House on the Rock, Part the Fourth (and goodness knows how many more will follow!)

Follow the pied piper from the warmth and safety of your pizza and restroom break and venture deeper, toward the heart of the House on the Rock experience.

Next up on our tour: The Music of Yesterday.

Some of the music machines on display here are antiques that have been restored to their former glory, and some sprang entirely from the fevered imagination and herculean efforts of Alex Jordan himself. For example, the Blue Room, with its mechanical chamber orchestra:



The music works in this room used to be notoriously off-key, but, as with the Gladiator earlier in the tour, we were unpleasantly surprised to find that it had been tuned up as well. Almost. As we turned to go, about halfway through a passable rendition of the Poet and Peasant Overture, something--who could identify which instrument it was?--sounded SUCH a sour note that it struck joy into our hearts! They can try to tune these things up--but apparently they cannot succeed entirely! Hooray! I wonder how the Blue Room's version of the Anvil Chorus survived the tuning. Heh.

Among the most stunning of the music machines on display (and they are all incredible to behold) is the Mikado:



It's a dazzling display of gilt and stiff, limited audio-animatronics, what with this Mifune-esque tympanist sitting in the center of it all, scowling and pounding out a relatively steady beat to Danse Macabre:



Truly, the Mikado is the high point of the Music of Yesterday section, but it is in no way its last mecha-musical extravaganza.

There is the Blue Danube:



And the sparkly, dripping rock-candy crystal of The Red Room, which plays Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and features a sumptuous velvet-lined sleigh pulled by uber-fanged lion and tiger:



Add to this a host of smaller and sometimes just downright strange offerings such as this bear and monkey show



and you have the makings of a surreal, cerebral carnival--with no drugs involved! (Well--I guess THAT aspect of the HOTR experience would be up to YOU, dear reader.)

After this bout of ocular bedazzlement and aural assault, the relative quiet of the Spirit of Aviation display comes as welcome respite. Most of the action in this small section is on the ceiling.



Which, unlike a lot of stuff at House on the Rock, makes perfect sense.

Don't be fooled, though. This breather, however brief, is just a tiny scoop of sorbet to cleanse your palate for an all-out attack on the senses. You'll have to wait until Part the Fifth, though.

Until then, a glimpse at the glory to come: