What are you all playing right now?

[Rev. Rye]

Putting the finishing touches on the Vaux (well, close to finishing touches; We'll need to do the labels for the knobs, and given the adhesive nature of the VAUX logo, I'd prefer to put those letters as a finishing touch) before we send it to John at Minstrel Music for the actual wiring so it's actually playable.



Also, I think I have a new YouTuber to subscribe to:





An expert in German history (and an actual German at that, most likely Barvarian if that Kissingerian accent is any indication) putting his knowledge of it all into perspective as literal Nazis rise back to power. One minor quibble with his little talk about the Order of the White Feather, he uses Private Ernest Atkins' story of being handed a white feather while on leave, but there are so many other interesting stories to tell on the Wikipedia page alone, like George Samson being handed one while in his civvies while going to a dinner commemorating his gallantry at the Battle of Gallipoli, in which he attended to those wounded by Turkish fire and ended up getting shot himself, or Pvt. Norman Demuth, who was medically discharged after schrapnel wounds at the Battle of the Somme:

"Almost the last feather I received was on a bus. I was sitting near the door when I became aware of two women on the other side talking at me, and I thought to myself, 'Oh Lord, here we go again'. One lent forward and produced a feather and said, 'Here's a gift for a brave soldier. I took it and said,'Thankyou very much- I wanted one of those.' Then I took my pipe out of my pocket and put this feather down the stem and worked it in a way I've never worked a pipe cleaner before. When it was filthy I pulled it out and said, 'You know, we didn't get these in the trenches', and handed it back to her. She instinctively put out her hand and took it, so there she was sitting with this filthy pipe cleaner in her hand and all the other people on the bus began to get indignant. Then she dropped it and got up to get out, but we were nowhere near a stopping place and the bus went on quite a long way while she got well and truly barracked by the rest of the people on the bus. I sat back and laughed like mad."

And looking at the symbolism of the white feather, how it went from a symbol of cowardice, to pacifism, to a symbol of bravery used by a Marine Corps sniper who held a record for the most kills, I'm intrigued enough that, well, last summer, I went to THE Farm in Sturgeon Bay, and I picked up a goose feather and put it in the braids of my fisherman's cap. If the ducks (American Pekns all) are molting next year and a big feather is within reach, I'll put one on the other side.