DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
• As instruments go, they’re a little unusual. But Vienna’s ‘Vegetable Orchestra’, which formed in 1997 and in which 11 members play on instruments carved out of vegetables, has played some 344 concerts since. The orchestra was also recently awarded a Guinness World Record for performing the most concerts by a vegetable orchestra. The orchestra told Guinness that they believe they can produce sound that can’t be easily created using other instruments. “You can hear the difference. It sometimes sounds like animals, sometimes just like abstract sounds.” The group, who have described their music as “vegetable-style” believe music can be created using any object. “[E]ach thing contains a very specific acoustic quality and represents an intricate universe of sound,” they said. “Each thing could be a tool to open up that point of view.” And, for the record, the group say they are not vegetarian or vegan.
• A park measuring just .24 square metres in Nagaizumi, Japan, has been officially named the world’s smallest. The park was reportedly created in 1988 after Kazunori Shimoyama, a worker at the nearby town hall’s construction department and now speaker of the municipal assembly, visited the US and encountered the tiny Mill Ends Park in Portland, Oregon, which – at just .29 square metres, previously held the record. The park, which was officially designated as a city park on 25th December last year, is surrounded by brings and contains plants, a rock and a small wooden seat for one.
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The wedge-shaped house in Deerfield Park, Chicago. PICTURE: Courtesy of Google Maps
• While we’re talking real estate, a house shaped like a piece of pie has reportedly sold for $US350,000 in Chicago. The two bedroom home in Deerfield, a suburb in the north of the Ilinois city, was built in 2003 and drew controversy because of its unusual wedge shape. The house has been sold several times but this is the highest price it has achieved to date. The sale reportedly took place in October.
