mechanical music, adrenaline surge
By Todd Stadler · Saturday, July 7, 2001 5:59pm
Today was a good day. Thanks to my trusty book, Julia and I found our way to the west side of San Francisco to visit the Musee Mechanique.
The Musee, as locals, or at least I, like to call it, is a wonderful place that reminds me of someone else's childhood. It is filled to the brim with the coin-operated machines that entertained children and adults before video games. And it even has a few video games.
But it is the mechanical machines that made me swoon. Where else could I put fifty cents into a machine with a glass case enclosing one "Laughing Sal", whose sole purpose is to laugh and convulse maniacally and generally look disturbing for far longer than even I had hoped? And that was just the first machine I saw.
There were all manner of fortune tellers and "love testers" (including one in the form of Uncle Sam, which seemed a bit odd, as Julia noted. Brings a whole new meaning to "I want YOU", doesn't it?).
And there were many disturbing/entertaining musical dancing pieces. Monkeys playing in an orchestra. Dancing clowns. More than enough material for a week's worth of bad dreams.
And yet the Musee not only entertained; it taught, in some weird sociological sense. For instance, I learned that America's sexual appetite, and the entertainment industry's seeking to benefit from that through sexual teasing, is nothing new. There were plenty of machines of the "what the butler saw" variety.
Every bit as curious as a 1920's male, I plunked down a quarter to see "what the exotic dancer does on her day off". Apparently, she sits around a photography studio wearing little more than a shawl, smoking and carefully ensuring that her private parts aren't exposed. I suppose it's a good thing for the survival of this machine that the 1920's male didn't have the Internet, where such tantalizing photos are quickly passed over in favor of more tawdry fare.
Providing more introspection into the American psyche, there were several machines that allowed one to watch a real execution. Or at least the execution of a real figurine. I only put money into one, the "French execution", in which a curtain lifts, and the guillotine drops, and the head falls into a bucket. Not exactly as exciting as the real guillotines they doubtless use in professional wrestling, it was nonetheless disturbing for me to witness.
In what time and place was it appropriate for people to enjoy a machine such as this? Oh well, I can't say it's any different today. Breasts still earn an "R" rating much more quickly than beheading a person, I dare say.
Continuing the trend of modern day mores being embodied in olde time machines, there was a machine called "Opium Den". As I plunked down a quarter, I watched a Chinese man (apparently smoking opium), sitting in a dank basement, surrounded by embodiments of the evils of drugs. There were dragons and skeletons. Nowhere was there any Lucy, or sky, or diamonds. You'd think that opium was nothing but a bad trip. Clearly, this machine was produced by the same government who slapped "winners don't do drugs" screens all over Golden Axe back in the eighties.
The same dragons were also featured in "The Drunkard's Lament", a mechanical piece that warned of the dangers of living in a whisky barrel in a basement. At least, I think that's what the moral was.
In short, I love the Musee Mechanique. Most things there are only a quarter, and far more exciting than most modern video games, in which twice as much gets you killed in far less time. But then, these are the words of an old man.