Lots of Music

The Daftest Dream

 

I had the daftest Dream last night. It was quite bizarre.

I dreamed we went to London, England. No airplane was involved; we simply got there.

I knew London as a small place, and that we were in the upper west quadrant and that our hotel was in the upper east quadrant, so how difficult could it be to walk from there to there? We set off.

We took a wrong turn somewhere, and got off the map. The landscape ahead of us turned into a kind of Taiga, with snow and few trees. We turned around, and got back on course.

We stopped in a shop. (I don't recall for what reason.) I rummaged through the stationery, and picked out a pen. I didn't have to pay.

Next morning, we were in a cafe, and I heard the voices of North Americans behind me. In a mirror I saw them, or, more particularly, the female of the pair. She was having trouble with something.

My wife said: "Don't turn around, but that woman there looks very ill. I wonder why."

What a daft dream. We've never been to London, and we're not going there 'til June.

 

*

 

The Bad Times

 

Is it raining in here?

No, that's the sensation of non-rain on yourself. It's always raining, but bits of non-rain get through.

What percent of the atmosphere is rain, and what percent of the atmosphere is non-rain?

It's best expressed through a ratio. It's five hundred to one.

That's quite a bit of rain, isn't it?

You're special, aren't you? There's a lot of kidders who say rain is non-rain while non-rain is rain.

Really? What are the proportions in that?

In what?

In the ratio of kidders and non-kidders, how would that work out?

It's best expressed through percentages. The percentage of kidders is around eighty percent, and the percentage of non-kidders is around twenty percent.

Oh, that's five to one.

Approximately.

Do the kidders know they're kidders, and do the non-kidders know they're non-kidders?

It's best expressed through a ratio. The ratio of kidders who know they're kidders to the number of kidders who know they're not kidders is inverse to the ratio of non-kidders who know they're non-kidders to the number of non-kidders who believe they're not non-kidders.

Is that to do with the ratio of rain and non-rain?

That's best expressed through percentages.

 

*

 

Truth be Told

 

"It's a magnificent heritage," I told my checkers opponent. "How many people do you know who are not only happily married, with four children, while back and back in time, back to the late eighteenth century, all of our ancestors have also been happily married with four children to each marriage? The odds are staggeringly against it!"

My checkers opponent said: "It is something of a miracle, truth be told."

"And it all goes back to just four people: the Drummond couple and the Miracle couple, whose eight children married one another, symmetrically, according to seniority?"

"Certainly, Socrates."

"And from those four marriages came another sixteen children, who married one another in a complex arrangement best expressed by a diagram?"

"Wasn't that against the laws of consanguinity?"

"Not where we lived. Sixteen marriages ensued. From one of those marriages came my wife's four great-grandfathers and four great-grandmothers, and the like was the same with myself."

"Without overlap?"

"We had distinct great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers. From those eight great-grandparents came eight grandparents, four parents, and thus us. And have four children."

"You are a lucky man."

"I must say I am! Time ran through us, shaped like an hourglass."

 

*

 

Don't Hate It

 

Don't you hate it when you think you're getting there you find there's no clue how to proceed?

Don't you hate it that when you're climbing some rockface you have to grab a rock that's actually a switch in disguise?

If you allow yourself to be consumed by these hatreds, you can't move an inch.

Don't you hate it when the green dragon, after having been killed, reanimates as a red dragon more powerful than its predecessor?

Don't you hate it that you didn't save a few minutes earlier? To get out of some situation?

I think you'll have to be a bit more stoic if you're going to survive.

Don't you hate it that no matter how many sheets of paper you use to solve a non-negotiable puzzle, you were completely on the wrong track?

Don't you hate it when you can see there's only one solution?

You should recognize these problems are of your own making. You could have done something else entirely.

Don't you hate it when you cheat along the line, finding there's a crazily simple solution?

Don't you hate that you sometimes have to compute in base 7?

No point in hatred.

