"Thinking in mythological terms helps you to
put in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to
recognize the positive in what appears to be negative moments and aspects of
your life. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty
yes to your adventure…(the adventure of being a hero, of being alive)."
-- J. Campbell, The Power of Myth, p. 163
"Will our joining together-the linking of our
cultures, hopes, dreams, ideas, and imaginations-into one communications
lattice or membrane give us a single voice with which our planet can be heard
by others greater than ourselves?"
-- K. O. Berger, "The Information Ecosystem,"
In Context, No. 23, 1988, p. 15
"I think spiritualism is where (music)…came
from,…and I think it's coming back to that."
-- Jim Goodwin of The Call The Rocket Magazine,
Jan. 1990, p. 15
"With what seemed the simplest key (
-- Benjamin Franklin, by C.V. Doren, 1938, p. 171.
# # #
Geo's
Vision Machine
Weeks of rain and hail storms had pounded a
swampy, Atlantian Armistead, Oregon, causing a whirling rain of splash from
Jack's rear wheel, christening faded jean and high tops alike, tall as the
village fountain when summer water and power were pumping from the Cascades. A
temporary break from the monsoon god was lucky, indeed. The late dusk sparkled
powdered diamonds with blue black winds. He turned onto Avenue N pushin' down
hard, grinin', headed for a Moon soaked and dangerous covered bridge. His
walkman soundtrack matched his own heat, bammin' with the Meat Puppets tape
"Monsters." Past the raging creek he fondly called
To town folk, Geo's two barns and leaky frame
house looked just like those oil company calendars with their genetic rural
scenes and never a human being anywhere. Moss had replaced paint and shingles
and the place felt like it was slowly sinking, "divining to meet the water
table." The northern-most barn was off-limits to Jack for secret reasons.
Geo made wine in the small barn off of the garage-which was stacked up high
with boxes of books, college papers, bikes, skis, and camping gear. Dr.
Georgette Klein split
Transformation. Atheist-Episcopalian then
bottomland Buddhist, part psycho-engineer, frequent Quaker and eco-manic
depressive poet. Ph.D. finisher in her last three races. Geo was as grandiose
as her nickname; she worked the new alchemy-or spirit sciences, reinitiating
world traditions with high computer techno-séances and transformed pagan menus.
John Lilly, Ginsberg, Crazy Horse, Ben Franklin, W.I. Thompson, Jesus Christ.
Players. It was this meta-mystical boundary, "door breaking" as she
referred to the whole business, that kept Jack biking up here. He had his own
plan for the Vision Machine.
Jack Gabriel placed his palm on the barn door
scanner, and shifted his pack stuffed full of yogurt, rice, bagels, and juices.
"Geo, jack here." The laser light flashed twice, opening the security
door. "I barely made it to the co-op before it closed," he yelled.
Geo was on the phone. Someone in South American by
her "world Spanish." "Can't seem to balance the r-wave tonight
Ramone, we sign off, count 5-4-3-2-1 cut." She was permanently perplexed,
thought Jack. For years the "Truth System" was attempting the down
link and connect various research bases from across the planet, independent of
political boundaries-and only recently-free from corporate and military
subordination. Many explorers brought programming or hardware expertise, as in
the case of ramone, a wealthy mad humanist who brainstormed data bases for the
System, and others like Telecommunix Nurvana Matrix in
Jack pretended to be interested in his food cache,
but his eyes wandered around the laboratory for new print-outs a communiqués
torn from the telefax. Maybe Francesca transmitted a meeting time for this
weekend when Geo would be in Eugene with white witches and other healers from
the Northwest.
"Dude, ya you, behind the refrig." She
swerved off the old dentist chair and away from the multi-complex console.
"Can an engineering drop-out handle the lentils and beer this
evening?"
"Ya, sure Geo. What happened today? Did we
receive?"
"Haven't checked since
She walked out of the security gate, palm down to
the sensor. "Barn check, Jack."
What the hell is in there? He was one big frown.
Maybe she doesn't trust me with some aspect of the System, perhaps to
experimental and dangerous. Maybe she was growing? His mind switched to the
meal, and still hadn't checked the dump ticket for electro-mail. Lentils and
garlic, beer and Ben and Jerry's. He ejected Shankar, replacing mellow with
Camper Van Beethoven. Jack was kicked out of the engineering program at
"Maybe this weekend I can set up the tunebox
and try out the interface pic," he mused, twisting off a Henry's NA.
Part of Jack's grand design, beyond his satellite
centerfold linkages and hard copy form Francesca in
Francesca Lambornii played a Steve Kilbey
composition on her studio piano, a piece from his earthed CD entitled "the
reality generators malfunctioned," and wondered if her father would bring
news of Jack in
Professor E. Derek Lambornii met Geo at a
conference at Harvard many years ago, enjoying a
theory, and ran a Truth System team in addition to
his Chairpersonship and teaching duties at the University of Madrid.
The Truth System actually began in
Vega was searching for a way to tap the 'prima
mater' of the subconscious through the myths and archetypes of our music,
healing arts and dark spiritual past. To couple these powers with technologies
that freed us for interaction in today's global syntax and musical genres.
Alchemy in the era of nuclear death. His now classic contribution in Blue Alien
Magazine caught the attention of Geo and her followers because of his work with
aboriginal artists and the new Techno-Jungian System.
Jack bit into a cracker piled high with cheese and
pickles. Geo was back from the barn and was happily serving lentil soup.
"Two communications came in, both from
"How's Francesca, rock star?" It seemed
that she never took this part of Jack and Francesca's life seriously.
For Jack, questions surrounding the origin of
sound and the universality of music composition were forever churning inside
his head and heart.
Cesca
was researching the theory of archetypal sound or sound patterns that we
process and store in way similar to dream archetypes, made popular by Jung and
others. She believed that our mythic heritage included sounds, sound
progressions, and songs. Jack will interface the memory and interactive
technology of the System with Cesca's music-image syzygy and listen for the
spirits' songs. So goes the plan.
Jack threw his plate into a soapy sink, then
grabbed his Fender Strat, and conjured a tale of veiled lust for his pals hours
ahead of time. Musical kisses: scanned, transmuted, digitized…orbitized.
"Geo, tell me this doesn't break down your
doors!"
"Do you know any Spirit?" Another band
that Jack had never heard of. Geo went up to her sleeping platform to
flatten-out the gyrating energies of international research on her subconscious
(and settle the beers from dinner!).
To bring music into the System meant approximately
twenty minutes of additional patches and frequency adjustments. Sometimes Jack
would turn off the amplification and listen to his messages through his
headphones. Under the guise of musical cards, via electronic delay, he accessed
the data bank for Cesca, for any information pertaining to the history of
sounds and mythology. Using a separate storage disk, he kept his work private
and sent duplicate copies to
The aboriginal date file was quite extensive, as
were tons of others. The System's African information was subdivided three
times as was Oriental mythology. Euro-Slavic, and Central, South, and North
American databases were all available on the Truth System. New information was
sent from leading universities and governments electronically everyday. Ever
since the fall of communism in1989-92, Geo, Ramone, Derek, Schillart and
appendages have enjoyed historical information from all parts of the planet and
some governments now wanted to know what they were doing with their
"mythic heritage!"
"Damn!" His fingers toiled with the
"down" arrow on the word processing panel of the massive control
center. The major challenge to overcome in his mission stemmed from the lack of
detailed musical information in all of the mythic bases. For example, a North
American Plains Indian story describes a young warrior who took ceremonial
objects on a journey to other camps to bring his people together so that they
might all-young and old-live on with their traditions and with the white man.
The hero meets animal-gods and trades their knowledge and direction for one of
his gifts. They each teach him harmonies or songs. Heavy symbolism-and open to
many interpretations. The sonorous power of myth.
"I must find a way to break down my own door
to the archetypes." After the electronic journey back in time, he banged
out a telefax, promising Francesca a disk and a guitar serenade in the days
ahead. That night he dreamed of eagles, slowly descending over a hot plain, and
cool drumming all around him.
# # #
"This profile is stuffed with crazy
juxtapositions, Sir." Baxter was growing a hole in his balding head from
confusion. He always finished the Times crossword puzzle before breakfast.
"Right, and Dr. Klein still has access to
many files in our museums and research stations, although we don't know what
she's after. CIA doesn't dance with Deadheads, and this mission is now mid-high
classified. Tell me about your days at
Mickey Baxter dribbled through his infamous
background tale for Chief Nine-O-Four, describing how he assisted student
government and other radical campus longhairs with computer surveillance of
local police, and Systeming operations with other protest movements across the
country.
"Take the files from Room A34-X and make sure
any notes your transcribe clear with my office. From those last articles in the
New York Times, it seems that this Truth System is now well established and
centered in
"Looks like I'll be drinking with the ducks,
sir!"
Baxter wondered if all this was connected to Earth
First. It was all-or-nothing with those guys. Same in intelligence. CIA was
checking the Truth System against FBI files but this song was strictly
"posse international." "So I'm a reporter again," talking
to no one, again.
Mic had zero time to research key lines of
interest. All of this stuff was spooky. Like pagan craft or this new alchemy
stuff that glued technology into the spiritual.
"OK. Hold on," he muttered."
As Baxter boarded a red-eye for SFO and Eugene,
Ramone was linking up with the Australian lab for mega-mythologizing and a
braver new world.
The weekend brought messages of all kinds-and from
diverse sources. Ramone's recent upgrade from the Australian data base; a
telecopy from some guy at Harvard concerning a speech Geo should do in three
months; weekly reports form all labs from the Nurvana files; and a request for
an on-site visit from a reporter from the Richmond, Virginia, Daily Register.
"Hmm." With Geo tied up in
# # #
"Uptown Hotel and Restaurant, how can we do
ya?"
Jack resisted the obvious sexual connotation.
"Can I speak with Mr. Browne, please?"
"He's in room 13. Hang on for a sec."
"Sam Browne." Definitely an easterner;
Jack guessed about 40 years old.
"Mr. Browne, my name is Jack Gabriel. I'm Doc
Klein's assistant up in Armistead, with the Truth System."
"Thanks for calling up so soon." Baxter
wasn't really rested or prepared for his "interview" so soon.
"Is Dr. Klein available?"
"No, not until Monday. It thought I could
show you around and answer questions, or help with the photos for your
piece."
"Great, Jack, that would be great."
Baxter/Browne finished the meeting details and
opened his suitcase. Maybe it was the cold wet air, or a chest cold coming on,
but he felt something slightly strange going on here. Perhaps it was the
reading materials: hexes and spells, LSD dream states, artificial intelligence,
Orwell's 1984, and on and on.
"Oregon is so green," he whispered,
blinking twice.
# # #
Francesca was starting at her father, on the
balcony. It was Sunday morning and Jack's name came up with a smoggy sunrise.
"Papa, do you know any of the
following late 20th Century musicians?"
