As omniscient, the zoom can be pulled very far (even all the way) back. We might zoom in, too, to see what's in a mind. We could go back. We could drop in on Brahms, making wax records of his improvising near the end of his life. We could get inside a great composer's head and observe the clockwork. But we won't. Instead, we'll look in on our third person as he returns to his wife in Brattleboro. He himself can't see us, or even what we see.
We see him stowing his curious bicycle, made of bits of found plastic and wood. It's a cumbersome looking contraption compared to a more familiar manufactured product. Our man lives out in that distant time when manufacturing is not practiced. Nothing is banned, because banning things is banned. Nobody wants to disturb the balance of nature. The species has just survived and is in a long recovery phase after having royally fucked things up for themselves before. See? Crystal clarity. Eschew obfuscation. Pulling back the cover to his subterranean bungalow, he goes down the earthen steps with their wood and plastic reinforcement (there is much more plastic to work with in the rubble of the past than wood), and he accepts the embrace of his wife. They're shorter than we are (were), but they're in much better shape. They actually have to work to live. That's work in the old-new fashioned sense of strenuous exercise. Yes, she's comely. What would we think of her beauty? It's not the ancient mode, certainly. Inside the bungalow, she wears no clothes. Heat has long been a problem and it's high summer. Our scholar now also pulls off his rags and we can see his enjoyment of his wife. Our gaze does not blink, but why describe what we've seen so much of already? We'll wait them out and try to think of something not so arousing.
We know, even though the third man can't, what happened to Cal. Let's contemplate that as a boner killer. The man, his wife, his cats, they starved to death when the food ran out. There was no beating the heat (or cold, or rains, or snows, or floods, or earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, what have - had - you), but they didn't quite make it to all of that. They died clawing at the dried grass in what used to be somebody's yard. Oh, one of those cats was a hunter and lasted a bit longer. Not too much to hunt, though, even for a cat.
Gee, that was quick, they must have been really horny. OK, let's listen in now as they swap post coital notes on the pallet bedding.
"Oh babe, I missed...
"...me also."
"So you'll have to fill me in on all."
"I learned more about Google."
"Don't google me!"
This always gets a laugh out of our man of the future!
"I also learned that the teacher, Bonkowski, was executed for writing an opera."
"No cocking google! Our ancestors were barbarians."
"Other than that, I wrote notes. Here, have a read."
He hands over his parchments. When he says 'berry juice and twigs,' he's half right. They have cultivated berries, and they really ramp up the color by a drying process. The 'twig' bit is less accurate to our ears. The twig is a very sophisticated piece of wood working that holds the ink and makes a clear line. It's old, old, tech.
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| Calbraith Hunter, Suite for Piano 1974, I, p 1, 1994 edition. Private Collection. |
She hands over her pages and they settle back to read each other. They also talk a lot, but in this future, they are quite caught up with being truthful and accurate in their communications. The species has learned that they cannot be too careful in this regard. The homo sapiens can write. Why should they trust memory?
You might be curious how they do music without electricity. Music, you might find it hard to remember, needs no power to happen. All you have to do is sing and clap. Piano music, on the other hand cannot be sung or clapped and still be what it was meant to be. You can believe (because I tell you) that pianos are very rare. There is only one fully functional piano in all of what was once New England. A music scholar, such as our Third Person, has access and has some skill. That's what he's been doing his entire life. It's not just words. Piano music is recorded (that's right, recorded) for the consumption of interested people by such scholars and practitioners on machines (they do know how to make machines - the bike, remember?) that use no electricity. This is where Edison started with the whole thing. As Brahms once jammed for the phonograph (now called an Edison), so our number Three records Cal Hunter's suite for reproduction in gatherings still called 'concerts.' Small groups of people (and there are only small groups left!) gather around the horn and are enraptured by the musics of the past. The present also has a rich creative vein, as expression in all its forms (sexual, artistic, scientific) is cultivated. Concerts mix periods, as they once did, do now, and will into the endless future. Phonograph horns are not small. Our offspring have perfected the 'Perfected Phonograph.' Necessity is the same mother of invention that it always was.