 

*

 

The Enemy Within

 

From across a room, they met. He had a hat in his hands, a bourbon and soda was being prepared for him in the galley kitchen.

She came across the room and said: "Haven't we met?"

"Unfortunately, no," you replied. "It's like in the movies."

"Don't you find the decay of nitrate fascinating?"

You wondered if you were in the right apartment. "Sorry, what was that?" It was then that you noticed you were both yelling; it was that loud a party.

"The negatives, like in the movies, decay, because nitrate rots, from the inside out. And I just love how decayed nitrate looks!"

You wanted to feel her elation in order to join her, but you were still in the dark about this nitrate business.

From inside you said: "Let's go see the oldest movie we can find, tomorrow night."

She raised a finger. "According to what authority?"

"It's Casablanca," you said, to cut to the chase.

She sighed, right there in front of you. "I confess I haven't seen it."

"I think it's about nitrate."

"Nitrate," she said. "I've heard some lines, though. 'I'm shocked, shocked.'"

Sound dropped off. She said: "Sounds good to me!"

 

*

 

The Shopping Mall

 

I went down to the crossroads, to buy a little bucket of beer. I went down to the crossroads, to buy myself some beer. The man told me: "Son, we ain't got none around here."

I went to the next town, still looking for a bucket of beer. I went to the next town, and I was still looking for beer. Lady said: "You've gone astray, 'cause we ain't got nothing here."

I went to the main square, getting drier and drier. I went to their main square, always drier and drier. Man told me: "Boy, we don't have nothing here but fire."

Where did it go? Where did all the beer-sellers go? They were here and there and everywhere, and now they ain't anywhere no more.

I saw a light yonder, wondered if it meant beer. Yonder there was a light, and it could have meant beer. The light became a sign, and the sign read: "Here there's beer."

A thousand little stores, and gathered in a place. A hundred thousand shops, all gathered in one place. They said it's a shopping mall, come from outer space.

The beer was cold, but I got so old.

 

*

 

Those Old Emoticons

 

In the 18th century, Billy the Kid rode the vast prairie, with trusty Trigger between his loins. He came into town one day, which happened to be the day we were feasting Long John Silver in the town square.

Billy asked a child: "Who's the star attraction here?"

The child said: "It's Long John Silver, Scourge of the Waves."

"What's he doing in the desert?"

"He took a wrong turn at Polynesia."

Billy snorted disgustingly. Did it mean he had to go to sea to even the balance?

He moved through the crowd. All made way for Billy the Kid.

Billy looked up at the bad-ass hook on Silver's right wrist. Not someone to fight with.

Silver was looking down at Billy. (Silver was on a dais, you see. A dais of honour.) "I recognize you from your wanted posters."

"Yep, it's me," was Billy's reply.

"We should go drinking."

"Yep."

"I'll meet you in the Broke-Dick Dog Saloon in an hour."

Two hours later, they were like old friends.

Next day, Silver rode west, out to the ocean, and Billy went east, to Hannibal, Missouri. They promised to keep in touch, but it was not to be.

 

*

 

Song by Badfinger

 

Do anything you want to do, and I'll be there for you,

No matter what you want to do, I'll be standing next to you,

Do anything you want to do, oh yeah, oh yeah, it's true.

 

And if you take a rocketship, to a place that's mod and hip,

And if you take an aeroplane, off to Paris or to Spain,

Do anything you care to do-oo, oh yeah it's true.

 

And if you travel back in time, where there's no reason and no rhyme,

A fairyland with elves and trolls, and the biggest circles roll,

It's everything you want to do-oo-oo, yes, yes, it's true.

 

Knock down the old grey walls, and be a part of everything,

Sing a simple song,

Do re mi fa so la ti do, oh yeah,

Knock down the old grey walls, see what summer might have been,

A simple song is all you need,

Do ti la so fa me re do, oh yeah,

It's all so true.