"Cesca, I'm trying to format the new software
for our lab. It came overnight from Geo. Why not reference the source bank
through the Truth System. I'm busy all day and won't require access, Do you
know the security code sequence for today?"
Any chance to utilize the computer interface in
her father's lab was precious time, and she whirled and left him without a
thank you. All of the technical personnel had the day off so she could pursue
any facet of her project with Jack.
To find archetypal sound patterns or music scores,
Cesca proposed to gather data on late 20th Century rock musicians and new
composers like Steve Kilbey, Phillip Glass, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno, all
who generated electronic space and sound images with many mythical references.
And the black music of early American blues must hold some keys for her thesis
because of its dominance in rock'n'roll and because it transcended so many
human eras and places. Hybrids led one back to the source. She punched the
security code and switched the input panel to the Universal Data Bank, then
keyed into all the major musical references that the 21st Century could offer.
If only Jack could rub her shoulders.
# # #
Our man from the CIA growled at the rain dumping
off of the Hotel's decaying gutters. Why didn't Klein choose San Diego for her
trip into global mythology? Whatever that means…
Our man "the reporter" jumped into a
waiting taxi for the five miles "over the bridges and under the
omens" to Professor Klein's woodland house. This prelim is too cool,
thought Mic, maybe I can play this Gabriel kid for some inside stuff.
Jack had rose early. Partially because of the
visitor scheduled for 11:30 am, but also to research additional myths for the
project, tentatively called the Citadel Concert. Tea steeping, he slipped a
Steve Tibbetts cassette into his walkman and headed outside to grab the junk
mail out of his mail box, the last remains of physical mail since the World
Postal System Electric Delivery Service went into operation last year. The
grounds were as wet as usual, and the rain gauge topped-off at 1.2 inches. He
still didn't know what Geo's hex meant on the barn.
Tibbetts was one talented composer and complete
player, like many that Francesca and Jack were studying. On YR, he combined
electronic sounds with real instruments to construct a rock-afro-orchestral web
unlike any artist of this day. Jack still meditates to this recording, access
to the soul. But why? What was occurring at the subconscious level? Was there a
mythic chain or memory linkage that was could be tapped into?
All of the barns were wired tight and Jack hit the
outside video surveillance control on his remote flexer for the day. He was the
eye for the Truth System.
Like a dog just back from a run to the ancient
trees, Jack felt good. He felt best prepared to work when his internal energy
level was buzzin', but he couldn't quantify it. It was all-or-nothing, like
music and Francesca.
The Truth System was always on. Warm for the next
search, the next door breaker. Jack booted he mainframe VAC computer and pushed
the audio-visual gear from "stand by" to "ready." Still
time to fetch some brown sugar for his tea. Then Jack was looking for an
Australian Aboriginal myth and accessed the very first data base, now
megabillion bits in size, from Dr. Vega's research in central well
"Man, this video is too cool," he said
as he flipped the control peg like the ones on the old video games. He scanned
by date, still-framing when something caught his eye. The countryside was a
dull red-gold and ancient to Jack, like a foggy image from one of his old
Midnight Oil records. Brown land? "This shit isn't indexed well," he
spat. The first data base wasn't organized like the current ones; sometimes
secret projects were missions of persistence. Tibbetts' drums and sparkling
sounds of bells and tiny symbols floated Jack high above the immediate ranges
of rock rhythm and melody as he searched past
Sam Browne was dangling by hexes.
"Mr. Browne," Jack called into a
microphone that connected the lab with various intercom points in the facility.
Sam jumped two feet off the ground! "Yeeess!
Yes, right!"
"You're early, sir." Jack had never been
on time for anything, either. "Please step back to the edge of the
grass." Jack turned and activated the security System and quickly logged
and saved his position in the data base, then brought the System and his
guitar, still on from hours ago, to stand-by. He then shuffled out the door to
formally meet this east coast guest.
Introductions. Jack explained the rules for
information seekers at the lab: "photographs are allowed on the grounds
only; I'll give your paper some camera-ready pictures of the machinery with the
biographies and stuff from our PR file."
After a short time, Jack noticed that Sam Browne
was staring at many of the wardings or hexes that Geo and others had placed on
certain buildings and trees.
"Ah, those. Hexes; old spell logic."
Jack didn't know much, beyond that settlers had brought many pagan beliefs with
them for protection in the wilderness.
"May we go inside now, I'm chilled
suddenly." Sam wondered what was in the small barn. Jack had barely
mentioned it.
"Mr. Browne, please place your hand on this
panel, right here and then we can proceed into Dr. Klein's lab." A simple
palm test for Jack's visitor, one giant surprise for Geo later that weekend.
# # #
After a morning of compiling sound samples from
Brian Eno's enormous musical library, Cesca downloaded her data to a storage
disk and made a backup set for Mr. Gabriel in Armistead.
"Sound as space," she murmured. But
space depended on perception and our ability to "see music" as an
intellectual happening, transcending to "feel it" as metaphysical.
This idea of Eno's is a modern possibility. He used electronics to pain the
listener into his compositions. "Like a soul pulse…?" she wondered.
While she was certain that Brian Eno had some keys to archetypal sounds, Cesca
considered the possibility that Beethoven could have created similar
"aural" symbols for those initiated into his particular patterns and
historical timing. Where is the Universal score?
"Culture memory; cultural filter," Cesca
called out. She decided to break-off of the San Francisco Rock Music Museum
Reference Database, a number sequence she knew by heart now. Time to swim and
think. Maybe she could get the John Cale later.
What she didn't realize at this point was the
critical relationship between sound mathematics and engineering and the brain's
ability to understand certain sound patterns as music. This recognition
process, back into the mythological, was the door that she and Jack must locate
and break-open.
Rock'n'roll + spirit science = the new alchemy.
Any
# # #
Geo strummed through he print-outs, electronic
mail, telecopies, and the Nirvana Log from Jack's weekend adventure.
"Shit! Mr. Gabriel, hey, dude. Now! Check
this out!"
Jack definitely heard her screaming over his
personal volume dam in Michael Stipe's latest solo project.
"Did you know that your attempt to handle
things without me fucked up?" Jack scanned the security service print-out
and then up at Geo.
"Now we have proof that the CIA database
interceptor is still current." But this didn't get Jack off the hook.
"New rule."
This is how Hercules would channel-speak through
Geo, Jack thought. "No visitors without my knowledge; no rock punks, no
women, no milk men!"
"Absolutely, Doctor." A title that he
saved for times when his ass was hanging high…like the tree moss outside.
"If he didn't like my fendings, maybe we
could plant some heavier powers for his return trip to 9-0-4. Bastards."
Geo raced over to the truth System, spilling her
tea on
"Jack, we need to touch base with the others.
Get a cover sheet ready, we'll use code 40 for security. Let's see who this Sam
Browne character is, fingerprints don't lie."
Jack wondered just how much the CIA knew about
Truth System-and the Citadel gig. "Big Bang II." Code 40 was a simple
multiple layer code based on an ancient Amazonian prayer. In using it, Geo
established an instant red warning flag in the minds of all those privileged to
translate it.
"I'm all set with the telecopy cover."
Geo scanned the cover and second page into the overhead tele-copier interface
rack and returned to her file on government employees. Jack wasn't getting a
thing that night.
# # #
By
The water in the shower was ice cold.
By
# # #
Francesca was lost in space, Senior piano
composition, Course 411. The Professor
was a dead man on a university leash, having lost any connection to modern
music and the arts sometime back in 1976.
She had too much to do with her own ideas, but she had to maintain her
routine, like University. Nothing really mattered unless it was to find the
connection between sound and spirit.
Cesca left the
“Hey, Mister.
Two beers here please.”
“Cesca, do!!! What’s up?”
Sergio produced many of the new bands from
“You know about my sound research, the secret
stuff, right?”
“But where are you going with it? Should you play with this new alchemy? I just don’t see the whole vision.”
“I can’t tell you now. When Jack was here last we stopped our
explanation on purpose,…complications, yes?”
Francesca Poured and pondered. Did Sergio have a clue to a question that was
nagging her? Cesca took a shallow
plunge.
“At a rock concert. The artists and audience are staged and
interact in predictable ways. I’m
wondering: what are the variables that can send a spiritual wave or ringing
throughout the audience? How can the
band be a shamanic force, and the music, a spiritual power?”
“The group needs to open a resonance, or harmonic
channel, and share it with the audience.
The best bands initiate and burn a ritualistic fire of sound and
sight. And spirit. Remember the followers of the Grateful
Dead! It was a cult, with off the
symbols and rituals of any post-modern religious movement,” sighed Sergio.
“So the music pulses outward like a wave? Like in wave theory in physics?”
“Why not, as a general model, but intensity,
volume, harmonics, words, and many performance variables all play a role in the
concert mandela. It’s a living circle of
sound, spirit, and technology.”
“What variables?”
“There must be a transaction, of shared belief,
between the crowd and the band, a faith or trust in sounds, composition, and
words. The band, with the people, are
enacting a modern version of an ancient gathering for ceremony and the fans
must reach out to the performers on stage.
Live, music is a two-way phenomenon.
What people see on stage is critical information that helps to create a
mythic or transcendental relationship with performers. The pioneering group, yes, played
in-the-round, right?
“A living mandela through an ancient staging form,
right Sergio!”
“What happens to this mythic mix when a video
screen enters the mix? And a taped
concert or televised song is substituted?” asked Cesca.
“Sound pulse is diminished at the expense of
superficial close ups or—how is it—soap operatic effects! The union of the spirits is more
difficult. Many live broadcasts use the global
stereo and expert direction well. This
is a complex area, Cesca.”
She wanted to ask Sergio about how important
pre-event advertising was. Especially if
there could be a little or none! But she
held back, wanting to remain in control of the Citadel.
“Thanks babe, see you at the gig.” Francesca headed for the train, rethinking
the “Third wave.
“.
# # #
Not only did Geo plant some dicey tidbits in
Mickey Baxter’s file at the CIA, she planted some disturbing insights into his
mind. She claimed that the Truth System
was working on a new “unified theory of life on earth” and that with all of the
extraterrestrial contact her team was getting, the very way humans commune and
share the earth’s resources was up for grabs.
“We go back in time and apply mythic lessons for a
better period ahead.”
“
Jack sensed that Brown was lost in space with
facts and hexes now or maybe mind-fucked with Geo’s psycho-babbling. The two left the lab to Jack for the rest of
the day; Geo waved good-bye to her
“bugged-naked” visitor from the east and headed to Eugene for a Quaker peace
march and sit-in.
Jack first decided to record a song for Francesca
for the weekly Nirvana Pouch, due out as usual Monday morning. His electric Ovation created a wonder
stirring through his earphones and his voice reverberated softly in the
background. “Another love song.” He penned a few choice words onto the
cassette liner card and dubbed a letter he had recorded earlier into side
B. “DAT was out the door.”
Next he retrieved another myth from the Truth
System, this one from an ancient Tilted/Aztec story concerning the creation of
the Universe, unusual because both gods and humans were required to preserve
the life of the universe and the lives of the people.
