TINFOIL HATS

Ryoko Oka on tʻrung, Dean Taba on bass; Noel Okimoto on drums, bongos, and marimba; Perry Coma on piano, scallop-shell chimes, sun chimes, Shan parade gongs, thai gong, and sampled maxixe and Chinese cymbal.

As one of those semieremitic persons who idle away their mornings participating in political blog repartee and letting their coffee get cold, I find the snide term "tinfoil hats" particularly endearing.  The accusation hurled at one who wears such a topper is that he/she apparently receives news information from sources other than those known to humanity -- a speculator in cryptologic, if you will, whose argumentʻs buttressings are not of this Earth.  Only by donning the aluminum beanie does one properly receive these emanations, you see.

But wait, we have a question from the peanut gallery: WTF is that "tʻrung" thang, that Ms Ryoko plays so adroitly?  Well, for one "thang," itʻs a decidedly non-tinfoil, earthly instrument, of Vietnamese montagnard origin -- crafted, packed, and shipped into our sweaty fingers by the honorable Mr Do Dung of Hanoi.  Our instrument turned out to be constructed exclusively of bamboo tubes and rubber bands.  It comes in many varieties: ours is chromatic, looking rather like a cognac-soaked French colonialʻs bungled attempt at a glockenspiel.  As a matter of fact, one can easily picture the tʻrung being deftly wielded by a perky marching-band percussionist during South Hanoi High School ("The Fightinʻ Infiltrators") football game halftime shows.