We've already read the Third Person's notes. Let's take a look at the writing of his spouse:
we quote -
June 18, 2525. Indoors, hot as hell outside.
Some notes on the "1974 Suite for Piano, Movement One" of Calbraith Hunter.
It has been my great privilege to have access to and to enjoy the recording of this work made by my husband the esteemed Hunter scholar. It is not, he says, a difficult work to play. It is a little more difficult to get to like. It's salient features involve a certain monotony, and this must be overcome and endured to get the meat out of the nut.
Our Edison does a very good job with subtleties. Many machines are not so refined, I know. Let me describe the (my) experience of the piece.
It begins with an ostinato in the left hand. To those unfamiliar with the ancient Italian terms for music, 'ostinato' means a constantly repeated phrase. The phrase comes up from the low register and returns back down. The effect is meant to be like the waves lapping at the shore. Our oceans now have again calmed and we know what this is. I agree that this is indeed the effect. The repeating bass is established and a melody rises up from it, beginning as a doubling of the bass in the treble. Here the effect of parallel octaves is a deliberate violation designed to conceal the origins of the treble voice. The melodic voice sounds first as dissonant passing notes, rushing up to a consonant perch. The voice then falls over the course of some measures (8) to disappear 'beneath the waves.' This melody, and indeed the entire opening gesture, is repeated, but the meter has shifted to add a beat (3/4 - 4/4). We wonder at what point Smith, or perhaps Van Dyke, lost interest. A restless ear will find it easy to do. I find the lull of the repeating rhythms and the contour of the melody erotic. I am like Bonkowski's wife. I dance and wet, therefore I like it. I get to the end of the records, and I want to wind it up and begin it all again. If I didn't have to get up and replace cylinders, I'm sure I'd come. You will understand, this is a personal response. Others hate this music.
Getting past the repetition (variation?) in 4/4 time, one comes (ha!) to the syncopated part. The syncopations seem to destroy the 'groove,' to use the ancient term, still so apt. The tune now crashes into the bass and it descends into the depths. These depths are off the range of even our Edison, but in overtones I can imagine the thrill. I hope someday to be able to accompany my husband on a recording session and hear the piano played in the air. I will naturally be on guard against the obvious inclination to have an orgy in the same room. My husband says it happens! Perhaps the fantasy is to let the guard drop. Let the clothing drop, let everything just happen. There is a pause, which my husband makes very long, that resolves at last into a cadence on the feminine, (3rd on top), to end the first record. The piece then begins again, as it were, but in a different key! Those who find this boring are not listening with my ears. I find the swoops of the melody now lead into the frenzy of rapid notes with a peculiar logic. The turning point is this huge cadence. The cadence again changes both the tonal center and the mode. It is usually at this point I find myself wondering if these harmonies were whispered in Hunter's ear by Venus. Mara might be standing in as goddess of love. I can imagine the hot sex scalding her dark skin.
[Narrator's Note: This woman is not an adherent of the 'text on its own' theory.]
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| Calbraith Hunter, Suite for Piano 1974, I, p 4, 1994 edition. Private Collection. |
The harmony under the rapid notes shifts center again, going down (as cal once went down on Mara) by half steps. At last we've sunk to the same place where we began, and the placid lake is back. Oddly enough, the piece now climbs out, shedding again its tonal center and ending up on a major triad formed on the sub-dominant pitch. In most recordings that I have heard, including my husband's, the piece manages to just fit on two cylinders. I invariably let the machine run off the edge of the wax as I ponder the genius that was Cal Hunter's. If I were in the habit of wearing what used to be called 'panties,' I would have to change change them or tolerate my damp.
[Narrator again: Now check out the scholar's reaction to witness how morality has shifted five centuries hence.]
"Wonderful, darling!"
"Thanks sweet man, I thought of you."
"I see that. I can tell. I think this piece of parchment will be a very good guide for the unschooled listener who would like an idea what this music is about. If you do someday attend a session, I'm sure you'll have your pick of the many cocksmen at these affairs. Just be sure to let me lick your ass."
[Narrator here. You can gather from all of this that it's not your Grandfather's future we're looking at here.]