In an index from the University of Mexico at
Mexico City, in the Folklore and Mythology databases, he found a reference to a
videoplay from “The Five Worlds and Their Suns,” a 1996 production that
contained a scene entitled the “Creation of Music.” He jacked into the multiple layers of
electronic memory and audiovisual inputs, all duplicating systems:
“play/record.”
“It appears the god of the heavens, Tezcatlipoca,
and the god of the wind, Quetzalcoatl, team up to bring the beauty of music
down to the earth.” Pause video. “From the script, Cesca, the God of the Sun
is opposed to this transference of the musicians and their powerful
spirit. “Stop cassette recorder. Start Video and recording system. “This is a cool production, beginning at dusk
and into the night, and well costumed.
Unfortunately the music is suspect.
You’ll have to give it a going over.
Here’s a great quote from the playbill.”
“So it came to pass that the (two Gods) helped one
another to create music upon Earth.
Music accompanied the awakening dawn.
It inspired the dreaming man. It
comforted the waiting mother. One could
hear it in the wings of the bird overhead and in the waters of the brook. From that time forth, every living thing
could create its own kind of music.”
Jack stopped the tape and keyed the Truth System
to stand-by, noting the myriad of flashing lights and low buzz of the disk
drives and tape loops.
“Interesting, the God’s and their presence in our
reality. Thunder, wind, animals and
water in this myth all embody power from a higher guidance or order. A different place than the one we know
about. But what built the sounds and
songs of the myths that we have today?
And how are we creating the soundtracks of our children’s mythology?”
Perhaps natural, or ambient, sounds held some
promise—and certainly Cesca was putting together important sources from modern
composers. But does rock music have the
power of myth? Their vision, now a
spark, sought a power that had existed all around us for ages. One door to a billion handles into the universal
soul.
Jack jumped down from the controls with his
messages for Francesca, but not before checking the security monitors and
electronic door locks of the grounds.
The small barn stood alone, systems all ok, but gripped Jack in a
strange way. He wanted in—even with the
scolding that hung like and
“This there a secret way in there?”
Palm down, lights and heat reset, Jack headed to
the square in
Inside the small barn, really more a fortified
bunker than a shed, an internal satellite dish rotated to download the next
signal from the Truth System, this one a linkage from Ramone in
But with results far, far advanced from the kite
and string in the time of
And she knew everything there was to know
about Jack and Francesca.
# # #
In lower Spanish schools, they taught children a
meditation, full of sunsets and ocean birds and sounds of gentle rain s on
coastal rooftops. But now Francesca was
strapped and booted into the Truth System and hyperspace—and she remembered the
sequence of image codes that unlocked a big, white door to another place. Each time she saw a key image or feeling,
like the sounds of the waves at the beach, she replaced it with a new sign from
Jack’s work with mythic symbology. She
wanted to discover how her memory, in combination with the System and retooled
meditation, could work to produce information on archetypical sounds.
They needed to select four mythic channels, to
experience through the Truth System interface, and she saw a possibility. By duplicating the sounds of the ancients in
a modern format, they might finally break the storyteller’s door into super
consciousness.
“Play.”
She was hovering, soul-flexing with the soundtrack
of the Toltec place. Francesca smiled
under the weight of love and technology and waited for the light.
# # #
The lightning was slamming into Ramone’s
mountaintop lab, streaking down two shiny poles, lightning rods for a spooky
mountain plan. The power activated a
myriad of recording and collection devices, which Ramone analyzed and
repackaged for the others in the System.
All physical aspects of the flash and sound where described in microscopic
detail, while the experimental conversion process developed a different
analysis with the mainframe back in
In modern time, weather forces still influence our
global mythic theatre, especially in the powerful imaginations of
children. Geo knew that we are emotionally
vulnerable during violent natural events, and even falling snow triggers
certain emotional cues, as does a bright sunny morning. The weather effects our states. It is these catalytic orientations, or
semi-conscious awarenesses, that she explores through the new alchemy. Lightning brought a global energy net through
the wizard Ben Franklin. But there were
alternate mythical sources, too. She
believed that once the “kinetic shroud” was peeled away, a spirit would reside.
Lightning is the door she was determined to
break. One hot cosmic baby.
# # #
The truth System was the dictionary/tutor of every
student’s wildest dreams. Of course, the
entire database accessed the best libraries of the new Century. Jack switched off his guitar, with Eric
Johnson in mind. Data file.
Atmospherics” (Harv\024\vr\min:X) 1. Radio and Television noise in a radio
receiver; or randomly distributed white spots or bands on the screen of a
television receiver, caused by interference from natural electromagnetic disturbances
in the atmosphere. 2. A special sound or
light effect created for live rock music or theatre. See Harv\025\vr:
“Isn’t this strange,” Jack leaned back, headset in
the two cushion rest from some deadhead Armistead dentist. “Where was I reading about new research on
naturally occurring sounds?”
In the den, where Geo was coating her objects
d’art with dust, the wood stove was cooing and hissing softly. Jack rummaged through piles of popular and
scientific journals, trying to connect a weak memory with a current quest. Mars
Magazine, Sierra World Journal, Public TV Guide. “Ha!” Weather\Window. An obscure quarterly published by an
international team of scientists stationed on the moon since 1997. One of many electronic mail journals that was
available on disk or directly from a public access database at NASA. Geo had printed a hard copy.
She had left it on the kitchen table about a week
ago and Jack remembered the dot-matrix style cover, a cool graphic illustrating
how lightning was brought into a container, but he couldn’t decipher the image
and it had restarted a strange rumble inside of him,…”butterflies of
electricity.”
Geo had spilled coffee on page 3. On page 15, he noticed some scribblings on an
article entitles “Earth Storms and Electromagnetic Phenomenon: New Paradigms
from the Moon Meteorological Station.
“Sun spots, gravity flux quotients, orbit vectors, weather charts,
rock’n’roll!” Suddenly he jumped back,
and stared up at the ceiling beams and the fire shadow angels.
The text read:
“…we are learning more about the power of sun spots and their effect on
planetary weather and it appears certain…”
Jack turned the page and glanced at the right margin where Geo had
written: “check print-out from Ramone
against this electromagnetic valence chart,” with a reminder to “check
lightning antennae alignment in small barn a.s.a.p.” He hacked into the Truth System,
shaking. He loaded the magazine and sent
a copy to Francesca. He couldn’t get
into the small barn. He had tried, but
now he could pursue this train of thought, that had started with Ben Franklin’s
discovery. A kite, string, and a
key. ZZZaappp! The Moon!
“Why was Geo secretly studying lightning? How does it relate to mythology? Did she want me to find that magazine?” Jack was talking to the Universe again, and
to no one.
Synchronicity was knocking on Jack’s door. Would he challenge his friend and hero? A ladder of trust needed a sturdy wall to
lean on. He would climb as slow as
possible.
# # #
Francesca was deep into her subconscious, in a
trance induced by a spirit science marriage.
She was actually picking apart the ancient melodies from the Toltec
play, searching for archetypical qualities, patterns, or symbols. Through its meta-psycho sensors, her journey
was recorded for later study. It could
even record the dream state but few ever wanted reruns.
She was wanted on the outside and a small skin
prod device gently vibrated and brought her out of the meditation. It was a message from Armistead “What did the
“great satellite” bring this time?”
# # #
Jack had just slipped into his sleeping bag after
refueling the stove when he felt Geo’s presence. He had crashed in the den after stirring
through galaxies of database information; the
System was still printing articles,
bibliographies, and abstracts. When Geo
swept into the kitchen, she knew he was working.
“Jack, I think it’s time you met Jami.”
Geo dribbled teas on the way to the mystery barn
while Jack tip-toed right behind. He
wasn’t sure he was awake, everything was moving so quickly. She placed her palm on the security pad and
motioned him to do the same; she turned the key and hit the lights. A robot whirled, sputtered, and extended its
communication sensors in a quick, steady pace toward them.
“G/999/RED.PROEP/XERA.” Geo commanded!
The robot’s front panel zipped down and
immediately replied to Geo’s verbal access code: “Greetings Dr. Klein. Did you take your vitamins today? Please log-in unidentified visitor.”
Geo entered some numbers, pressed some buttons and
validated a new code sequence for Jack to use.
From then on, he was in the lightning barn.
“I know about the Citadel Concert,” she said.
“The what?”
Jack was beyond himself now. He
plopped right down on an Indian rug under his feet, in awe of the laboratory he
once thought was a pot factory. “Jesus!”
“That’s the name Shillart saw when he read one of
your secret messages to Francesca by mistake.
He believes that our secret energy source, given that the correct
engineering applications can be designed, can be a way to your “archetypical
séance video groove-in.” Door breaking!
“I should have realized that you would know what I
was sourcing—and sending to
“Hell no, Romeo face! Come on, let’s fix breakfast and I’ll explain
where we’re at with Jami the robot boy and the lightning transformer
process. The way we know myth and our ancient
heritage is about to explode, Jacko!”
“
“What is the barrier?” Jack was astounded.
“Think of it like as intermittent stream. When the rains come, water is now a spiritual
or mythical current that only flows during violent, natural happenings. And lightning, right!
We are unraveling a universal DNA or met code,
first discovered by the weather pioneers from the moon station. You read about it last evening! I put that into your face on purpose, buddy.”
“The barrier is really our own ignorance,
too! It is time to access the spirit
inside each of us. We now have the force
to activate myth, and we can power the new alchemy. Perhaps, though music, we can synthesize a
global advancement in human understanding, a second communion and begin a world
healing!”
“Door breakin’.”
“Door motherfuckin’ breakin’, palsy.”
Jack started for the phone before it rang: Francesca?!!
“Have you heard the same speal I did? The Citadel Project is out. Tell me about the lightning lab! Have you interfaced the containment vessel
yet?” Francesca finally paused for a
breath.
“You’re coming over here, Cesca, a.s.a.p. God, what a cool drop of love this is!” What do you mean, the containment vessel?”
said Jack.
“Didn’t Geo turn you on to the schematics and
research tapes?”
“No. We saw
the barn lab and Jami the robot. She rapped
about a force derived from lightning, and a braver new world.” He looked back at Geo, now at the controls,
headphones on, tied into an expanding world.
“Oz reincarnate.”
“Honey, what about school?”
No problem, I can give my Senior Recital early and
be there in four days, max.” Jack loved
it when her Spanish and street jargon mixed.
He loved her.
“Bring everything not duplicated here. Let’s talk again when you get a flight.”
Jack left the laboratory and walked to his
meditation spot along
# # #
Jack viewed the disk from the lightning lab and
discovered that Geo and the others had named the secret project, “Grail
II.” He always loved the story of the
sacred cup and its many reincarnations.
