Moog

"The Pizza Box Project" spent time at the Abbie Hoffman Festival (full name: Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins) this weekend. All in all, I was not merely proud, but awed at what we were able to do there. In all, between planning and executing our guerilla theatre pieces, we logged about 13 hours of theatrical time. And all through the festival, people came up to us to tell us how brave and cool they thought our project was. Our show was very well known. I can't wait to see what we can do with Around the Coyote.

I took today off to recover from the festival, and just because I need a day off in general. I went into the Grind in the morning to get a croissant and a cup of coffee for breakfast, and was very upset to receive an e-mail from my friend Miranda that her father, Bob Moog, had died. For those of you not in the know, Bob was the father of synthesized music. Not that he invented the concept, or even that his synthesizer was the first, but he was the person who made it portable, accessible. He was the man who made the synthesizer a major part of the music scene in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

I didn't know Bob well, but I did have the pleasure of sharing conversation with him on his back porch during summer dinners with him, Miranda, and her mother (who taught philosophy at UNCA, and who I was, incidentally, terrified of). I remember he was very mild-mannered around me, was quick-witted and had a clever smile, and that I had a hard time imagining that someone whose invention had essentially defined the music I had listened to as a kid could be so modest, so soft-spoken and well-mannered.

Anyway, I was very fond of Moog, and I know that a good portion of people who met him in Asheville were, too. Which means he will be mourned deeply. His obituary is here. It covers his life more thoroughly than I possibly could.