Here's my contribution to this week's Ruby Tuesday photo blog meme: a shot of the Mikado Room at the House on the Rock, in Spring Green WI. About as ruby-red as pictures get!

Labels: photo, WI

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Here's video from our first time at the legendary House on the Rock - a destination far stranger than I'd expected, like a day-long visit to the inner psyche of an extremely-creative-but-not-quite-sane individual. It's huge, dark, colorful, and packed to the gills (often three and four stories high) with STUFF. If this collection of collections ever had to be moved, the effort would be Herculean.

This minute of footage is the view as you enter the Carousel Room, the threshold between Tour 2 and Tour 3 at the The House on the Rock ... actually, we didn't get to Tour 3. Three-and-a-half-hours of endless ephemera was just too much for one visit, so we bailed and took the "this way to the egress" door towards sunshine, fresh air, and a semblance of sanity.

Have you ever seen the anime feature, Paprika? One of the recurring dream images virtual-reality psychotherapist Paprika faces is a juggernaut-like "Parade of Everything Under the Sun" - I have a feeling that director Satoshi Kon and writer Yasutaka Tsutsui may have been at least a little inspired by the House on the Rock for that particular part of the film.



One caveat if you plan visiting the House on the Rock...it's a bit close and pungent in many of the rooms. There's a cloying hazelnut-ty deodorizer pumped into the warren-like rooms, to ward off the stench of decay, no doubt - I'd almost rather smell mold than that saccharine crypt perfume. It's a bit offputting (note to HotR management: ventilate, ventilate, ventilate) but no need to tie an orange peel under your nose, a la the age of the Black Death. However, I would avoid any mind-altering substances while on the tour unless you want to pay a short stay at the nearest asyl..er...psychiatric facility.

Trust me on this one. One forty-something guy we kept running into apparently had a few beers at the pizza shop on Tour 2, and could have used a little straitjacket therapy.

More House on the Rock trip photos at my place on Flickr.

Labels: history, video, WI

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Imagine you've just come home from an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet with a rowdy bunch of friends. Okay; so you overindulged a bit on the General Tso's Chicken and the Dragon and Phoenix Plate. No biggie.

Then the real fun began: not only did you have a few too many Shaoxing-and-Tsingtao boilermakers, you decided to get adventurous. You had to sample the fried pork intestines, the shark's fin soup, and the jellyfish salad, didn't you? Even the octopus balls and sea cucumber started to look appetizing. Little did you know that your friend's buddy visiting from the West coast spiked those Mai Tais with something...a little extra.

You come home with raging heartburn and an aching head. The room spins, and you plunk down on the couch in front of an old Hammer Horror flick.

This is what you dream.

Actually, it's audio and video of the two-story (or is it three?) Mikado, one of the "music machines"* at the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The structure is based on a Dutch Mortier dance organ mechanism, packed with gilded gargoyles, a full battery of robotic/animatronic instruments and leering mannequins lit up by a riot of red and gold lanterns. With a flash, it looks like this:



More House on the Rock photos at my place on Flickr.

[*Some call them "music machines." I call them "Calliopes from Hell."]

Labels: history, music, video, WI

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  Gobbler Motel and Restaurant Fans have an exciting date to mark on the calendar - the Gobbler Gala is coming to the one-of-a-kind former restaurant on June 6th! Wisconsin State Journal's Doug Moe give us the details:

...On June 6, The Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Tourism Program will host "The Gobbler Gala," a dinner and discussion at the building in Johnson Creek, just off Interstate 94, that was once the Gobbler Supper Club.

There will be a catered gourmet turkey dinner and speakers will include Jefferson architect Helmut Ajango, who designed the Gobbler, and Wright historian Sidney Robinson, formerly of the University of Illinois-Chicago, now with the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. As one who rarely missed an opportunity during a Madison-to-Milwaukee run to duck off the highway and seek refreshment at the Gobbler, I am both amused and pleased by this development.

The idea came from Jack Holzhueter, retired after many years with the Wisconsin Historical Society, and a Wright Tourism board member. He enlisted another board member, Margo Melli, a Madison attorney and law professor, and together they persuaded the current owner of the Gobbler property, Jefferson attorney Raymond Krek, to go along. Though the restaurant has been closed for several years, much of the interior is still in place and Holzhueter said there's even a chance they'll get the revolving bar operating.

The only real problem is explaining the uniqueness of the Gobbler, which for most of its years had a motel adjacent to the restaurant, to those who never experienced it... [read the full article at the Wisconsin State Journal]

You can read more about the Gobbler's Motel's history and 2001 demise at our sister site, Requiem for the Gobbler Motel.

Labels: history, WI

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Lovely goat models courtesy of Spieker's Pumpkin Farm, Rt. 57 in Random Lake, WI.

1. Division Kent - Plein Sud
   
2. The Crüxshadows - Marilyn, My Bitterness V2.0
   
3. London After Midnight - Trick Or Treat
   
4. Soulive - Never Know
   
5. Philip Glass - Reting's Eyes
   
6. Beck - Cellphone's Dead (Jamie Lindell Limited Minutes Remix)
   
7. Infected Mushroom - In Front of Me
   
8. William Ackerman - Garage Planet
   
9. Thievery Corporation - Tomorrow
   
10. Cannonball Adderley Quintet - Music, Y'all

Labels: friday random ten, WI

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Wisconsin has an interesting way with alcohol. One dram shoppe we saw this weekend (which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of) was appropriately named the "Booze n' Go." This establishment, Steck Liquors - located in Whitewater (home of UW-Whitewater) - proudly proclaims the store has been "celebrating the 21st Amendment since 1933."

The store's marquee puts none too fine a point on it: "GRADUATE THE SAME WAY YOU STARTED WITH A KEG"

Ah, Middle America.

Labels: humor, photo, WI

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