 

Do anything you care to do, but I'll be ever there with you,

Let cannons fire and fires be lit, I will never ever quit,

Anything you care to do, yeah.

 

*

 

Of the Clouds

 

With a light blue nylon net in her back pocket, the girl climbed the tallest tree to be found thereabouts. She waited a half hour until a proper cloud sailed her way. She deftly threw out her net--she had been practicing--and captured the cloud. It hardly put up a struggle; it almost instantly resigned itself to being the property of some terrestrial.

The girl jumped from the tree, and, luckily, her intuition turned out to be correct: the cloud in the net worked like a parachute, and so she drifted slowly and safely to the ground. She took the cloud in its net, floating like a helium balloon, to her house.

In her bedroom, she put the cloud in her closet. It stayed up against the ceiling, moving slightly from time to time, like a willing captive that frankly enjoyed the change of pace.

The cloud would be brought out of the closet every few days so she could spray it with a water atomizer to keep it nice and moist. She told some people about the cloud in her closet. No-one believed her. The cloud was hers for six years, and then it vanished.

 

*

 

Punctuation Apostrophe Verb

 

He noticed everyone was getting dumber. The moron-count went up weekly. One day, he found himself served by a mouth-breather: six months later, you couldn't avoid them. Simple math could not longer be performed: he had to count up change for convenience clerks. "This is my change," he said to one such once. And forget about literacy; Nothing punctuated, Nothing with an apostrophe, and Nothing not lacking a verb.

"I must be imagining it!" he'd say aloud, on thoughtful nights alone in his study. He thought: Maybe it's because I've seen everything, I'm over the hill, and there's nothing new to come. Surely that's a better explanation than a poisoned water supply.

But the decay became more and more visible by the week. Isn't this a one-way street? Are they really going to fight about her? Isn't this line ever going to move? Such were his questions, though he never spoke them out loud.

He watched a child in a park. The kid was falling all over the place. He considered his legs, and what they had learned. The old die and the young birth. This child is destined to become a complete moron. Oh, poor me!

 

*

 

The Nasty Bunch

 

They rode into town at noon: Pastorius, Welcher, Dixon, Idiot, and Voltaire. They spotted a drunk old geezer in front of the saloon and rode up.

Pastorius yelled out to him: "Are you the Governor of this here town?"

The geezer said: "Golly, no! I think he's upstairs with Sue-Ellen.

Pastorius looked to his bunch and said: "A walking encyclopedia."

They all chuckled cruelly.

In the saloon, a girl was playing the piano.

Welcher sidled over. "Play something by the Rolling Stones."

The girl said: "By whom?"

Welcher sneered: "Whom." To the others he called: "She's never heard of the Stones."

They all laughed fit to bursting.

Upstairs they found the Governor of the town, in bed with Sue-Ellen. Dixon sat down on the bed and asked: "Here? You? A man of the cloth?"

"I ain't no preacher."

Dixon lifted the lower part of the blanket to look between Sue-Ellen's legs. To the Governor he said: "Looks like Hell to me."

Though the bunch didn't get the joke, they laughed anyway.

Idiot said: "I think we been nasty enough for one day. How's about a drink?"

Pastorius, Welcher, and Dixon nodded. It had been a tough crowd.

 

*

 

In the Morning

 

In the morning, as the earth rotates, the sun, Sol, little by little gets closer and closer. It's a small fraction of distance involved: only some 10,000 miles as compared to 93 million--less than 2%--but, for us, its significance is profound. I doubt the sun is even aware of the change.

The distant dead stars twinkle and are no more, flickering like fireflies at the ends of their evenings. Venus is last to leave the party, such is Venus herself. Her birds are awake by then, and they're chattering in anticipation of the worms in the dew. They'd always expect a good day no matter what.

Incandescent lights come on here and there in the rooms of these houses. Little alarms have gone off in every one, and there's noise down in the kitchen as cats and dogs get their breakfasts. Stoves get kindled up far from here, and fire pits are brought to life even further from here.

