10-16-2525 Surprisingly cool evening.
Brattleboro
Evening session. Discussion of the "string quartet."
"The new narrative mentions the failure to finish a string quartet in 1975 or '76. Is this something we want to take up?"
The women, who have been lounging in postprandial bliss, get up en masse. The exception is Eve who hesitates.
"Ek. It's not something I want to take up." Elspeth is out the door.
"I'll admit, the quartet is not my favorite piece."
"Aw, Evie, not everything can be a turn-on."
"I think the question is, does the narrative refer to some nascent form of the extant quartet, or is it some earlier piece that was never finished."
"It's even too academic for me, Number 1. The quartet is noteworthy because of the handwriting, which is crisp and clear and well preserved. With Hunter, the better the score looks the worse it sounds."
"So you are all in agreement that the mention of this failure to finish a quartet in the narrative is not significant."
Nods of assent.
"What about the question of the "Milk Wood" score?"
"Again, we don't have it, so what's the point?"
"Parking cars as eye-hand practice?"
"We knew about that from Number 1's research. Big chunk of stuff about Lamont Dixon in the original DC copies."
"I agree. As they used to say, 'waste of gas.'"
"This is a very dispiriting session. Is there anything you want to take up in discussion?"
"I'd like to know more about these 'psychedelic drugs.'"
"I'm assuming they were like our mushrooms. Hunter mentions psilocybin."
"The 'lsd' must have been a synthetic compound and much more powerful."
"Yes, Hunter describes the experience vividly, referring to the nearly parallel timing of the synthesis of 'acid' and the development of the 'a-bomb.'"
"The info on 'the bomb' is lost, so it may be nothing more than an odd metaphor that we can't understand at this point."
"This is a very disappointing session. We did so well this afternoon."
"We had a lot of laughs, but I'm not sure I can write anything down out of all of that."
"Then I say we get back to copying. In that endeavor, we may learn something about bombs and acid."
"Agreed, but we only have an hour before we lose the light."
The copying of documents continues into the next day. Discussions break out periodically. For the Omniscient Narrator, the interest in this symposium rests in the way past art is regarded. Opinions are freely expressed and the discussion is much the same as it always was in circles dedicated to aesthetic matters. We like what we like and that won't change. We find in this similarity across years and traditions to be a comfort. Though our numbers will fade and the glory of our civilization will be reduced to rubble, we will still enjoy art and still relish gossip about artists. We note with pleasure that we will not become prudes. That requires a huge, repressed population. We love that expression is treasured despite the inconveniences it certainly engenders. We find the sexes free to be comfortable in their roles and not excluded from any domain. It has taken a cataclysm to straighten us out. If anything, the walking on eggshells regarding any upset to the balance of nature, human civilization included, is reassuring. Keep in mind that this is not utopia. There are cannibals just up the path. Warring bands still practice the arts of conquest, with death and continued destructiveness the outcome. These enterprises tend to be self-limiting. When a set of thugs have murdered off another set of thugs, there are fewer humans (but everybody fucks like bunnies), and also fewer thugs. The aggression of aggressors against fun loving people like our scholars is not unheard of. Shit happens. Our scholars and their mates and families all know how to defend themselves. They will kill if they must, though they prefer to talk. No one is so besotted with culture that they don't protect themselves. All in all, though, we like this new age.
The lively discussion of the likelihood of a cease and desist delivered to Cal Hunter as he published his memories on a blog, in comparison to a lame and dwindling discussion of lost or obscure music, proves that writing reaches out to more than the more abstract art forms. We know many people forward and back in time that know Paul Bowles as a novelist. Not so many know his music. That's just the way it goes. If you want to engage both hemispheres of either brain or planet, you have to combine text with tune in song. Hunter wrote no surviving songs. His tiny few art songs suck and are never sung. Everything else he made he did with bits and bytes, and they are in the ether. That hardware is memorialized by bits of metal and a ton of plastic. This is the summit of civilization. It is the summit of our little narrative ski lift. It's all downhill from here. I recommend taking out reader's insurance. The management is not responsible for singed whiskers. If you don't like the landscape, send us a C & D.
