jgoska
2010-10-24 17:22:30 UTC
I attended the Woodstock Invitational Luthier's Showcase, joining an
enthusiastic crowd of Audi-driving, denim-clad hippies leaning on
canes. I got to meet Erwin Somogyi, who told me the proper
pronunciation of his name, and also the even more proper Hungarian (or
some such) pronunciation, but unfortunately I forget both and will
just have to go on saying "Somogyi" until I die, with the footnote
that it is wrong. I was most intrigued by the guitar that Bruce
Sexauer, on a whim, built entirely - neck, back, sides and top - of
catalpa (Indian bean tree) wood. It had a folky, soulful sound, but
it was too quiet to stand off the fiddle-banjo-mandolin combo I am
sometimes faced with. I got to strum an EVG Adirondack and bubinga
guitar, the wood combination worked fine as far as I could tell. John
Osthoff's guitars were sweet sounding and beautiful to look at. After
the show I parked at the library to avoid the bumper-to-bumper, nice
Fall Saturday afternoon day-tripper traffic in the two-blocks-by-four-
blocks Woodstock downtown by Tannery creek, shopped the art galleries
looking for off-the-wall Christmas presents for my unsuspecting
friends, picked up some boutique organic bread and cake, and, feeling
that I had had the complete Woodstock experience, headed for home,
grooving on the patches of blazing Fall color - there was more than
one tree along the road that deserved to have a surplus Woodstock
artist sitting there painting its portrait. How was your Saturday?
enthusiastic crowd of Audi-driving, denim-clad hippies leaning on
canes. I got to meet Erwin Somogyi, who told me the proper
pronunciation of his name, and also the even more proper Hungarian (or
some such) pronunciation, but unfortunately I forget both and will
just have to go on saying "Somogyi" until I die, with the footnote
that it is wrong. I was most intrigued by the guitar that Bruce
Sexauer, on a whim, built entirely - neck, back, sides and top - of
catalpa (Indian bean tree) wood. It had a folky, soulful sound, but
it was too quiet to stand off the fiddle-banjo-mandolin combo I am
sometimes faced with. I got to strum an EVG Adirondack and bubinga
guitar, the wood combination worked fine as far as I could tell. John
Osthoff's guitars were sweet sounding and beautiful to look at. After
the show I parked at the library to avoid the bumper-to-bumper, nice
Fall Saturday afternoon day-tripper traffic in the two-blocks-by-four-
blocks Woodstock downtown by Tannery creek, shopped the art galleries
looking for off-the-wall Christmas presents for my unsuspecting
friends, picked up some boutique organic bread and cake, and, feeling
that I had had the complete Woodstock experience, headed for home,
grooving on the patches of blazing Fall color - there was more than
one tree along the road that deserved to have a surplus Woodstock
artist sitting there painting its portrait. How was your Saturday?