In the 080107 MMD Vincent Morgan reported:

    On CBS' "Cold Case" program Sunday night, Jan. 6th, episode enti-
    tled "Sabotage", the murderer used cylinder music boxes to make pipe
    bombs that exploded when the cylinder made one revolution.

    What a way to wreck mechanical music!

On the contrary!  It's a great plot device.  I assume that the thing
played a chorus of "Edelweiss" before it closed the circuit.

Mechanical music devices have always had a certain degree of spooki-
ness to them, and movie and TV people just love it.  Every haunted
house comes equipped with a piano that starts playing on its own. And
if you didn't know anything about one, a Violano could make a pretty
scary movie on its own.

Mechanical toys are even better: witness the legions of wind-up
dancing devil dolls through the years.

Mark Kinsler
Lancaster, Ohio