The earth has turned, and this little corner of the galaxy has pulled itself alive. Yesterday, oh, what was yesterday? Half-forgotten already, made obsolete by deep dreams, and nothing to write home about really. Another day!

 

*

 

In the Evening

 

These days, these winter days, come to an abrupt end, every day. From December to January, it's suddenly dark. You can remember the summer days, six months in either direction, when it took longest for the sun to go down. These days, these late December days, there's no twilight.

The stars may or may not appear. There's a lot of incipient moisture in the atmosphere, waiting for the proper time to crush all those below in a blazing blizzard. The moon, you notice, is down there, sliding along the horizon; but it's bright in the winter light, and it kind of hurts your eyes.

It gets silent. All the nocturnal animals are elsewhere. The raccoons are wherever raccoons go in the winter, and the birds are far away, and the squirrels are near to distant trees. You can hear someone walking three blocks away.

And, as it goes, you're more important to the moon that you were to the sun. At least the moon can return your gaze! However, all it talks about to you is silence.

For many more hours, for ten more hours, night is the boss. Tomorrow, being built of hope, is only half-known.

 

*

 

All the Pretties

 

How can you choose just one? Why not a dozen, five dozen? William Tell thought this over as he slid his perspiring pilsner glass around on the oak bar.

A perfume sat down beside him; it was a perfume dressed as a peripheral.

Sliding, sliding, sliding.

He glanced over. Not bad-looking, was his first impression.

The jukebox was playing a whole string of Stones songs. He knew all of them backwards and forwards.

She said: "So where's the bartender?" seemingly to no-one in particular.

Without looking around, William pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. "He's on the floor, serving."

"Shouldn't he be behind the bar?"

William made a great show of looking up and down the bar. "We're the only two people at this here bar. He can only wipe highball glasses for so long."

She looked at him. She looked impressed. "I guess I can wait a minute."

The bartender returned and set her up with a G&T.

"My name's Martha."

"Mine's William Tell."

"Were you named after the fellow in the opera?"

"My parents didn't know any opera."

They talked for a couple hours, then went to her place.

This is a happy ending.

 

*

 

The Lord's Fields

 

Ganymede took his filled new cups to the Lord's chamber, fully expecting the Lord to be impressed. However, the Lord seemed not to notice as he slurped up the chocolate ambrosia within.

Ganymede, in the scullery, looked out the window for the first time that day. Out in the fields he could see the workers cutting stuff down--wheat? is that wheat?--with long sharp sticks, probably with blades on them.

I am here, and they are there. Maybe fate had performed some kind of a switcheroo. That tall one, there, he's good-looking, nearly as good-looking as myself. He could be cup-bearer, and I could have one of those sticks in hand.

"Ganymede!" cried Seglinda. "There's a call for you, from the Lord's chamber!"

Ganymede hurried to the Lord. "Yes, my Lord?"

The Lord said: "I was too busy slurping up my chocolate ambrosia to mention your new cups. They are very fine cups, I have to let you know."

"Thank you, Lord."

Ganymede, now all a-glow, stopped at an upper casement window to look down on the fields and the workers. Funny how perspectives change. Suddenly, I don't want to be in the damn fields anymore.

 

*

 

A Couple Variations

 

The 'Diabelli' variations were published late in his life; it's opus 120.

Beethoven wrote the variations on the theme by Diabelli some time earlier than the late string quartets and the late piano sonatas.

There's a goodly amount of variations to it, to these 'Diabelli' variations.

Beethoven, noticing a melodic similarity to something from one of Mozart's operas, combined them in one of the 'Diabelli' variations.

Did Beethoven exhaust the theme by Diabelli through writing all these variations of it? Certainly not. You can theorize any number of variations to something.

It's technical, these variations. Though the variations form was set by improvisation, the 'Diabelli' variations are certainly written sans performance. It's a lot like what Homer did with myths. He wrote them down; formerly improvisatory, then composed using improvisatory rules.