Two days from now, he would dream about the vessel that Joseph of Arimathea
used to collect Christ’s blood as he was taken down from the cross. But he would also see a second
transformation, a loud blast of light entering a chamber—causing a bright glow
and much happiness on the foggy faces around it! A living, mythic fire, and a vivid signal
from his subconscious.
With complete security clearance, his palm ID
opened the steel doors to the small barn and the low humming of Jami’s monoped
track. A sound reminiscent of his
boyhood toys.
“Greetings, rock star!” Geo had programmed his
lexicon. Stay tuned…
“Jesus.
Hey, lost in space! Jami, access
the Central Communication System while I’m here, please. Let me know if we receive any telecopys.”
“From
“From the moon, from the Deli, from the Quaker
softball tournament, little man.” Jack added.
Jack leaned up against a mainframe cabinet at Jami
whipped through start-up procedures, booting Grail II into “orbit.”
The schematic that Cesca mentioned showed four
stages in the operation of the new alchemy.
It began with the raw source, the lightning energy, comprised of sound
waves and electromagnetic articles and an unknown force X that Geo believed was
a mythical rope that bound the two fields together into a paranormal electrical
energy field with applications for the Truth System and the Citadel Concert.
Phase Two is a separation and storage process that
breaks the raw force apart for study and containment. Step Three realigns the forces and allows the
researcher to work with each one alone or in combinations. And Phase Four is a complex engineering
prayer at this point, one that brings Grail II into the Truth System. A final linkage that deeps the operations
staff on the interface grid for twelve hours each day.
“Jack. Try this on.” It looked like an old leather bicycle helmet,
but up-close it was a resin based skull from with velcro pads—covered with
wires. “Frankenstein wasn’t subjected to
this attire, Geo.”
“Phase Four.
The System has chosen me to interface Grail II. Ramone is researching lightning from the
remote station in
“Your robot is a god damn comic brat!”
“Love it to death!” Geo extracted her “hell helmet” from Jack’s
head and slotted another hard disk into Jami’s metal back. “Remember Mister. We are on full security from here on
out. Take extra care. Sleep in the den.”
Jack returned to his study of the third stage and
stared at the containment vessel in wonder.
Geo said that a small amount of energy had been delivered by Air Express
yesterday and more was on the way from Ramone’s team. “Force X could be the greatest discovery
since,…” he said.
“…since the pet rock.” Jami didn’t miss a beat!
Cesca had an ancient Pat Metheny tape in her
personal stereo: “American Garage.” “Full circle” on side B, a gift from a guy
still tow thousand miles out. Her flight
was refueling in
# # #
She read Ego’s initial research notes:
“lightning is a causal agent, or catalyst, and in
many ways revealing to us in that it is an apex of the weather System of the
planet—the angel and song of the coming storm—and a true natural power source
which directly aided the chemical transformation of the early earth. The spark of the gods. Zeus is well known in mythology for his
lightning rods. They are mind shaking
and soul stirring messages, a thundering ancient musical timbre in our
archetypical orchestra."
Geo’s rough treatise concluded: “The primordial soup, an angry, churning
prehistory, still remains in our collective souls, in our constant mistreatment
of our bodies – in a dying planetary biosphere.
We have been shown a new way now.
Let us all double our efforts to reveal the power of the Grail II
force.”
# # #
Jack Gabriel drove north toward the
# # #
Over
She stirred and yawned with the tilting of the
supersonic jet, papers spilling onto the floor of the cabin. "“hit.”
She slowly gathered the forth myth for the Citadel Concert, a story with
a moral message and a powerful musical dimension.
From her notes: “Gassire’s Lute” is a tale of a
warrior who choose to attain immortality at the expense of his family and
people, unusual in world mythology because the hern usually acquires great fame
by helping his people.
Gassire’s Lute was an African myth from an
aristocratic tribe called the Fasa, later known as the Soninke, who lived in
what is now roughly modern day
Gassire led son after son into battle, only to
stain his lute with their blood and deaths.
His lute sang a great but tragic battle song, which caused the death of
his father King and the disappearance of Wagadu. Gassire choose fame over life itself.
This would be an important song as they wove their
Concert spell. Would it compare to
Souza, or to Nazi battle hymns? Country Joe and the Fish at
# # #
Neither one wanted the kiss to end but an
involuntary force broke their touch and words spilled out like rollerball
players at the start of the world championships. The lovers spoke rapidly of the not so secret
Citadel Concert, of the CIA spook, of hexes and robots, and their vision. The new alchemy had lugged them into a world
of global information and an electronic community and now the good “Big Brother
of the
“There is much testing to do, as you know,”
explained Jack. Geo’s lab required the
prima matter, or Force X, from another collector because lightning wasn’t
common in their coastal climate. Ramone
was sending all he could from the mountaintop in
Francesca stared out the window at the
“Right.
Right.”
“Grail II is utilizing a spiritual force so we
must be aware of our own psychic balance when we jack-in. As in positive/negative aspects of
electricity, certain spiritual polarities are sure to be formatted and
aligned.”
“When can we begin to search for the cup?”
“Tomorrow, Cesca.
Tomorrow we rock with Prometheus!”
# # #
Geo let the lovers sleep until
Jack grabbed the pile of telecopies and the
Nirvana Log and sat down to update with a cup of coffee. Francesca was one long, purring smile,
stretching into the downstairs shower.
Jack still hadn’t researched the last myth that Cesca had selected.
“Honey, what material do you have from the Fasa
tale? What’s on that floppy you showed
us last night?”
Cesca shouted between shampoo and
conditioner: “On my disk, you’ll find
the files go something like: my notes; test and references; and a critique of a
movie called “Grassire’s Battle” that was produced by Africa One T.V. and the
BBC in 1994 for the Sudanese People’s Celebration. I didn’t have time to boot a copy of the
program before I left. It won an award
that year.”
“Thanks honey.
Your father sends his regards this morning. How’s the hot water doin’?”
“Eat your pancakes, angel!”
Jack heard a van pull up outside of the laboratory
and went to see the shipment from Ramone.
It was marked “Experimental,” “Fragile,” and “Inert Substance.” He saw the irony. He was just as volatile as the canister, and
soon to connect to its magical contents.
Geo waved the driver off and radioed for Jami to carry the small crate
to the Grail II barn.
“Hey lover boy!”
But Jack ignored yet another programmed ribbing.
“Jami baby, please transport shipment four to the
lab for me; we’ll see ya after breakfast.
Let’s pig, Jack.” Geo was hungry.
Jami’s retractable arms scooped up the box as he
whirled and headed for the security door.
Jack called:
“Don’t drop it!” Jami retorted
with a slow, low electric sound that amazed both Geo and Jack: “Wonder butt.”
# # #
Around
They experimented with the transformed particles
from the lightning, analyzing its effect on test animals, later release
unharmed. Francisca recalled that Ben
Franklin “shocked” his dinner to dinner to death when he first began his
experiments back in the 18th Century. The new alchemy, through Geo’s helmet and
second running of the Holy Grail, failed to neither kill nor enlighten her
technicians. Routine medical research
showed that the Force had many similar characteristics to nervous and
electro-chemical properties in the brain, and curiously enough, when the Australian
team finally interfaced with
Jack and Francesca moved their work on
archetypical sounds into the small barn, furthering their understanding of the
four myths that would be the template to the sounds of the Citadel
Concert. The couple were something to
marvel at. Each morning, after a run
along
“Right Geo needs to adjust the frontal plate,
otherwise, an angelic fit.”
“O.K.
What’s doing here? What are you
doing when they throw the switch?”
Francesca laughed. “This is
launch control, sugarman.”
“One, control breathing; two, total body
relaxation; three, activate visual and database program interfaces. Journey One bound.”
“Remember, I’ll be recording this adventure, so
don’t touch any controls after you activate the System. Geo will monitor the rest.”
“All set. I
wonder if Jami has finished the critique?”
Before the Grail research was revealed to them,
Jack Cesca projected their own door breaking—with the Truth System and it’s
enormous global database. They predicted
that information stored and accessed through the machine could be used as a
catalyst for opening up the subconscious, tapping a common evolution of sound
and a quilted global heritage—unknown energies in initiated, then focused by
meditation. They would play and record
the sounds of the mythic auger in a super technological psycho-theater. Breaking doors from first level sources
inward, toward the infinite soul; stripping away unnecessary noise and
Centuries of cross-cultural mutations to discover the sounds first responsible
for the God’s of mythology. Francesca believed
that archetypal sounds were constructed prior—and along with—archetypal dream
symbols and that Geo’s hypothesis concerning a spiritual syzygy between
naturally occurring sound and early experiences by prehistoric people was
true. Composer and singer Steve Kilbey
believes that music is magic, and evidence of another energy force or spirits
that played on earth before the time of man.
And that this power/presence is still with us today. Witness his Hex recordings and film series.
Jami had the script from the first myth critiques
and rewritten by the time they had returned to the lab. Technicians were taking readings from the
containment vessel and Geo was suggesting electrical modifications over the
intercom. The atmosphere was festive,
like under the big top in a small town just before showtime.
# # #
Jack had chosen the aboriginal myth first because
of the great support available to him from the Australian lab, including an
authentic painting of a Dreaming that would guide their efforts. Teamwork with Shillart’s people had established
definitive mythic motifs and symbolic archetypes that Francesca hoped would
open pathways to archetypical sounds in the origins of west central aboriginal
ceremonies and songs.
Jack noted certain modifications to Journey One
and made adjustments in detail and sequence.
Schillart had sent the painting to Jack as a birthday gift last year and
Jack placed its videotaped image in their meditation script, calling for
close-ups of the intricate dots, similar to, but years prior to, the
impressionists. In the style of the
painters, as they told a living and complex tale of ancestral beings that were
very much in present time to the myth keeper and his people. The painting would help Jack relax and to
initiate his mediation. Jami though it
very hypnotic at close range. Few
non-aboriginals had access to the meaning of this mythic dreaming and Jack
realized that if their mission to its sounds was successful, the Truth System
would have to ask permission to use any aspects of it. The experiment thus began within a sacred
mystique and trust.
Blue Lake Dreaming involved a young man who must
travel across his ancestral landscape to an annual gathering of tribal men and
spirits by a very old lake. As part of
their ceremony, the initiated sang songs to the Sky and Water beings.
The Jami broke the humming inter-human matrix of
minds and machines with data speak:
“The religious system of the aborigines is based
on the inseparability of territory, people, and mythical ancestors. The concept of the Dreaming refers to the
ancestral past, to the ancestral beings and their actions, to a given time
space itinerary of places across the landscape, and to dreams themselves in
which sequences of the ancestral past were revealed. The Dreaming is also the sacred web of the present,
the driving force that guides and channels the here and now. The Aboriginal people see the landscape as
alive with the power of the ancestors and, at the same time, humanized in its
essential oneness with the people.”
