Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 329
July 27, 2018
July 26, 2018
July 25, 2018
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
This musical ensemble eschews traditional instruments in favor of vintage typewriters. By rhythmically clacking, rolling, spinning, and banging the Boston Typewriter Orchestra has turned the typed word into song.
The band started in 2004 after taking a joke too seriously. Tim Devin proclaimed himself the conductor of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, and he and a group of friends made the joke into reality. The group began rehearsing on old typewriters, slowly developing an all-new form of music.
After premiering their performance at the Art Beat Festival in Boston, the group began performing all over the New England area.
The band uses old typewriters because they produce unique sounds. They say portable models can offer a good tenor sound—their quick key-strokes producing consistent high notes—but that all parts of the devices qualify as instruments. Spinning rollers, sliding carriages, bells, and even thumping them on the table contribute to the orchestra’s unique sound, with different models all yielding different results.
“A Smith-Corona Galaxy 12 has a power space function that makes a nice metallic clang sound.”—typewriter player Brendan Emmett Quigley
The process isn’t an exact science, the band hammers away at the keys semi-haphazardly before slowly falling into synchronized music. The band originally typed with paper on their typewriters, but they only ever ended up with nonsense. They gave up on paper, stating it didn’t make any difference to the sound anyway.
This year they performed at the IG Nobel Awards and released their first record, which you can get on vinyl!
Termination Without Prejudice, Volume 1 by The Boston Typewriter Orchestra
Source: The Boston Typewriter Orchestra
July 24, 2018
Lion And Weenie Dog Are Best Friends
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Meeting each other at just six weeks old, this lion and weenie dog have become best friends.
Abby, the dachshund, and Bonedigger, the male Barbary lion, are an extremely unlikely pair of friends. What could be no more than a hotdog-sized snack for the cat, has become his lifelong companion.
The two will chase and play, nipping at each other’s faces.
“They’re always just loving on each other.” -John Reinke, park manager
Both live at the G.W. Exotic Animal Park, where animals from all over have been placed with nowhere else to go.
According to Bonedigger’s caretaker, he doesn’t like anyone else in the cage, besides the dachshunds. When he has to remove the dogs to perform maintenance, Bonedigger will pace and whine until her friends are let back inside.
John Reinke, the park manager, chalks the relationship up to dachshunds’ lack of self-awareness. In the same way, the dogs attack his weed wacker during maintenance, he thinks the dogs wouldn’t even consider Bonedigger a threat.
They lick and lay on each other and Abby will even chase Bonedigger around his enclosure.
July 23, 2018
July 22, 2018
July 21, 2018
July 20, 2018
Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog
- Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s profile
- 52 followers