Who knows when the first performance of the 'Diabelli' variations was? I suppose I could look it up, but I'm on a roll.

One way to appear to be exhausting a language is by writing almost the same thing over and over again.

Beethoven published the 'Diabelli' variations late in his life. Opus 120, which puts it among the Mass, the 9th, and other late works.

 

*

 

The Blue Danube

 

Its waters flow through many countries, I think. It must go through Vienna, I figure. The Danube and Strauss were both in Vienna, and flowing through. It seems sensible to me, that Strauss looked at the waters of the Danube (though never seeing the same waters twice) and maybe he heard something from the waters that made him think of the melody. It is a rather long melody, isn't it? I think it has eight parts to it; maybe it's actually a vocal sonata, with repetitions and variants.

Strauss had come up with the melody somewhere along the Danube, if those Romantics were as romantic as they've let on to be. Not that it all came to him at once, understand: I'm more of a mind that he saw some musical notation in the waves. After all, music's just a bunch of waves, isn't it? So maybe Strauss saw the melody in the water itself.

Aren't musicians really good at mathematics? or is it that mathematicians are really good at music? Einstein was a violinist; same with Sherlock Holmes.

Hear with your eyes! See with your skin! Touch with your tongue! You're on my wavelength, aren't you?

 

*

 

Things to Forget

 

Let's go forward a couple million years, okay? It's but the tiniest fraction of eternity, so nothing of any significance has changed.

Here we are, a couple million years into the future. The first thing you notice is how much everything has changed, isn't that the truth? Nothing is recognizable; the inhabitants are not even speaking English!

Surface details these are, mere ephemera to the overall experience. Notice the gravity, which is but a fragment greater and due to all the cosmic debris. It's the same place, isn't it? So stop your complaining and thank me, frankly, for giving you this journey.

Let's look back on what you were, way back there in the 21st century. You were not exactly an upstanding citizen, were you? You did terrible things, sometimes accidentally. Think of the nights you spent staring at the ceiling recalling all your crimes. Think of the streets you crossed to avoid someone. Think of your parents; your poor parents!

Where is that person now? The one who died, I mean, sometime in the last couple million years? He's a fossil fuel by now. All your trials will be over, and no-one will be the wiser.

 

*

 

The Giant's Teeth

 

When I was young, I had every single one of my God-given teeth. I was strikingly handsome, and standing two hundred feet tall, as everyone estimated. But then came the European craze for giant's teeth, and that was my downfall.

I didn't 'know the enemy' as the saying goes. I didn't know they would sneak up on me while I was sleeping, sedate me with a tun of drugs, tie my down, climb onto my face, and dig out a tooth or two. I think they believed they would grow back; they actually thought giants' teeth were renewable resources.

I tried to protect myself. I tried not to sleep. I tried barricades and walls, but the little people wouldn't stop. After a few years, they had pulled out my final tooth: a molar. They really had to hack to get that one out. I bled for weeks.

Now, when I am old, no-one fears me. Toothless giants are more mockable than fearable. I've been made very foolish, and it was all because of European tastes. My teeth were made into fashionable hats for ladies to wear. However, that period passed. Teeth are passé. They're into beavers now.

 

*

 

The Piano Player

 

He's up on stage banging away, his hands controlling themselves, stretching out far, crossing one another, and sometimes superimposing. All he can hear in his head is a different piece of piano music, somewhat akin to what his hands are playing, but with the notes scattered at different intervals. His hands run on and on, and he senses the ending is drawing near due to the fact that his hands are very far apart. There's a bit of what the Vaudevillians called 'business', a few fancy tricks he can hardly keep track of, gags mainly, before his hands lift from the piano and quiver.

It's someone to see, that piano player with his magical hands. You, in the audience, are letting the resonance of the last note fall away, because one of his feet is still holding a pedal down. He releases the pedal, and his hands go down to the bench. At that point, you start your applause. He turns to face the audience, he bows to the applause; he holds out his hands (he's again controlling his hands); and no-one knows how the trick is done, this making of music that's a thousand years old.