# # #
Someone at the Armistead Record Newspaper had
called the lab, inquiring as to the large number of new staff at the
facility. And soon thereafter
Old Doc Klein was too consumed with bugs on a
grander scale. Countdown to Test One,
including Francesca and Jack’s Journey One experiment, was less than fifteen
hours away. The Truth System was on red
alert. They would collect the source
material from the Grail II process and initiate Jack’s vision during off-peak
hours so that the local powerboys would not be alerted.
# # #
Cesca was watching the video tape of Jami’s first
“meet the press” gig from that afternoon, glancing back at a digital timer that
a technician had placed over the System’s main console. “Mythic time,” as her father said. Jami released a non-story about a System
training seminar and ping-pong tournament won last year by the Peruvians. And as a “feature tid bit,” he offered the
reporters a story from old
# # #
Geo had gathered the staff for the afternoon
briefing in the den where wiring diagrams had replaced trinkets, and white
coats had replaced red in a divine revolutionary unfolding. After introductions of the new staff just in
from U.C. Berkeley, she grabbed the mouse and laid out the “launching area”
with an analog overhead unit interfaced with an electronic designer
program. Because of the unknown effects of
the Grail II material and their initial engineering efforts, the experiment
would have to be monitored double-close.
Jack of course was the man in the glow, jumping on
the dental chair like a great white stallion!
He wears the halo; he meditates into the “go place.” “21st Century Cyberstein Man,” as
Cesca joked. Francesca will be video taping Jack’s progress through the script
some seven feet back, along with speaking to him when needed through a
specially implanted communication linkage.
To either side of the Truth System were two arcs of scientific and
medical technicians who were responsible for monitoring Jack'’ vital signs and
for tracking the progress of the Grail II interface. Remember the launch control room at NASA? Schillart would head up the Grail II barn
team while Geo worked in a special control room off to the side of the main
floor area where she had constructed a parallel System panel in hopes of
patching into Jack'’ vision-journey into the Aboriginal. From this computer, she would have access to
the database and all communication systems as the original. Geo pointed out the
fire fighting equipment then released everybody, with the exception of Jami,
for final System preparations and testing. 10 hrs., 54 min., 08 sec.
# # #
Jack was playing his Fender when Schillart strode
in from the small barn. He looked
excited, like he had just stuck his finger in a socket!!
“Jack, my friend, how do you feel?” Never one to color his language, Schillart.
“Goos. Is
the phone company gonna charge us a mint for the Grail II interface?”
“No, or should I say, I trust not. Our preliminary studies can’t assist us
because of the fast breakdown of the material after it leaves the containment
vessel—and we can’t test more due to our limited supply here at Armistead.”
Schillart’s beaper went off and so did
Schillart. Jack went back to his
electric vibrations, trying to stay in no place certain.
# # #
7 hrs. 23., 19 sec. Jami skirted into the kitchen,
the one place that Geo wanted left free of the metamorphosis. She and Francesca were brainstorming possible
trouble scenarios and Jami might prove helpful in problem solving because he
had the script in his memory. Too much
juice; medical alarms; machine malfunctions; power and/or telephone breakdowns;
human error; lack of testing; virgin territory; fear. No one really knew how the combination of
source current, meditation, and pre-programmed audio-visual material would
combine. They had “research from the
moon” and time would tell if the new alchemy would work in Jack as well. 5 hrs. 5 min., 45 sec.
# # #
Jack was pacing behind the Grail II barn, with
Jami right behind. “Mr. Hot Seat” was
mumbling something about “the light.”
It’s so clear,” echoed Robo head.
“Now the reverse is about to happen,” Jami
continued. “Jack, this test will begin
in 2 hrs., 17 min. count. You are both
connector and medium. Becoming lock and
key to what could be a syzygy producing techno-spirituality. Listen to a quote from the Truth System
library:
“An electric lamp is not electricity itself, but
symbolizes the power of electricity in that it radiates light. But electricity can also be manifested as
warmth and motion. The lamp,
consequently, is only a partial symbol.
If the symbol were to bring all these different manifestations of
electricity under a common denominator, it would have to consist of a formula
tracing all these different modes of operation back to their elemental
essence. According to ancient
cosmological doctrine, this common elemental denominator is the flash
lightning.”
:Excellent Jami.”
Jack was amazed, the way slightly clearer.” So we are juggling with two things: one, we are using lightning and two, we are
building a formula for an additional manifestation of this ancient power. Who wrote that passage?”
“Marius Schneider.”
“Please dump the book and all related
bibliographical references immediately.
Francesca must review them. Maybe
Geo, too.”
Jami told Jack that it was time for his pre-test
meditation and both spirits went in separate directions. They were “due” in 1 hr., 3 min., 58 sec.
# # #
When Francesca opened Jack’s eyes, long closed
from a deep, hazy walk deep within his unconscious borders, he noticed a video
cam crew, shooting silently in the corner.
They had taken refuge in Geo’s personal space above the main laboratory
and suddenly it was “strangeland.”
“The documentary, right.” 17 min., 00 sec.
# # #
Geo was working intensely at her interface panel,
communicating with a “Ph.D. roadie,” as she called her interns from
# # #
Another mini-cam was filming Schillart and his
crew in the Grail IOI barn. Jami was
tester and court jester! If this thing
worked out, “Gear Bucket” would be poster child and the star of the movie. “Source levels remain constant, Doc.”
Great, now check the transfer switches and the
safety locks.” It was time for “Grail
lightning.”
# # #
While Francesca discussed the database with Jack
as he was “slipped into the Halo,” Geo was punching buttons in her remote
booth., Technicians silently gestured, frantic with nervous systems long
pickled with homemade jams and funky tofu dip.
Jami lurched then coolly glared, one prepared-for-launch robothead.
Then Jack said “RIGHT!” a little too loudly and
Cesca took up her stand at the video and biomedical sensor equipment. She was only to film Jack’s face during the
experiment; others were assigned the entire show. Geo’s lab was like one high-tech human Christmas
tree—and Jack was the angel, soon to be electrified and shinning. He began to breathe deeply, to vibrate, to
walk down, deep, past his training codes and boy scout programming, to a
promise.
Geo: “Schillart,
pre-amps only…”
Schillart: “Buzz
up. Hot board is yours, Control.”
A technician worked along side the Australian,
hand recording data computer already had stored.
Jack: “Francesca,
run tape 2.0. Choice volume for now.”
Geo: “Everything
is tight, spaceman. You will only hear
my voice again if we bang this run.
Bring it home, rock star.”
Francesca: “Breathe,
mister. Truth System input, totally
fixed—awesome.”
Jack was walking down a dusty red outback road,
which suddenly seemed new, even after many prior research jaunts. The painting was segued, it appeared at the
end of his driveway, coming in and out of focus like a cheap microscope—or a
drunk. A huge, billowing diaphramic
feeling was inside of him, as if he were inside a large opaque tent in the
middle of…? His heart was a dripping
cycle. He breathed, and breathed, and
breathed deep,… and his sci-fi halo shifting slightly.
Oh, God, the music! Something was weaving in and out
of,…somewhere… Should he run? Will this speed up, F-stop?
Francesca’s voice waved into him. He stopped to admire a distant rock
formation. Intense, strange
curiosity. A pull…?
Francesca: “Great
smile, baby. Now you need to continue
toward that rock. Phase Two will be on
your visual cue; take your time.”
The beats assisted his breathing, now monitored at
three-quarter his normal level. Music
echoed in dust clouds at his feet and sang with birds floating silently
overhead,….struck in colorous rays as the sun beat down. “Breath, two, three, four, five…”
Jack crossed his fingers, Code Two. Geo and Cesca nodded at each other and
observed Jack’s new route. He looked
like one of the vibrating tee pees from the last Talking Heads record. He was humming cosmic royalties.
He was aware—a new environment now. Swelling with the exo-upgrade. A slight smell of water: The music lighter, drumming? Was he stripping memory stores, dancing with
archtypical sound patterns, or was this a mood enhancer soundtrack? This was Francesca’s secret for obvious
investigate verification., Jack crossed
his arms: Code Three. His mythic day was rising, clouds were
collecting. He sat. Feeling “synchronicity?”
A lake appeared.
Jack was smiling and was very still. The prelims were about to stand-down into a
calm cosmic eye in the storm. Geo
whispered something to Schillart; Jami
buzzed right behind Jack in case an emergency shut down was called for” Francesca nodded. The “alchemic transitioner X, Grail II
lightning,” now trickled into the hundreds of wires and microprocessors in
Jack’s dreaming heart:
“Ssssssswooooooooossshhhh! Click.”
Talk about the coming of the “cosmic christ!” Geo’s immediate reaction was utter
disbelief. She stared at her video
monitor, high over Jack’s head, that interfaced the Journey One experience with
the Truth System. An image was groping,
“falling into” the screen. She flopped
down and listened for audio: drumming.
The source was activating the dream quest. Somebody behind her said: “Fine tuning.”
Francesca saw the monitor over Jack’s head and
freaked!
Jacked folded his hands, dry mouth, walking,
intense sunshine, wild colors – then a black & white landscape. He was a
roof, without a floor. A flash from a late night isolation tank trip, his face
ballooning like in a circus mirror. There was someone else, somewhere close, he
could feel a presence. He could see fish in the lake, swimming with the sun
like on Robin Hitchcock’s album cover painting on “Globe of Frogs.” Geo saw the fish and Francesca captured a
normal heart beat.
Schillart freed a little more juice; Jack grabbed
an outstretched brown hand and headed for a distant campfire. The drumming go louder. Chanting?
Suddenly Jack began to shake, very slowly at
first, then like a drug addict, cold turkey-like. Something was wrong!
He felt a pull and a break from the mythic being
or guide. Everything was washing, like a water color in the rain. Geo saw
disintegration; she dialed the “lightning extract” down slowly, listening to a
soundtrack cancel all VU’s. Her distressed breathing replaced Jack’s heroic
lead.
Schillart confirmed “all safe.” Jami was gently holding Jack as Francesca
coached him up through the “psycho bends.”
The paramedics panted.
“Jesus.”
Jack lifted the halo off his head, placing it on a nearby titanium
shelf. Geo screamed for the medical crew to comb the boy for any signs of acute
injury.
“Hey, hey! I’m okay, really. Did you get any images
or sounds on your System, Doc?”
“Yes. What happened as we increased the Source the
final time?”
“The drumming and chanting slowly disintegrated
into noise: cars, traffic, mixed with a weird WW II war movie soundtrack.”
Francesca was still recording.
“Overload.”
Jami re-entered the scene after dumping his data
into the mainframe. “I have calculated the experimental range for the Grail II
matter, it will be critical to maintain this safe level.”
