Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about: There is a musical act that I saw at the Bumbershoot Festival last year in Seattle (who have subsequently moved to New York City, where they are currently performing) called the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. They are brilliant (in both the English and American usage of the word “brilliant”). They are nothing if not love itself. They are the embodiment of everything I just wrote about. They are a father and a mother in their thirties, and a daughter, about eight. They tour the country in their mini-van (which is hand-painted in many colors... why not?) They put on shows. They go to estate sales and buy the old slides of various strangers and then write songs using the slides, in random order, as a guide. One of their songs is called, “Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959,” and that’s exactly what the slides and lyrics represent. The father plays guitar or piano. The mom runs the slide projector. The daughter plays drums. Father and daughter sing the funny lyrics. And they kick ass. Jesus, the closest I ever got to something like that was when my sister and I turned off the lights, stuck flashlights under our chins, and read “The Tell-Tale Heart” to our humoring mom.

When I first saw them, I felt something that reminded me of the feeling you have when you’re, like, 11 or 12, and a not-unattractive girl tells another girl to tell you that she might think you’re cute. Blood rushes to your heart, and invisible ghosts keep turning your mouth up. And if an eight-year-old playing drums and chastising her Dad in front of an audience doesn’t make you smile, then something has gone terribly wrong in your life and you need to do one of those “Foxfire By Twilight” retreat-in-the-woods type things with a bunch of aging, leathery hippies to find out what went wrong and help you get back on track. - DAVID CROSS, VICELAND.COM