FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(ARNN) North Vancouver BC

From the lush Atmospheric River Valleys of Southern British Columbia comes astonishing news!

In this leaked video, the Great Canadian Luthier Shelley Park in Vancouver almost reveals her special "secret sauce" formulation that makes her newest rebrand of guitars so special - and so amazing in tone quality.

Who knew?

Fermented Shrimp Paste is simply added to the varnish in larger than homeopathic quantities. She discovered this by accident one day after the Pandemic forced her to share her workshop with a furniture sculptor who was never around to help, and Krua Thai, one of the best restaurants on the North Shore. Unfortunately Krua was too close to the North Shore when the water level began to rise!

Next door in the same artisanal studio building, finally back in his original location, is Jim Tsim's Shims, where shims are made for the boat building and cabinet making industries, and where right angles simply do not exist in this universe! Mr. Tsim moved away, tired of the endless rains and frequent complaining of his farmer friends in the Sumas valley. He was forced to return from his former sunny but unfortunately too dry southern Oregon location at the former site of the Oregon Vortex near Gold Hill. This facility started out in the late 1950s as "Uncanny Canyon", where all the buildings were built at right angles to the hill surface regardless of angle, even on a steep hill. This disoriented most visitors to the tourist attraction and it was forced to shut down finally after a visit by the Oregon State Geologist John Beaulieu who showed up one day with his Brunton Compass and made everyone running this tourist trap nervous. Nobody could stand up straight in these structures, which is why the State had to shut it all down due to building code violations!

With their unlimited budget, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries is always trying to innovate and attract unusual businesses to the state. They speculated correctly that these tilted buildings would facilitate wedge and shim making, a surprisingly major industry during these days of the Great Container Ship Shortage. Governor Borown offered tax incentives and grants to Jim Tsim Shims, and the Canadian Government reluctantly let him go.

Production went well for a few years. But then after several recalls, Mr. Tsim discovered that the Rogue River didn’t provide enough local humidity even with the sprinklers, and that the dryness warped the wedges into plates as flat as a Starrett Surface Plate made from Barre Vermont Granite.

In order for Tsim's former location to work and with the cooperation of the other tenants, the entire building near the bridge and all the workshops inside had to be tilted 12.375 degrees downhill towards the south. All of his machinery was set in Gold Hill to work with that degree of tilt. All of the tenants were delighted to find that this also helped tremendously with roof drainage and leaks during Atmospheric River Season, which now lasts forever, except during the annual June Heat Dome Event. The entire workshop usually takes their annual Princess Cruise to Seymour Island at about that time where it is cool enough to lay in the sun and not get swept away by the current, along with everyone else across the border in Oregon and Washington.

Thus one can understand how the Fermented Shrimp Paste inevitably ended up in the Varnish Recipe. Someone simply tripped over some uncompleted furniture sculpture that was always in the way of everyone, and spilled a pot of ingredients into a pot of lacquer. Shelley decided to go ahead and use this varnish anyway, since she felt that her client near Seattle wouldn’t notice with his bad eyesight, especially if she used a heavier coarse grit of Rottingstone between varnish coats. This also stains the spruce to that lovely honey glow, and hides the scratches that are too coarse to rub out!

Eventually the smell goes away but it also masks the nasty Nitrocellulose Isocyanate Lacquer Smell that some find objectionable. Former Covid Patients who lost their smell permanently don't even notice,  even when the paste used is well-aged, since the virus permanently destroys all of their smell receptors.

This particular guitar is the one she is building for the not-so-great Flute Maker Casey Burns, and has the serial number of 250√(-1). This guitar is based on Shelley’s Encore Model, with a narrowed 660mm neck, thinner body between front and back, soundport, East Indian Rosewood back and Vintage Spruce top, Honduras Mahogany neck, and Curly Koawood bindings and fittings.

Shelley has a line of wonderful tenor ukuleles labeled "Moodyville Ukuleles". For years everyone thought that someone else was making these, probably up in the dialup districts near Fort Nelson where the Internet doesn’t exist, since they couldn’t locate any Moodyville on Google Maps .

Frankly, at this point in time, nobody is really sure about anything.

These new guitars with the amazing miracle varnish formulation will be sold under her new brand "Smelly Sharks Guitars". Look for these in all of the music stores of Fort Nelson very soon.

(Copyright Grga Piticz, Atmospheric River News Network, 2021)