelle Époque, her art & writing blog, where she might fetch you a virtual cup of word-tea. She also makes daily, green rebellion at Rebelle Wellness and she recently co-created Rebelle Society, a creatively maladjusted, imaginary country, occupied by the art of being alive. Rebelle?