by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“It’s like Peter Parker getting bit by the spider,” says Dan Crane. “I drink this magic potion and I become Björn Türoque.”

Crane is a freelance writer by day (for Slate.com, The New York Times etc) and a member of NYC’s premier French pop band Nous Non Plus by night. But with the aid of a simple, potent potion—an imaginary liquefied fusion of his favourite guitarists, with “Jack Daniels, obviously; a lot of Jack Daniels”—he transforms into a world class air guitarist.

These days, Crane’s alter ego is only resurrected from retirement to promote his book (you may have spotted him on Conan recently), but for two years, Björn Türoque was an irrepressible force on the competitive air guitar circuit. To Air Is Human chronicles his adventures travelling to and competing in regional, national and international air guitar championships, often on his own dime, to the dismay of his then-girlfriend and then-boss.

Of his first public performance, at the USA’s flagship regional contest in 2003, he writes, “I’ve played guitar and bass in bands all my life, and now here was a chance to play what would likely be a crowded gig, get some free drinks, and be judged on my merits as a rock star—all without having to carry any gear to or from the venue.”

But despite his best efforts to rock an edit of Husker Du’s “Ice Cold Ice” (competitors only have a minute to prove themselves), Turoque came second to C-Diddy, one of over a dozen colourful competitors who bring this story to life.

“He’s great, whatever he does,” gushes Crane, still in awe of the man who became his nemesis. “Everybody who was in New York in 2003, basically anybody who’s ever seen C-Diddy perform, recognizes his airness.”

Air art

“Airness” is the ability to transcend mere imitation, to achieve a magic combination of sex appeal, sheer intensity and air artistry, without completely losing touch with the limitations of reality. Recognizing airness is entirely subjective, like recognizing porn (“you know it when you see it”), but when a panel of judges perceives it, the competitor is rewarded with a series of 6.0s—yes, air guitar scoring is modelled on that of figure skating.

“Airness is very difficult to achieve,” explains Crane. “You have to make it look like you’re playing a guitar, yet it’s okay to toss your guitar in the air and then catch it, or do a move where you’re kind of stretching the strings out like taffy, something you couldn’t really do on a guitar, but somehow still works. You have to know what the rules are and when to bend them.”

A standard mistake made by fledgling air guitarists, including Crane, skilled as he is at what he calls “there guitar,” is to be a slave to accuracy. Experience quickly taught him that neither the judges nor the audience are interested in perfectly mimed chords.

“That’s pretty boring to watch,” he says, advising there-guitarists to free themselves of their training.

“The best instrument to learn in order to train for an air guitar competition is not the guitar but the Theremin, ’cause it’s all about using your hands in the air to create sound.”

The Asian kids had killed the man

Crane’s other rule, one that kept him in air guitar’s top ranks, competing at three world championships in Oulu, Finland, is to drink no more and no less than three drinks before his minute of glory. It’s nuggets of wisdom like these, passed down to him from a former air guitar champion, that Crane hopes to convey to the next generation.

“There are only so many times you can be defeated before you have to throw in the towel,” says Crane, explaining his decision to retire last year. The two interweaving running jokes in To Air Is Human are, (1) That Björn almost invariably comes in second, and (2) That’s he’s consistently beaten by someone of Asian descent. Due to a phenomenon he calls “Asian fury,” the likes of C-Diddy and his cousin Sonyk-Rok (Korean) have air guitar supremacy embedded in their DNA.

Despite his retirement from competition, Crane unleashes his inner Türoque as the host of semi-regular “Aireoke” events, and as an emcee at air guitar championships.

“Maybe I wasn’t meant to be the best air guitarist–maybe I was meant to emcee,” he theorizes. “It’s good to have an emcee who’s come up through the ranks of air guitar, so that when somebody’s good, they make sure that the crowd knows it, and if the judges give a bad score, I get the whole audience to flip them off. Basically, it’s a chance for me to stay in the spotlight, and spread the gospel of air.”

To Air Is Human by Björn Türoque/Dan Crane, Riverhead/ Penguin, Pb, 285Pp, $18.50