Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se
« on: 2009-12-16 12:30:25 »
So how do we add a keyboard to life, so Dogma need not be devised for the faithful to follow to believe ?
My thought is don't suppress the joy of learning and looking under rocks; which we all have as children. Admittedly not having food and shelter and your parents strapping Explosives on you or other folks sending you to bring democracy to others ("would you like to super size that") for the promulgation of the Dogma flavour of the week, might sour one and suppress the joy.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Thanks for this. I see no reason why this couldn't work in Iraq too. Looks simple to replicate, and in an economy of great scale we could probably make every staircase in the world a piano staircase at no great cost. Probably much cheaper than universal health care and all the wars combined even. I personally try to take the stair case unless I'm in a big hurry, and sometimes because I'm in a hurry during heavy rush hour. I bet I'd never take the elevator if I had this to play with through the climb or decent. I bet with my long legs I can tap off some pretty wide chords. That's probably how I'll end up dying . . . and then will come the lawsuits, and everything becomes boring again.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Now Mo, a talking horse playing the piano, now that would impress me
I've seen a lot of videos of "piano cats", and some of them are almost as interesting as Nora obviously demonstrating some of the same behavior she does. There are other videos where the cat is actually getting some kind of treat, or allowing a human to use their paws on a keyboard with some amount of compliance if not actual curiosity. Apparently if you aren't rough with them there are quite a number of rag-dollish cats willing to drop into this sort of zen half dose and let you use their paws as a delicate set of drumsticks especially if you intersperse it with some scratches under the chin. Warning, don't try this at home, as most cats will eventually scratch or bite you if you insist on treating them that way. I wouldn't even seriously assume that the tolerant ones are actually enjoying the treatment, its probably more of a an instance of "Some cats can sleep through anything", rather than a genuinely cute moment.
But I think Nora is the cutest, because on some level she seems to have managed to transfer some sense of actual affection to the PIANO itself! She's not any more clever or talented than any of these other cats, and I've seen a few other interesting ones who get intensely curious in the keyboard in some extreme Nora-ish moments. But as with most other cats they are easily distracted by the next fluttery thing to brush by them.
Unlike the others, Nora seems genuinely comfortable in just sitting there at the piano keyboard paws on keys, not really doing anything for silent minutes on end until something twitches and she starts playing for a bit. Sometimes she's even more interested in marking the keys than in actually making noise - although I've seen other cats kiss the keys with their whiskers, I haven't seen any cats who do this more than Nora.
Part of the thing, is that Nora grew up in the piano studio and has seen probably scores of piano students visiting her owner for instruction, and probably even hundreds of more human folk just playing the keys because they are there to be played. So she is probably as much a product of her environment as she may have some special talent for this kind of behavior. Its all very cute and fun to watch.
PS - there are a couple of other cute Nora videos out there, which seem to indicate that Nora's behavior may be related to some sense of territory she has about this particular piano, probably even more than how it sounds to her. She'll attack other cats who interfere with HER keyboard much more readily than she'll attack the keys. I think she mostly just attacks the keys out of some sense of boredom while waiting for the next opportunity to defend her territory.
Author
Logged
