this merry go round is beautiful to look at, but the show stealer is, without a doubt, the crazy band organ. i sat for about an hour and didnt hear the same song twice. there are of course some sousa tunes, which i like, but there are also "modern" hits from bacharach and the beatles, all rendered in kick drum pounding, glockenspiel clanging, pnuematic organ wheezing, and snare drum rippling fashion. i confess to being more a band organ aesthete than a historian so i cant comment too much on the history of it, but suffice to say its a wurlitzer, probably not as old as some, but nonetheless slightly out of tune in a raunchy and loud way. among my favorites were "do you know the way to san jose", in which the B section of the song used a a very sickly out of tune voicing, but the rest of the song seemed mostly consonant. my friend and i couldnt stop laughing. even better perhaps were the incredible tempo dives heard in "ob-la-di-ob-la-da", giving it a very seasick quality. at one point late in the day the hood over the merry go round provided a great shelter from a quick summer rain. we all passed the half hour of the downpour by whittling down icecream cones, watching the horses and listening to the wurly amble through its songlist. it was a sublime few moments had in one of my favorite places, p-burg.
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