h a l f b a k e r y"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
login
|
|
|
When I die, my body is going to the local university’s school of medicine to be dissected in the anatomy room. With any luck they’ll find something worth keeping in a jar on a shelf along with whatever they found useful in my mum and dad’s remains. I know what happens in an anatomy room. I took my students
a few times for drawing exercises as research for an Adam and Eve project I used to run.
The thing is, the anatomical technicians and instructors are total experts, perfectly capable of carefully removing every single bone from a body and preserving them in pristine condition.
It is therefore my wish for my bones to be removed and made into a xylophone.
Small sensors will be planted discretely into each bone so that they can be tuned to deliver a decent amplified note when stuck and not some hollow clunk. The skull may be capable of forming an instrument in itself, with distinct zones marked out on its surface, along with a range of small tapping hammers.
I’d like my Afterlife Xylophone to be placed somewhere with public access, such as in a railway station waiting room where anyone could have a go at playing it. A discrete plaque with a few links to my other work would be good too.
(note - I have no plans to become a Xylophone in the immediate future - esp given that I have a creative workshop to run in two weeks time, and a piece of work to install in a local show)
https://www.theguar...rdinand-human-bones
[pocmloc, Jul 17 2026]
Fun song, absolutely no xylophone though ...
https://www.youtube...watch?v=CBJtzEKetBM
Blow the whistle [normzone, Jul 19 2026]
https://www.musical....com/archives/12858
Comprehensive (possibly AI generated) article outlingin the practical issues with making a xylophone-style instrument out of bone [pocmloc, Jul 19 2026]
Expo spectacle sur les instruments de musiques primitifs: Os
https://www.youtube...watch?v=D8o3ACGTruE
[pocmloc, Jul 19 2026]
Necropants
https://www.instagr...m/reel/DX1-Ih1xRNq/
Seamless pants made from human skin. There is a lot of modern myth, but these things used to be real. [Richard K, Aug 05 2026]
|
| |
I have always been fascinated by the traditional herding societies who would not slaughter a beast for meat, because it was too valuable for its milk and draught. But they would surgically cut a flap of flesh, and remove a single steak from the muscle, and then re-attach the flap and allow it to heal, as a way to get occasional meat from the animal while it was still alive. |
|
| |
Longbow staves were harvested from yew-trees in Medieval England using a similar technique. |
|
| |
In this vein, I see no reason why a bone or two could not be surgically removed for the event in a couple of weeks, and then carefully re-inserted after the event. |
|
| |
I'm going to search for online xylophone lessons, [xenzag]. |
|
| |
Poc, buddy, that sounds like a total crock of shit. For one thing, it's a lot of work to get a single piece of meat, and would expose your valuable beat of burden to incredible risk of infection and death. |
|
| |
I thought the same, but it was preheated by John Varley in Titan/Wizard/Demon. You could ask him for source, but he dead now. |
|
| |
I read a similar story about Mongols drawing blood from living ponies. Sorry, I don't have the source any more - it would have been a history book in Hendon Library, circa 1982. I hadn't heard a version with entire steaks. |
|
| |
I would not enjoy this, it would actually make me sad. |
|
| |
They'd probably anaesthetise you first, [doc]. |
|
| |
Oh, you meant the xylophone. OK, as you were. |
|
| |
The Masai drink cattle blood but there's no melodic line associated with it, nor a theme song, whistle, or slogan. |
|
| |
You are describing a marimba made with human bones, not a xylophone, which is always metal notes. The marimba has a fuller, rounder tone due to the wooden notes. Bones would work. Tuning would be a bitch. I think you'd need another few terminal participants/volunteers if you did not want to be limited to a single octave. |
|
| |
Make a whistle out of an expendable finger bone and see if musicality after death is actually what you want. |
|
| |
//a xylophone, which is always metal notes// of course, since "xylos" is the Ancient Greek word for metal. |
|
| |
A bone instrument would be an Osophone I think. |
|
| |
Yes, but people know what a xylophone is. I am aware of a large variety of similar instruments but xylophone is a semi-generic name, like Hoover for vacuum cleaner. |
|
| |
What people are these who you are referring to? Nobody here but us chickens. Will you use this idea for shock value in your event? |
|
| |
"Can't hang with the big dogs, stay on the porch ... Blow the whistle" |
|
| |
//"xylos" is the Ancient Greek word for metal [...] Osophone [...]// |
|
| |
{peers severely at [poc] while riffling through Liddell & Scott} |
|
| |
Osteophone. I think you meant to say "osteophone". And good luck feeding iron filings to your xylophagi. |
|
| |
No because an osteophone is //An instrument for transmission of auditory vibrations through the bones of the head, so as to be appreciated as sounds by persons deaf from causes other than those affecting the nervous apparatus of hearing.// |
|
| |
Os being the Latin word for a wooden bone, I thought Osophone was a superior nelogism. Unfortunately it also seems to be used for bone-conduction hearing aids. |
|
| |
Perhaps on reflection "Boneaphone" might be the best |
|
| |
"You've been staring at that bone for hours!" |
|
| |
People donate their bodies to Science. Why can't we donate our bodies to Art? Not fair! |
|
| |