Customer Reviews

Safecracker Suite: Drumming and Storytelling

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If you are a Feynman fan, this is for you. The drumming selections punctuated with classic stories is priceless. Everytime I listen to it I hear something I missed before. Always funny and always entertaining. It's a great way to introduce his humor and intellect to those who never knew him and to those of us who wish we did.

I've about worn out my copy (on tape) and need to find a new copy. I'm glad to find it's on CD even if I may have to search a while to find it. This is the tape I keep in the player in the car because it always sounds fresh. The drumming pieces make good traveling music if you really crank it up! After listening many times I think the drumming is surprisingly good with varied tempos and effects and it's obvious Richard and Ralph had fun doing it. Richard's storytelling is wonderful because the language is early 20th century, without any chance to edit or polish. To hear Richard's voice relating his own experiences is a treasure for those of us who never met him. The format of interspersing the narratives with the music is especially effective. And yes, the "Orange Juice" song is one of the best cuts, if you know that Feynman liked to make up his own words and languages.

Quite different from "Feynman Volumes" (which only 1st volume has been released to this date--Ralph Leighton hopes he'll be able to release 3 or 4 more items, and so do we) in that it doesn't consist of a raw record of a story, but rather in many items mixed up. Other pieces are mostly drums, but most noticeable is a Feynman's imitation of Japanese! or his extemporized "Orange Juice" song, running "gimme gimme gimme orange juice". The story is what constitutes the middle part of "Safecracker meets safecracker" in "Surely You're joking Mr Feynman", from hacking in Los Alamos to, quite ironically, the safecrackers' meeting at the end of the story which is not included. May be Ralph will release the whole story as part of another volume. If you're not too sure what item start your collection with, I suggest you begin with Volume 1, encourage Ralph to produce more such items, and pursue with these.