{"id":8632,"date":"2016-07-14T12:54:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T16:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8632"},"modified":"2017-05-23T11:36:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T15:36:45","slug":"are-we-not-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8632","title":{"rendered":"Are we not men?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruby Kusturd<\/em>\u00a0is made of the world’s largest crystal\u00a0ruby, 30,090 karats.<\/p>\n

Shaping a gem of that size\u00a0into a swirl of soft ice cream was Mark Mothersbaugh’s way of mocking both fine jewelry and fine art. The swirl is a bit reminiscent of the conical hats worn by the band Devo, for which Mothersbaugh was the lead singer.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was able to slip away from the hospital for a couple of hours for a much-needed reprieve. I walked up Euclid to the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, where they had an exhibit of Mothersbaugh’s art, Myopia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It seemed a perfect commentary on the Republican National Convention that is about to descend on the city.<\/p>\n

Three of the guys who formed Devo were students at Kent State when National Guardsmen shot down unarmed students<\/a>. This event was the impetus for the band’s central message – that instead of making progress and evolving, mankind was devolving and becoming more primitive.<\/p>\n

Devo had it right, it seems now. The anti-war protests of the ’60s and even the Kent State shootings seem tame compared to what has been happening in recent months.<\/p>\n

Devo was considered a “new wave” band of the ’70s. Instead of making music that was smooth or fun, new wave bands\u00a0created songs that were deliberately jarring and choppy.<\/p>\n

\"music<\/p>\n

Synthesizers were an important part of the genre; the artificial, non-rhythmic sounds ran\u00a0counter to the measured time of mainstream Western music.<\/p>\n

Mothersbaugh is still experimenting with ways to create music by pumping air through PVC pipe and pieces of metal and plastic. Here’s a clip from one of the pieces in\u00a0Myopia<\/em>:<\/p>\n