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<\/a>Natural Beauty of the Wisconsin Dells<\/p><\/div>\n
And incredible it was. A tourist attraction that started with beautiful river-carved gorges has evolved into Las Vegas on the Wisconsin. The road in is dominated by huge waterparks with a variety of themes: a giant upside-down Whitehouse, a massive Trojan Horse roller coaster, and more. Each attraction goes beyond its neighbor in outrageousness or size: a veritable creative frenzy to draw the crowd.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Thrills! Chills!<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Big Pony<\/p><\/div>\n
Like the original Las Vegas, the attractions at the Dells are impressive. There is some big-budget art design (and plenty of low-budget design too).<\/p>\n
When I visit some place like Disneyland, or watch a well-crafted film, I can admire the quality of the art objectively. I know that there’s a whole team behind the work — sure, there’s likely to be a single art director, but the totality is the result of many contributors.<\/p>\n
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Not so, the Forevertron<\/a>.<\/p>\n Main Forevertron<\/p><\/div>\n Tucked away behind a salvage yard and with little to announce it, the Forevertron is a massive hulk of metal; it is the ultimate “Steampunk” creation – vast turbines are enmeshed in jungles of tanks and tubing, sprouting insulators and high-voltage cathodes, dominated by complex control centers filled with gauges and dials. It is just one piece in a field of many sculptures, most of which are auxiliary components to the overall system: ostensibly the assemblage is to enable the creator to be transported to other worlds. Thus the system includes such necessary components as body mass shrinkers, defensive “love guns,” viewing areas for royalty, the great telescope for watching his progress, “juicing bugs” which provide additional power, “celestial listening ears” for receiving communications, and so forth.<\/p>\n Forevertron: Transport "Egg"<\/p><\/div>\n More Forevertron: Tea-room for Royalty<\/p><\/div>\n More Forevertron: Control Center<\/p><\/div>\n More Forevertron: Telescope<\/p><\/div>\n Forevertron: Bird Band<\/p><\/div>\n More Forevertron<\/p><\/div>\n Both the main Forevertron and its surrounding sculptures show a deep material ingenuity coupled with a sense of humor.<\/p>\n There are whole bands of emu and moa-like bird \/ musical-instrument chimaeras, marching in humorous processions. The component pieces are musical instruments and all manner of other mechanical junk. They’re made of trumpets and english horns and bells, but also have graceful flexing spines where the vertebrae are made of shearing blades or drive chains or cogs. A glockenspiel bird’s bells are various cut-up gas cylinders, while another bird’s neck is a saxophone, and many have tails made up of the bells of dozens of trumpets.<\/p>\n More Forevertron<\/p><\/div>\n More Forevertron<\/p><\/div>\n The Forevertron sculpture collection is fantastic. Unlike the attractions at the Dells, it’s mostly the work of one man (with the support of his wife and sons): Tom Every a.k.a.<\/em> Dr. Evermore. Emotionally, looking at the work is exhilarating, but induces a touch of jealousy, because I know that I’ll never create anything that can compare. It’s a perverse reaction I sometimes get when looking at things I find extraordinarily well done: my admiration and joy is tinged with a kind of gluckschmerz<\/em>.<\/p>\n A mere 33 miles by road from the Forevertron, The House on the Rock<\/a> is another expression of creative exuberance. After crossing the massive parking lot, through the gate house and ticket office, you can take a tour of several parts; the first being the house itself, the others being various collections and, for want of a better term, the walk-in spectacles.<\/p>\n The house, as we learn from the hagiographical interpretive center, was created almost singlehandedly by Alex Jordan in an organic fashion, and without a plan. It’s a stone and wood construction across the face of a large boulder that incorporates live trees, is filled with mysterious little nooks and crannies, and is lit by stained glass windows and Tiffany lamps. It’s got hidden waterfalls, Asian-themed sculpture, built-in bookshelves and sofas, and elaborately carved Indian wooden panels throughout. Surprising views open out into the treetops, and inconspicuous doorways lead to small, pillowed chambers. It has all the power and enchantment of a real-world Rivendell blended with hints of a lurid opium den.<\/p>\n Inside House on the Rock<\/p><\/div>\n Inside House on the Rock<\/p><\/div>\n We are told that once Jordan started admitted paid visitors to his house, he transformed into something of a showman, and put all the admissions money back into the house and the collections. An addition to the house, a windowed cantilever walkway out eighty some odd feet above the treetops may be the first sign of this transition.<\/p>\n The rest of the house is collections and spectacles. Like some Dark Disney, Jordan and his team created an underground Main Street USA, dimly lit, and filled with curious collections of antiques: cigarette lighters, scrimshaw, firearms, replica jewelry, and circus miniatures. From there, he started adding nickelodeons, recorder celestas, carillons, orchestrions, and other music-making machines. The further you go, the more complex the music machines.<\/p>\n Blue Danube Room Detail<\/p><\/div>\n Orchestrion Room Detail<\/p><\/div>\n Organ Room Detail<\/p><\/div>\n Orchestrions become whole rooms, decked out in extraordinary detail to look like Viennese Opera Houses or other scenes and are filled with automated instruments. Curiously, as the rooms get more elaborate, the music-making becomes increasingly fake: the automated violin bows move, but the violins lack strings. More and more of the sound is coming from hidden speakers behind decorations. This trend culminates in the auditorium-sized Organ Room, which simulates an enormous, fantastically complex steam organ, replete with oddly reminiscent “Steampunk” design (Tom Every claims to have done a lot of the work, although he is not credited on site. I’ve ordered a book<\/a> that promises to deliver the dish). At this point, the sound is completely piped in, yet there is still some small simulation of it being an actual working machine with moving mechanical dampers.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a> <\/h6>\n
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