Geo excitedly called for a period of data analysis, to be followed by a general
debriefing after a meal. Journey One was partially walked and everyone was
glowing.
Jack slumped into the old executive chair in Geo’s
master control room while the tape whirled to 00000. Schillart barked something quick into his
walkie-talkie and handed out mugs for tea. They watched no more than twelve
minutes of, at first, fuzzy, intermittent shapes and colors, then a xeric
Australian-like world with a crystal blue lake and wonderful drumming sounds.
Jack shivered from a powerful memory, really only minutes prior before the plug
was pulled. Francesca dreamed of the Citadel Concert; Schillart of additional
applications of their juice; Geo only of the necessary downtime for the staff
to summarize the work in progress. All
Jack could say was: “Dali-like, man. Sir-Real!”
# # #
Baxter put the phone down. Boss man. That high
wire bunch in
His boss was convinced that something big was
happening in Armistead. From infrared photos, high electrical transmissions
were now occurring during off-peak hours, including one building with an
undefined energy spectrum. This was no hippie farm! That robot is from research partially funded
and produced by NASA; their staffing level was now past 50 and climbing.
“Can’t we break-in on the phone line?” Baxter
moaned, “I’d rather be demoted to
Either way, Baxter was knee deep in high spirits.
Geo had his number hangin’.
# # #
The next “inner launch was set for
Jack settled against a tree. They were hugging and spilling coffee on each
other, trying to relax before the next dig. Francesca didn’t quite get what the
force had brought into the tech-spirit matrix. Jack giggled.
“It’s a very powerful bonding, an enlargement of
self. A warm, bright wind.”
“I think the Quakers had it right all along.”
The
Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack entitled “Passion” was
on. Geo was sitting under television lights for a PBS interview.
“Cut. Hold it, Michael. Jack, please sit down for
a moment.” She explained to him exactly
what they were, and weren’t, releasing to the world that morning. “It is time to announce the Citadel Concert,
in a general way, oatmeal breath.”
The
“We believe that Geo’s Truth System can assist us
in our search for archetypal sounds, or primordial beats, chants, and
orchestrations that helped to create the multitude of myths we know in all
cultures. The power of myth, as
It was now
# # #
Time to awaken the dead.
“Pappa says hello, space man.” Cesca was rechecking her biomed computer and
video cam, glancing over at Geo for confirmation for “all go.” Jami slid by her for a sound bite with Mr.
Gabriel, now positioning his cosmic beanie for blast off.
“Jack, say hello to the shaman for me,” uttered
the robot.
Smirk: “Tell Geo not to worry, no dumb jokes are
necessary.”
“My father was a
“Are you working on the next journey, oh infinite
one?”
“
Geo called the session to order. She and Schillart
were joined in the new alchemy booth – via satellite with Vega and Lambornii.
The Truth System gang. Jack was in “heavy breathing.” This time they used the recorded drumming and
chanting from the aborted experiment as catalysts for the first stages to the
mythic dance.
Francesca monitored his heart rate and visual
presentation. The Aboriginal painting was on the video screen, long since
memorized and transposed into Jack’s emotional catalog.
Jack whispered:
“Too many lights.” A technician
dialed down. He knew his temptation was to precondition his psyche for the
Grail matter and possibly risk critical preliminary unlayering. He was falling:
“One, two, . . . good honey.”
A wave of some kind passed through, a spirit
within his spirit. In three minutes he gave the sign for “
Schillart gave the “all clear.” Geo pushed the Grail envelope into one half
of their experimental level. Jack felt a Being slip into his heart, extending
through his fingers and toes. No fear, only pulsing energy through a huge
loving pipeline. The Dreaming at
The
Jack hovered, grounded, sat, and melted through
the power of the shaman. Men from distant landscapes – other Dreamings – formed
a circle around the fire pit. Jack didn’t know where he was exactly now. The
drumming began. The clouds passed quickly overhead. “Fully power: 3—2—1.”
“Serious colors!”
Cesca looked up at the large video monitor, then at Jack, then up at the
clouds, now double exposed with the crackling fire. All bio-signs satisfactory.
While the video signal played havoc with the tv
techs, the sound was crystal clear. Basic rhythms came from skin-stretched
drums and hand clapping. The chanting flowed in irregular waves from
participant to participant. Geo didn’t know if they were singing. Schillart knew.
Jack senses a séance, a mythic prayer for reasons
he couldn’t know. But the music vibrated through him, coupled as he was with
the guide of the myth.
This was a renewal celebration and likely an
initiation for the younger men coming up into the scared pool of
knowledge. “Rock ‘n’roll!”
It was dusk. Purples, pinks, orange-red rocks.
Jack went to the
Then he looked up and saw Geo’s face, swimming
above him, filling the total surface of
Now the “Truth Shots” had something much stronger!
# # #
48 hours after Journey One, Jack requested that
all staff play a mix down of the sounds on their personal stereos. It was an
amazing scene: everyone, on break or working, was plugged into a soundtrack
from another dimension. Twilight Zone material. He wanted a written report from
everyone on the drum-chant sounds; all images and relation to any other music
or sounds that they could sense. Had they tapped into the DNA sound code of the
human memory? What intrinsic properties
did the Grail II matter contain? Any instinctive reactions? Questions were flying as fast as Jami’s
one-liners. They released a photograph of just this scene to the press with the
hope of piquing the interest of young people, precursory to the Citadel
Concert, and for reasons that spelled “diversion” for covert operands looking
for “hot lava.”
# # #
“How soon can we go to Journey Two, guys? Which one of the three myths are we dealing
with?” Geo smiled broadly. This meeting
was hers to run, an agenda of success. The team was a whole approved the public
television blurb, okaying its run on the following Saturday program called
“Science in the Arts Series.”
Jack was thinking about the Concert but responded
quickly: “Francesca and I need to run
down final materials with Jami; we’ll decide in three days or less, okay?”
“Be ready to brief us at the Wednesday meeting.”
“Right. I’ll collect your feedback on the first
soundtrack then.”
Francesca and Jami strolled and rolled,
respectively, into the small meeting room in the Grail II barn. Robot didn’t
get full of Geo’s bean feed at dinner, but his mechanical fuel line was just as
deadly. “Rock people, I think I’ve discovered the source of ‘cool’” Cesca laughed. That morning she tried to
teach their buddy how to play the keyboards. An old Deep Purple song.
“He was all transistors,” laughed Cesca, holding
up her thumbs.
“Transcendence comes to the material world.” Jack spread his piles out on the large round
table, a Knight in the 21st Century. Cesca slotted a video tape as
Jami waited for instructions. “We really have only one decision to make
relative to the order of the last three myths.”
They would run the African story last, leaving the
Toltec/Aztec and the North American Indian myths to choose from. Since they had
the videoplay segment from the
The music that accompanied the soundtrack to “The
Creation of Music” would be used along with two or three stills as mythic
firestarters for preflight meditation. Jami rehashed the basic thrust of the
story.
“The sun god battled the wind and heaven gods for
the right to control music. The latter two spirits wished that man could benefit
from music and teamed up to wrestle the musicians from the place of the gods –
and down to earth.”
They froze some images from the play and stored them in Jami for later printing
through the mainframe’s animation System. Stills were the best format to use
when focusing or centering a meditational experience. By now Jack’s imagination
was running upstream, his sensitivity blushing with expectations. He was
readying himself for Journey Two, for a landing with a magnificent culture and
“sound baking” with the gods.
# # #
“Thank you all for your reports on the soundtrack
from Journey One. I trust that you realize the importance of this work and
understand that the tapes had to be recollected.” Jack would see to them later, in the pre-production
phase of the Citadel Concert. Geo then established a starting day and time for
Journey Two: Saturday,
# # #
Baxter was rubbing his terminal screen like the
wicked witch of the east in the ancient “Wizard of Oz.” It had overheated again. He smelled like
Toto. The
# # #
Friday, a short period of R&R for everyone
before the next mythic plunge. Geo was on the Truth System with the Spanish lab
concerning an inquiry from the Government. Schillart was analyzing energy flow
from the Grail II vessel. Jack was diverting his concentration onto his guitar,
using Jami as a tuning box. Two very plugged-in dudes. Cesca had a telefax in
her hand and a slight smile on her face.
“Hey boys.”
“Robots do not have gender,” Jami squawked, like
an old Pillsbury dough boy from hell.
“Robots don’t give press conferences, either, and
almost never succumb to verbal torture from rock’n’rollers.”
Jack finally looked up from his picking, and
unplugged his guitar. “What’s the news?”
“I graduated!”
“I’ve got a great present for you.” It began with a hug.
# # #
Geo was doing her best to deflect the mounting
outside pressure from affecting the next Journey, despite careful planning.
Power company and State safety groups wanted to inspect the laboratory for
“health reasons.” The energy needed to
contain the Source matter alone would light up the Armistead County Fair for
twenty years, and there was no determining when the Grail II process would be
safely dismantled. NASA had notified the Nuclear Regulatory Agency about a
strange light source in a small barn on the property. She was now working with
a couple of lawyers from Harvard who sought protection and continued privacy
for the Vision Machine and its
scientists. Geo suspected that one of the crew had leaked the halo technology
because the U.S. Global Military Force, so named from a massive reorganization
in 1996, had called her for a meeting. She needed a new hex.
# # #
The discussion at Friday night’s dinner went from
Geo’s guarded toasts of everyone, including the family robot, to grave talk of
the next two weeks. Time was rapidly constricting the window of exploration at
the lab, closing fast with every test, every “on switch.” Their many-tiered goals had to be
streamlined: finish the four mythic stories so that Jack and Francesca could
orchestrate the Citadel Concert on global feed. Plans had to be made for the
decommissioning and transportation of the Grail II technology as well, likely
headed to
“Perhaps the lightning juice will reveal a way
out, Doc,” piped Jami. He always made for unexpected dessert, the frosting of
foreshadowing.
# # #
Jack was rolling, falling, slowly twisting,
rolling. Nothing but a purple gray void and distant screams: now black and
white.
Cesca shook him again, waking him only with great
effort. She was scared.
“Fuck, man.”
Jack went to the bathroom and splashed water on his sweat. He then descried
a very wondrous but unrecognizable place, a palace perhaps – a Greek Pantheon.
He was stealing something. Falling forever . . .
“Orpheus, you fought a warm-up round.” Cesca settled them both back into bed for
some quiet holding. Questions fell out of their hearts like dew drops from a
Douglas Fir. “Who had the keys to the
Dawn in
# # #
3 hr., 26 min., 09 sec. Geo was speaking quietly
to two friends from the Media Lab at M.I.T., both interface animation artists
and experts in governmental spying and covert interference. Staff trickled into
the kitchen for nontraditional grub of raisins, juices, yogurt and shots of
wheat grass and muffins “grown” in
Schillart had now by-passed the telephone
interface, so necessary for Journey One, and was working with Jami and others
in a last round of tests. This now gave them total internal security,
eliminating outside tapping and measurements. They had their own generator.
