violin bomb from the seminal composition known as the islamic violin a violin singularity It was first performed in Paris at Mains D'Oeuvres on February 8th, 2002 by Ibrahim Qurashi, Waleed, and Veronique ruggia. The Violin Bomb was designed and built by Jon Rose and Waleed. Remnants and artefacts from this event are held at the Rosenberg Museum in the town of Violin, Slovakia. A video of the first Violin Bomb Test (1/2/2002) can be experienced here. Indeed genetics must be something to do with the whole violin conundrum. On my mother's side I am partly Afghan, her family name was Khan, which could have meant me doing hours of practice on the Saranda instead of Satan's instrument itself. People often used to ask me if I was Jewish. Plays the violin? Must be Jewish goes the rocket science. So I'm in the minority then or at least on the opposing team. This all came home to me just recently when I wrote a slightly off centre composition called 'The Islamic Violin', it included the detonation of an ordinary violin. The story, like most great stories, is based on a true one featuring a street violinist with a foreign look and name who stored his violin in a bus station left luggage cubicle in Hamilton, Canada. An official of bus company became suspicious of the violin case and alerted the police, who with due care and subtlety, took it out onto the street and blew it up! 'Due to the current world situation' explained the Police as they handed a few bits of wood and string back to the devastated musician. The score of the composition has the following notes on the notes. (1) The inability of Muslims to recognise a violin manifests itself through the entire Lebanese restaurant industry in Australia. During and after the Lebanese civil war of the 1950's, the 1960's, the 1970's and the 1980's many families from both Christian and Muslim communities in Lebanon emigrated to Australia. A tradition quickly grew whereby Christian Lebanese restaurants would always display the sign of the violin outside their premises (some of these are quite remarkable art pieces of neon, post-digestive, calligraphic Arabic deco). Research has shown that many Muslim Lebanese literally DO NOT SEE the violin, thinking that it may be some kind of indiginous pig or plant life or worse, a Christian plot conceived by the CIA (who run a number of military bases in Australia). One could think that the Muslim restaurants would be running a counter campaign of non recognition posting any number of Islamic bowed instruments in retaliation to this provocation, (One considers here the Afghani rebab or dilruba as suitable images to represent all that is fine in Muslim culture) but one would be mistaken. Muslims do not stoop to such low immoral subterfuge, relying instead on the final statement of account which must be paid at that restaurant in the sky. (2) I should point out that I had actually brought a violin (a 'Tortellini' 1751) with me for the good Sheikh to study but after a cursorary glance and a rap on its historic body with the knuckles of his left hand, he had thrown it to his trusty dog who then proceeced to gnaw on it happily through out the entire interview. (3) A quote that comes from the pyramid breaking tome 'Yehudi Menuhin serves Capitalism' by the influencial Marxist composer and violinist virtuoso Dr. Johannes Rosenberg. In a classic Rosenberg/Menuhin confrontation, the latter violinist is cornered as he admits to denouncing Ravi Shankar as a poser who pays no attention to speed limits, Stephane Grapelli as having bad intonation, Rumanian Gypsy music as being 'rather dirty stuff one wouldn't want next door in Hampstead,' and himself as having said 'actually classical music IS rather superior, don't you think?' (4) From the best seller 'How to Blow Up a Violin' by Buttblaster Fuller. It includes a hand-drawn map of an average violin, indicating the weaker, more sensitive zones of spiral vibration where the four charges should be placed with 1/4 strips of gaffe tape (Please note that 'Scotch Tape' will NOT do). Alternative routes for the fuse wires are suggested depending on the reader's level of experience and expertise in dealing with their first violin assignment. Questions of budgetary allowance are always prevalent in the modern day violin world, so the cheaper alternative has also been tested thoroughly through correspondance courses in 'Final Violin Solutions' made available by The Mother of All Museums Museum, Baghdad. They suggest that four 'Tigre Bison 3' fireworks packed in the base of the violin with simultaneous ignition will blow the devil's instrument to 'Kingdom Come': results obtained with a cheap East German Eduard Tausher model seem to bare out Buttblaster's assertions. extract taken from WITH THE INFIDEL, The Squid's Ear.