 

*

 

The Xmas Presents

 

"You got the tickets?"

"I got the tickets."

"Can you check?"

She reached inside her vest and showed him the two long narrow tickets with their perforations about a seventh of the way from their ends. "See? Tickets." She put the tickets back in her vest.

"Can I hold mine?"

"No. You'll ruin it. You'll tear off the end or something."

He looked down at his feet, knowing she was right. He had seen the perforations, and he wanted to detach. He said: "This line sure is long."

She took a gander by stepping out a bit. "It probably goes around two corners. Concerts like these don't come along every day."

They were now under the MAPLE LEAF GARDENS awning. It wouldn't be long now. "Did you bring the pills?" he asked.

"Yes, I have the pills. Don't worry about that."

He thought. "So who do you think The Xmas will have on?"

"Who'll be presented? In Buffalo on Thursday I know he had BBQ and Sticks. They did a whole set from their movie soundtracks. There was some other band, too, but I'd never heard of them."

They were at the door. She gave their tickets.

 

*

 

Watching the Mystery

 

They were watching a mystery movie based on some novel from 1937.

"She's got the gloves, so she must be the murderer."

"It's pretty early for that, fifteen minutes in. They probably want us to think she is, but it can't be."

Fifteen minutes later.

"There's those gloves again! How many gloves do they have in this movie? Are they lefties or righties, could you tell?"

"I don't think the gloves mean anything. It's got to be more misdirection."

Fifteen minutes.

"Who's that guy? Do we know him? It has to be too late to bring in a new character, don't you think?"

"I think he's the guy from the train station."

"I remember the guy from the train station, and that's not the guy from the train station."

"It could be a disguise, after all."

Fifteen.

"They're closing in on a red herring. It's too early to be true."

"When we see who's behind the door, it'll start to make sense."

"Creak!"

"And. It's."

"TO BE CONTINUED."

"What? I thought this was going to be a motion picture."

"I think we read the description wrong!"

"It's only an hour long!"

"A TV series!"

"We've been had!"

 

*

 

Motel Room Changeroom

 

They were both married to other people, and those other people were down at the lake. The former walked up a steep hill to get to the motel because they had to change in order to go buy dinner.

In the motel room, he said: "It seems to me the government is a Moloch to whom we offer money. It eats the money, and produces nothing."

He had a towel around his waist, and he was pulling off his swimsuit underneath. He was carefully not allowing his to be seen. His attention was upon this task, but he was aroused.

She said: "We have to have roads and bridges, though. Big-scale problems require big-scale solutions."

The head peeked out from the gap in the towel. He quickly pulled the towel close, and looked up. She was standing naked at the mirror, perhaps admiring herself.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose there has to be a hierarchy. Maybe."

She turned to him. "I've read a couple books, you know."

He darted his eyes around, trying to avoid her sights. Where were his clothes? "Politics, it requires.... In the old city-states, weren't there councils?... Or was it all just kings?..."

 

*

 

Op. 35: 4

 

We knew it was going to be a long journey, perhaps the longest ever. How long would it take? What could we take? Did we have a destination? Whom will we have become by the time it is finally over? Would we know, at the time, that it was over? A very long journey, perhaps the longest ever. We had everything ready, that is to say we had nothing ready, because nothing was required of us, and yet I wanted to take something. I wanted to take a print-out of Chopin's second piano sonata, so I plugged in and booted my computer, which took a long time. In my folder of purloined reproductions I found it: four files: one per movement: I printed out the first three, then saw the pages were out of order quite: so I printed again, more carefully this time: they were all in order: I heard the black cab arrive outside: he might actually telephone, because they do that these days: the fourth movement was printing out: only three pages: the phone rang: it was the driver: I scooped up the pages: hot: left the computer on: out the door: and: away.