Jack put in an old Bruce Cockburn tape, “Dancing
in the Lion’s Jaw.” He loved to sabotage
Geo’s Morning Concert mindfuck. “D.J. God from Heaven!” 2 hr., 21 min., 03 sec.
# # #
“Are you fixing the images from the video play,
Jack?” Final centering next to
“Yes.” Jack was confident and proud, ready to step
into another space, another song. They practiced the breathing regimen
together: “One, two, Five, six, . . . “Right.”
1 hr., 06 min., 34 sec. On with the sun!
# # #
They passed-by a small collection of reporters and
who-knows-whats at the front gate where Jami was baited, babble-ready. No
questions filtered into Jack, his mental preparation a blissful barricade.
Metal mouth would be on the cartoonish “Word Today Newspaper” tomorrow,
explaining lots’o nothing in his programmed “circuit logic.” Geo met them at the door.
“Ready?” She looked tense but not overly
disturbed. She had give up pot recently and forbid any illegal drugs on the
property. Her coffee mug steamed from a deep green, as big as those caldrons
that the
The pre-Journey meeting with the principles was
brief.
# # #
The soundtrack from the videoplay began and
everyone took their places. Jack rubbed his temples and slipped the halo onto
his skull. It was starting to wear in.
Geo: “Lights
down to three.
Schillart: “Pre-flight
level for Source X, thanks mate.”
Cesca: “Raise
your head; shoulders back, Jack. Breathe.”
After one last look at the stills, Jack closed his
eyes. Cesca removed them from his lap and took her place at the frontal viewing
station. All the video crews were “on.” Journey Two had begun. High noon.
Jack motion for the juice after 01 min., 04 sec.
Fulltime flow from Geo and Vega soon brought an image into Jack, a place on the
edge of the jungle, an outcropping or clearing, high over the rain forest
below.
The natural sounds were astounding! It was like
hearing jungle noises for the first time, and they seemed surreal, like a Mick
Hart tape, a soundtrack within a dreamland video. Water was rushing, first in
his ear, then right through his entire body. Pumping, pulsing, rushing,
gulping, roaring.
Then he knew the feeling was his guide, dropping
into him as a local waterfall flows into a tributary, creating a powerful
union. Sounds arched across his being like a rainbow.
He walked and walked along a ridge . . the sun
bright, omnipresent. The wind howled, cooling him presently. He/they stopped
and sat and listened to the wind low its magic. Clouds came by for a rye smile
and a circus of constant reshaping.
Is this a mythic geography lesson? The land, the sun, the wind, the spirit above
– within? Ancient forces, cosmic
symbols.
Sundown brought a slow look around. The battle
between the sun and the wind had died down. A bone, hollowed and engraved with
a moon and stick figure, appeared at his side.
He felt the guide pick up the instrument and hold
it before Jack’s lips. The sky sparkled with the stars of heaven, and Jack
sensed a power stronger than he or his guide, and he blew through the small
object, realizing that he was now the wind of the gods, a sound pipe in the
great environmental mandela of the Toltec awakening.
His song was slow, prodding. Did it make any sense
to his lab buddies? As the moon rose
over his head, his guide left him on the ridgetop and Jack’s solo, in what was
to be deep southern Mexico, came drifting into Francesca’s eyes.
It took Jack a while to regain the present.
Francesca led him upstairs to a quiet space, away from the post-Journey mayhem.
This time, the video was sharper, the sounds brighter. Geo was playing back the
soundtrack downstairs as she monitored the containment of the Grail source.
Jack didn’t play wind instruments, but his ancestors just gave him a wonderful
first lesson.
“Did you see how the mythic plane came to earth,
honey? Natural forces were feared and elevated as the unexplainable became holy
and connected to the spirit. With his own body: bone to wind, wind to sun.
Early on, his world was al altar. Sounds were the breath of the gods
themselves.”
“And the moon, heaven’s metrodome,” laughed Cesca.
Jack fell asleep, exhausted from his solo gig on
the Truth System. He didn’t hear Geo’s announcement over the PA concerning
Journey Three – two days and counting.
# # #
Geo thought the song from Journey Two was
haunting; Vega was equally impressed. Francesca was busy composing and
orchestrating a larger piece for the Concert. And Jack was soaking up the
mythic medium surrounding Journey Three. They decided to explore the story from
the
Jack pushed Jami’s button:
“In Hyemeyohsts Storm’s “Seven Arrows,” one story
caught our attention. It involves a shaman and a young boy who took four sacred
objects on a journey to find and bring his people back together again. Four
animals guide him, each a symbol of the Indian’s life stage model – each one a
compass point and color. Four times the boy exchanges a gift for guidance and
is taught four harmonies or songs. It is these mystical notes that Jack and
Francesca seek.”
The robot patched a series of visual references
from the
“The buffalo is white, the eagle is yellow, the
mouse is green, and bear is black. All are archetypes of the north, east, south
and west, and help to teach the people tales of wisdom, illumination,
innocence, and introspection, respectively. Each was a starting point on their
Medicine Wheel, and all must be experienced before balance and maturity was
possible.”
Jami whirled and whined ‘em:
“The harmonies were a part of an exchange or
sacrifice for further knowledge. This is a common theme in the journey of the
hero.”
“This music isn’t described by the author, but we
have lots of contemporary examples on tape. Harmonies from a land-animal
spirituality. Far-out, Jam Man,” sounded Jack.
:Four days, four directions, four songs,” Geo
thought aloud.
"Who knows what we’ll receive from the
goddess?” said Francesca. Perhaps the meditation music should key on the sound
environment of each animal spirit, in conjunction with a hybrid shield we are
creating right now?”
One of the animators from M.I.T. punched and
painted a remarkable image of the four animals in a compass-wheel pattern, each
section a color, warming as it spun with its archetypical messages. They
decided that a CD already familiar to Jack and the Journey at hand would
accompany the System shield as launch music. Drumming and song prayers from a
musician named Light Feather, a
# # #
Jack walked slowly along his path, his
# # #
Worldwide attention was now riveted on the ozone
layer and the testing at
Geo pointed out that the lab was using some
coal-fired electricity from the Midwestern Grid Exchange, an irony not missed
by anyone at the project or the press.
23 hrs., 47 min., 18 sec.
# # #
While the PBS camera person mulled over the rushes
from the first two Journeys, Cesca brainstormed the endless details surrounding
the Citadel Concert.
He poked the silence: “You must interest a producer and then go see
the Board in
“Yes, of course. What about the Japanese woman who
organized the Rainbow Concert in
“Great idea, Deborah Chen-Martin. She lives in
“Do you have a ‘Crazy Horse’?”
That dates this guy, thought Cesca.
Many players to enlist. The challenge was putting
the Journeys together with a rock opera expression. The mythical segue machine
has got to turn on to a familiar face.
“You must balance the technical with the other,
yes?”
“Right. The back corn field, with the old oaks,
would be a terrific stage. Our ancestors obviously didn’t worship at Paramount
Studios!”
18 hrs., 00 min., 05 sec.
# # #
The Smithsonian’s
# # #
Francesca color-copied the final version of the
“four harmony mandela” for general distribution, and made a couple of tee shirt
transfers for the “mythonauts.” Some of
the crew were celebrating another birthday anniversary of Ben Franklin.
# # #
“What’s the roux, Geo?” asked Dr. Lambornii
-- via teleconference technology with
Ramone in
“We are pushing the local electrical grid to the
max now and we don’t know how long the Truth System will co-function with the
Grail II process. Between governmental encroachment and a ballooning press
corps, time is at a premium. The kids want their data for the concert of
course, but overall security and research direction needs to be re-evaluated as
soon as we finish the remaining two Journeys.
“Any emotional changes in Jack, Doc?”
“He has never been more alive, vibrating,
involved. He and Francesca are traveling brilliantly together, charting a
strong course with no maps and little data. No more cowboys and Indians here!”
# # #
The shield image bounced back and forth between
Jack’s tee shirt and the identical picture in his hands – “infinity without
mirrors.” It was split into the cardinal
points and Jack was meditating by interconnecting the colors and the
He was still a “half lotus kind of guy” and needed
the old oak for stable positioning. Then he switched from the visual cue of the
shield to the tape lop of Light Feather. Fine tuning began . . .
Soundtrack dusk, in the
14 hr., 18 min., 59 sec.
# # #
Geo locked the door to the remote control lab
overlooking the mainframe stage below. She punched into “robotics,” summoning
Jami for a consultation. “Spock” was pulsed, instantly scurrying her way. Geo
had to stir the beans.
“Run a check on the entire Smithsonian staff and
verify status of one Rose Lopez, the one heading our way.”
Jami lit up and buzzed through micro mania,
gorging on the “D.C. comics.”
“National security clearance, check. Press liaison
– two and a quarter years. Do you
require vitae, Doctor?”
“No. What is the probability of trouble, gear box,
from C.I.A., or others?
Jami’s processors pounded the digital stat tables
in .03 seconds: “50.95% chance of ‘spook
city.’”
“Damn stand-up metal mouth!” Geo shrugged.
Growled. “Let’s make sure this woman gets into the Times. Call a press
conference for her arrival and make sure the lab palm reader is 100%.”
“Thumbs up, Sir!”
13 hrs., 06 min., 29 sec.
# # #
Feeding the crew now tested the limits of human
and non-human alike. The lab bought out the lentil stores at the coop and the
winter garden was barren, a crew cut. Geo injected garlic into everything,
announcing that even “oatmeal needed a kick in the C.I.A.” As Journey Three ticked into pre-dawn
consciousness, Jack and Cesca made love in the hay loft. Tasting lightning
before the storm.
4 hrs., 02 min., 40 sec.
# # #
Rose Lopez was reminded of her childhood during
her cab ride to the lab. The lush green poetry -- still motion of the
>we suspect a ground-breaking technology<
>military applications<
>hardware animation links<
>electrical engineering< >highest
priority<
This letter would self-destruct after three heavy
sighs.
# # #
Geo met Lopez at the Gate and the show exploded as
planned: blah, blah, blah. Jami rapped a
few historical “we landed’s” and Lopez minted a few choice Museum notes. Jack
rocked up on cue and gingerly answered questions about the Citadel Concert: producers,
record deals, new strings . . . They
left the circus with the big top in their hearts and glanced sideways at their
new guest. Lopez was in love with the
cast, curtain up, and could never play the spoiler. He palm was clean.
Lopez entered the lab, now minutes to Journey
Three. A technician sat her at Cesca’s
control space and explained the comic in four panels. Jack, helmet-interface; Geo’s control booth;
Francesca’s lifeguard station; and the plethora of audio and video recording
system. This was no
# # #
Jack and Cesca joined Jami in the Grail II barn,
chewing bagels, charging electrons.
