In which the Third Person describes Hunter's mystery as a facet of "Google."
My discovery, in the DC ruins, a hotbed of Hunter admiration, since in the mysteries he says he was born here, was of a very large document that contains an extensive collection of Hunter narratives. Many of these narratives are new discoveries: they have not been copied before. Among the documents in this find is one that I will reproduce in an appendix. It describes the actual process of copying (called transcribing) the Hunter mysteries using ancient machines. I will summarize my extrapolations below, as an historical narrative.
I have spoken of the loss of power and, therefore, Google which required it.
Google did not all go down at once. If I may be permitted to speculate based on what I learned from the DC copy: Google was actually broken up by a particular raid by the USA government on a particular day. The power was still marginally available. Physically, Google was an aggregate of large machines. Central to the machines was an element which the DC copy refers to as 'hard disc' or sometimes 'hard drive.' I surmise that this component was portable, but required some power and other components to be usable. I also gather that this component actually stored the information and was very fragile and unreliable over even a short time. The DC copy was made by a person who likely knew Hunter, or may have even been Hunter himself, and had access to Hunter materials on several of these 'hards.'
This is a very voluminous copy, and effectively stands Hunter scholarship on its head.
I must make this writing short, as the light of the day is done. Tomorrow I will write more.
early morning, 5-26-2525, after a rain, refreshingly cooler.
Brattleboro, Vermont
Rising with the light, I begin again.
It occurred to me in the night that I must offer an assessment of the scope of the new find. Let me offer that in light of our preference for non-linearity, I will insert my remarks at this point and other points as I make this new fair copy. In ancient times, commentary was appended after the main body. I can assure my readership that this is only the first third of the first third.
Hunter's narrative became known in a necessarily non-linear form. The nature of Google was non-linear and what was called "random access." This term agrees with current human sensibility. Certainly, a non-linear format became even more disordered by being parted out on random hards and coveted through transcription. I am attempting to restore the Hunter narrative to its intended form: a linear narrative meant to describe a chronological sequence of events that provides one of the best records we have of pre-collapse music education. The discovery of the new copies means that this sequence of events continues much closer to the actual moment of societal breakdown.
An important issue regarding the insight into pedagogy is the issue of veracity. Hunter tells his story directly, and if it is ordered properly, it covers at least two decades. The body of narrative that is widely discussed covers only the first four years. Most copies refer to the fictional labels that are attached to the narrative. Hunter calls his narrative a 'novel,' which is the ancient fictional form. He also uses the expression "fake memoir." How 'fake' (in the sense of 'fictional') is it? In general, it is regarded as significant to the degree that is convincing in purely human terms. The questions arise also in connection with much of the ancient literature. Our tendency to be bound by truth is not present in the pre-collapse period. It is my feeling, and again, I speculate, that parts of the fiction are recordings of actual events and other parts are fabrications. Certainly, the "Omniscient Narrator" passages are fictional, meant to segue the First Person narrative. I almost feel that I should cross out my expression of certainty. It cannot be known what truly happened more than five centuries ago. None of this alters the importance or popularity of the Hunter narrative. It is felt by most to reflect the progress of an innocent learning to express. It tells of a time when life was easy but people were very restricted in their behaviors. We enjoy our freedom and appreciate the limitations placed on it by the realities of survival. We cherish the echoes of the past. We have a large heritage, even though from the pre-collapse period, little survives. The Hunter narrative may be fiction, all or in part, but it is true in its capacity to instruct.
Finally, I have second thoughts about electrical power. The loss of power refers to the large global system and not to the use of portable power sources. It cannot be imagined how bleak things were for a very long time. The race (and many species) very nearly became extinct. Many species did not survive. The effects were traumatic. The knowledge of electrical power systems survived, and can still be resurrected. The methods are not banned. We, of course, don't rely on banishment as a societal structure. The feeling is that methods that destroyed the natural balance must be generally shunned. The human in the enclave recoils from the thought of that particular sort of power. The race knows how to generate a 'voltage.' It now prefers not to. That has not always been the case. If not for 'batteries' and other esoteric forms of power creation, the struggle to survive would have likely failed.
The Hunter narratives would not have survived at all were it not for 'batteries.' Without the narratives, the handful of extant works by this artist would not be as widely known. Taken together, they are enduring.
I would like to touch on another set of works and narratives that have come down in tandem and have been compared to the Hunter materials. Composer/writer Paul Bowles is much beloved and well known. His novel, "Under the Sheltering Sky," while it contains a character that is described as a composer, does not deal with pedagogy in the way that the Hunter "Boston Tales" does. We do not get insight into Bowles the composer by reading Bowles the writer. Other multi-faceted expressions have been lost. Robert Schumann, mentioned in Hunter, survives as a musician, of course, but his writing is lost. Mozart survives as a musician and writer, but he does not narrate the period of his learning. He, rather, to the amazement of eternity, seems to have been born knowing all and merely went through an evolution and refinement. He does not, and surely cannot, record his struggle with progress.
I now continue with the copy of the Hunter narrative, "Boston Tales." I will interject my comments as I think of them, and as I work through the documents. This is the truth, and I tell it plainly.
