Jon Bachman: News

A great place!

The Griffin Coffee Shop and Book Store- 2 stories now!

They've MOVED! They are now located at 723 Caroline Street.

Live music every Friday and Saturday. It is beautiful.

Soon to be released CD #3 will have a tune dedicated to Sylvan Goldman. As implied in the tune--struggling to make it in the Depression of the '30s he experiences a Eureka moment and invents the shopping cart-thus as implied in the song may have in a left-handed way contributed to our over-buying at grocery stores. Or at least that's what I meant. The following is a Wikipedia excerpt.

Sylvan Goldman (1898 - November 27, 1984) was an American businessman and inventor of the first shopping cart. He introduced the device on June 4, 1937, in the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City, of which he was the owner. With the assistance of a mechanic named Fred Young, Goldman constructed the first shopping cart, basing his design on that of a wooden folding chair. They built it with a metal frame and added wheels and wire baskets. Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed a method to mass produce the carts by inventing an assembly line capable of forming and welding the wire. The cart was awarded patent number 2,196,914 on April 9, 1940 (Filing date: March 14, 1938), titled, "Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores". They advertised the invention as part of a new "No Basket Carrying Plan."

The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. "I've pushed my last baby buggy," offended women informed him. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire by collecting a royalty on every shopping cart in the United States until his patents ran out.

Goldman was known as a philanthropist, particularly supporting medical causes. His older brother, Alfred, died of pneumonia shortly before penicillin became widely available. Goldman gave substantial funds to construct the Sylvan N. Goldman center of the [1] Oklahoma Blood Institute.

Over the past 6 months people have asked and I have tried to explain the name--So here goes.
The name is a play on words concerning the famous Schrodinger cat physics experiment, often described as a paradox. It is a thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger. In this experiment Schrödinger's placed an imaginary cat in a sealed box, the cat will die if a Geiger counter detects radiation. Quantum mechanics seems to suggest that the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility. The thought experiment serves to illustrate the bizarreness of quantum mechanics and the mathematics necessary to describe quantum states.

So what in the world is our duet hoping to imply by using this thought experiment? It is the nature of reality and music--Wierd?? Well, music creates its own reality and we hope to create lasting iamges for our audience that in a way create their own reality. That's my best shot for now. Come by the venues we're playing and test us on the knowledge.

Continuing to expand musically, Phil and Jon will be combining talents at Wally Cleaver's Recording Studio as the two begin the process of recording a "duo-demo." Good things are coming!!!

Beginning in August, Jon and Phil will be teaming up to play at Frederick's Dining Room and the Griffin Bookshop. Be sure to catch up with us, I'll think you'll enjoy yourself.

Jon is currently beginning work on the third CD project. Tentatively called "Magellan", it will feature in song format the epic voyage of Ferdinand Magellan who's personality reflects the frailties of hero and fool. A second tune to be included is "Egypt Bend", a song expressing the struggle for freedom of runaway slaves.

"Objects in the Mirror" and "The Star in the Cottonwood" can be found at the following retail outlets in Fredericksburg, Virginia:
Picker's Supply
Apple Music
The Wounded Bookstore
The Griffin Bookshop and Coffee
Bar