Around the turn of the 20th century, miners began using canaries to warn them of toxic gas buildup in the mines. Canaries, and birds in general, take in oxygen on both the inhale and the exhale – so if there is poison in the air, they are getting a double-dose of it with every breath. This susceptibility to unseen but imminent death made canaries in the coal mines a ubiquitous industry practice that lasted nearly 100 years. So ubiquitous, in fact, canary in the coal mine” remains a common English-language idiom for an early warning of danger. Depending on the severity of the situation, a canary might stop singing or fall unconscious… but a dead canary?… Read More

With coming renovations of St. Pete’s historic Palladium, one thing remained uncertain: What would become of the theater’s resident instrument, the massive Skinner Organ Opus 552?

The organ, which had been at the theater since it opened in 1925, is admittedly seldom used these days. But when Donna Guillaume, Dean of the St. Petersburg Chapter of American Guild of Organists, found out it was going to be removed, she had one response: “What?”

“Over the years, members of our local organists guild played the Skinner Organ,” says Guillaume. “Barry Stevens was the resident organist [when the building was still the] Church of Christ, Scientist, from 1970 through 1987.… Read More