So, this is quite the exciting week: We’d like to congratulate Michelle Morano for her essay, entitled The Funmachine, which appeared in Sonora Review Issue 51. Why the congrats? Because it was listed as a Notable Essay in 2007 in the Best American Essays 2008, the same piece of readable foldable connected pages which contains Ander Monson’s essay, Solipsism.

A few experts from the essay:

“1976 is a little expendable income in families like ours, here in upstate New York and all over the country. Nearly every home has a television now, eight-track tapes have been replaced by cassettes, and music technology is the wave of the future. That’s what two deliverymen assure us as they carry the Baldwin FunMachine through our front door one Friday evening: ‘This here is the wave of the future.’

…

“1976 happens in C or D or E, F, G, A, B. Or if you’re angry or sad it’s a minor chord, holding the ominous sound until someone finally tells you to knock it off. Each chord seems like a miracle, like three notes in perfect harmony. As if dissonance really could become a thing of the past.”

Interested in learning more about the FunMachine? Watch this tutorial.

Do you live in the South Jersey area? Here’s your chance to own a FunMachine!