Extra, extra! Curious newspaper all about Leon Theremin’s life unearthed and put up for display! No, it’s not me aping a ’30s era daily just because I could! Gosh, these old-timey rags sure used a lot of exclamation points!
For those needing a refresher, a quintessential theremin video:
The vast, vast, vast majority of this comic (in this case, I use the term loosely) is Albert Glinsky’s 2000 book, “Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage.” It’s so thoughtful and well-written, it even kind of made me understand the machinations of Soviet Russia. Plus there’s so much in there that I didn’t get to put in the comic…like how when T (after so much research, we’re on a last-initial basis now) lived in America, he’d have Soviets following him around and meeting with him, making sure he was following protocol. To keep him honest, each meeting had a two-vodka minimum. T circumvented their truth serum by eating a stick of butter beforehand, nullifying the effect of alcohol. (Kids, don’t try this at home.) Or how T was still trying to get hooked up in his 90s, even blue-skying about an invention for restoring virility in older men. Leon, you DOG, you. Seriously, if you’re interested in Theremin in the slightest, definitely give this book a read.
I also watched “Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey,” but since I got a version with no subtitles and the really cool stuff was in Russian and there were no captions saying who the hell anybody was, my experience was a little soured. It was still interesting to see this little old genius tottering around New York City, base of an empire he never wanted.
As for the instrument itself, the theremin did great on a classical level until America got its hooks in it. To paraphrase Mystery Science Theater 3000, we took an instrument rich in harmony and sophistication, and turned it into a goofy parlor trick. IT’S WHAT WE DO
Discussion ¬