“The relationships between spatial orientation,
sound sourcing, and color is boiling my brain,” crowed Jack.
“Your guide will bring you the understanding you
will need. Trust is a big part of experimentation, lover.”
Jami agreed with her: “The meditation reflects the dawn, the
introspective, the black. Our path today
mirrors the ancient time of the beginning – to see the basic patterns of life,
as early man rose from the fire and sought answers, or myths, in the stars and
planets.”
“We are animals first, thus instinct carries more
credibility than anthropocentric analysis.”
Master Jami.
1 hr., 26 min., 05 sec.
# # #
The morning concert was replaced by an old Talking
Heads DAT that Geo had found under the microwave. Circuits, by Schillarts
all-night dial watch, were 100%.
The kids’ interpretation of the Indian’s mythic
wheel of life loomed on every lab monitor, creating a weird “Big Brother TV
storefront barrage.” Lopez was
Walkmanned into the Journey Two soundtrack, close-eyed in a corner of the
kitchen. Jack was slowly breathing: in, out; in, out . . .
The halo was humming. It was time for another
sonic progression.
Jack sat down, and Cesca noted his temperature and
heartbeat in the hand-held electro log.
“Speaking in Tongues” swirled into Light Feather’s aural magic, a
circling, bumping, thudding of drums, toots and yawls. Mini cam teams silently
invaded the meditation like worker bees to the queen – power cords swatching
and rollin' from the Truth System’s mega-modified stacks. Jack jested for the
lights: 03, 02, 01, 000000 sec.
# # #
He felt the first trickle of Grail matter almost
instantly, slowly, at this point in his mythic drilling. Geo pushed the dial
upward, matching beats with Jack’s steady heart.
The buffalo appeared in a burst of light – now
tall grasses – an orange sun burning in his heart. His guide was there but not
yet focused in any one space. Cesca’s coaching faded into the past, his body a
rod for a flying spirit.
Geo triple-checked the master meters and
printouts, then whispered to Schillart to send Jami over to Jack’s side as a
guard dog.
No video yet, but slowly a beating boomed into the
room. To Jack, the sound was an animalistic message of organic rhythm, breaking
down the wall between man and nature. Archetypical soil-making. Doors falling.
Then his guide communicated to him, without words,
that the four harmonies were in four parts, beginning with the running,
drumming hooves of the sacred plains buffalo. The ladder back into the human
tide began in a dream-state metaphor of running on the earth, the sound of
trapped thunder.
The video screens buzzed, fuzzed, and squirted
full-bore, alive with Jack’s deep Journey. The buffalo, in slow motion was
carving a “twister path” through very tall prairie grass. The beat. The beating
continued at full force. Jack was running inside of the animal, within the
spirit, around and around its heart. “Boom, bank. Boom, bank. Pump, pump, pump,
pump, pump. Drum, pump, drum . . .”
The picture went white-out, then solid black to
the south. A tree-lined stream came into focus. Water bubbled softly, and Jack
was sitting close-by, feet bobbing in the cool flow. Sweat slowly stopped
trickling and he began to breathe. His guide re-entered his spirit and a great
bird slowly descended in the tree overhead.
He felt the hawk’s throat call to him below,
murmuring a soft hypnotic song of simply notes. The screens above the lab depicted
an aerial view of the treetops: hawk,
foliage, Jack, water.
The animal’s call was harmonious enough to Jack,
but the sensation of being there within the natural theatre, listening with his
guide, put “a place on the wind.” Then a
fish jumped. The hawk swooped, and video went black within a splash!
The force lifted him out of the river orchestra to
the edge of the nearby trees, to the border between ecosystems, where a mouse
was gathering seeds. A snake waited in the grass for his friend to come closer.
A harmony lesson; a soundtrack.
Over Jack’s dreaming head the picture focused on
the tongue of the snake, and the soundtrack resembled a whistling up and down a
simple scale. Snake mouse dance, cracklin’ seed percussion, flicking baton, big
production! Geo and her mystical band of
techno-wizards watched, stunned. Marlin Perkins never had this gig!
Jack jumped just as the monitors went black. He
floated through a light grayness, into a glowing red.
Cesca found nothing wrong with his vital signs.
He now sat on a large rock outcropping, high over
the prairie below. Presently, two wolf cubs appeared and came close.
The monitor revealed his transformation into a
coyote. The kits began their cries:
“Yip, yip, yelp, yip, oooo.” Jack
joined them, all three spirits howling into a fire orange-red sunset – a
grateful dead crooning, a song of praise to another day of hunting – and life
with mother. The mammals sang and the lab recorded. Journey Three came to a
soulful end.
# # #
Jack’s eyes bubbled into focus. All systems were back to zero. Up periscope!
“The animals talked to me,” shouted Jack!
“Not in human ways, but in vibrations, frequencies I understood through
my guide. Wondrous stories I’m sure our video didn’t capture.”
Jami nuzzled his metal heart against the Truth
System console, ready with a pre-programmed question from the Big Op. “Did you leave your body, or astral project,
when you listened to the hawk?”
“No. My
guide and I went together as one. We no more separated as relocated to another
view. I was made more aware of the multi-dimensional insights that humans have
eliminated as linear, material-loving blobs.”
Geo was satisfied, for the time being, and sent
the lightning back to the Grail II barn for safe keeping. Tea time for time travelers.
# # #
While the crews scurried with more data, Jack and
Cesca opted for the hammock behind the screen porch – a sunburst weave from the
Schillart was in shock, amazed that no net loss of
cosmic source had occurred to date – no heat, no entropy to measure. What was
Jack experiencing neurologically while the Grail substance interacted with his
brain and body? Questions for the Truth
System’s Bio-Analytical Program.
“Answers from above,” he mused.
# # #
Cesca peeped over the stacks of video monitors,
watching as their PBS artist prepared a sample, or rush, of Journey Three
images. All he could say was “incredible.”
# # #
“Should we release any tape?” Meeting time again. Jack’s question was first
on the table.
“No rock star, too dangerous,” called Geo, who was
stirring tea and reading still more analysis from the Grail II process. “This isn’t the Bugs Bunny Road Runner
Hour.” Everyone laughed.
“Rose, your impressions?” Center stage at last.
“The C.I.A. wanted me to spy on you.”
“What?” shouted Cesca. She put her arm around her,
slowing down the beat a bit.
“I will not cooperate. They are evil. But I must
report back something – I don’t wish to jeopardize my ability to help out
here.” Smiles then replaced concerns on
the staff’s faces.
Geo: “A
second attempt on the Truth System! I’ve
counter-bugged, walled, and hexed those mother fuckers. And we should expect
more dirty tricks.” The bunch discussed
a viable story that Rose could use and considered her candidacy as a team
player.
Geo then pushed the “espionage” aside for planning
Journey Four. Needs for the Citadel
Concert, plans to move the Grail II machinery and Lab to
30 hrs., 12 min., 05 sec.
# # #
The last myth came from ancient northern
Cesca had located a video tape from the Truth
System database from a National Geographic research mission concerning ancient
Nile River Cultures. A wrinkled story teller, apparently descended from the
Fasa Tribe, recalled the tale of the lute, and the blood. His voice curled,
shook a bit. Hypnotic stuff.
“Hooh! Diera! Asada! Ganna! Sila! Hoooh!
Fasa.” Names for the God called Wagadu,
who was present only in conflict, like war time. It is this seven word string
that Jack changed as a built a spiritual ladder to Journey Four. Now they sought the call of the lute which
sang a song of sorrow and death after the warrior sacrificed son after son for
his own glory and fame.
26 hr., 16 min., 59 sec.
# # #
By now Jack was a heavy breather, a regular 21st
Century yoga sutra. In, out; in out; up, down the spine. Filling a brain
clogged with toxics, tv and school books long since burned. When asked to
choose between creative meditation and the Grail II juice, he wouldn’t let go
of either. For now, the syzygy, the new alchemy, was almost better than sex.
The last journey was set in war consciousness – a
very different context for the group. He imagined another last stand, bodies
concaving, blood gushing. Prehistoric heavy metal blasting down the sky.
Imagine.
He chanted and breathed. He would become a white
knight.
24 hrs., 05 min., 16 sec.
# # #
Someone had put a cardboard sword into Jami’s
pincher arm and added an eye patch where only electronic sensors worked.
Captain Fasa, on guard!
“Jami, here again the Cardinal or compass points
out part of the mythic story line. What significance do these play in all of
mythology?” Rose questioned.
Jami lectured:
“The four points, or the quaternary, still assist planners and map
readers alike, in terms of defining community space or planetary orientations,
and symbolize time of day or season – and animals in mythic or alchemic
writings.
The east’s animal is the blue dragon; the south’s,
red bird; west’s, white tiger; north’s, black tortoise. Or this version:
As each day metamorphasizes with the sun, animals
change. With the morning, the symbolic cardinal point is the lion;
The number four translates into the four points of
the compass and the four points of the square.”
“Four stories,” said Jack.
16 hr., 20 min., 07 sec.
# # #
Cesca was in the Eugene Food Coop, looking for
artichokes and nutmeg. The crew was now about 27 strong and Geo insisted on
feeding the reporters leftovers, when available. Geo the alchemist, Geo the
Mom. With the safety of the Grail II process in question, the next lab meeting
was destined to be frantic. Yogurt, whole wheat flour, egg substitute. Cookin’!
13 hrs., 54 min., 09 sec.
# # #
It was late when everyone came together, the moon
shinning off of Jami as he followed Schillart into the lab. Cesca had spent
that afternoon editing the video tapes and writing accompaniment music for the
Citadel Concert on Geo’s baby grand. She had called her friends in
“We have administrated a coup de art!” Geo called
out, smirking. “Ms. Lopez has aided us
greatly in linking a major sponsor with the M.I.T. Media Lab and the PBS
people. The Smithsonian will underwrite the Citadel Concert and Rose will serve
as Executive Producer.”
“Fuck the C.I.A. now,” laughed Jack. “What’s the countdown to Journey Four,
Cesca?”
“14 hrs., 06 min., 17 sec.”
# # #
“How does the meditation feel this time Jack? This
is the least documented and most complex myth of the four,” Geo called out.
Jack was working the chant, meditating on the interconnectedness of the base
ideas: the directions, the war energy, the negative behaviors which boil Wagadu
to the surface four times running.
“I’m fighting for the people this time!” This is the punk kid who only studied the
Vietnam War, and then only to pass a test.
“Will you autograph by CD?” chided Schillart. He
knew that Jack and Francesca had a deal with Greenpeace Records for a
book/recording and video.
“For the money, then!” laughed Jack. Cesca let
loose some uncommon feistiness, but it was Geo who laughed first.
“Just keep on your paths.”
7 hrs., 38 min., 41 sec.
# # #
Everyone was pushing hard on every part of the
Truth System now. Geo decided to wait on
the Grail II move until after the lute played deep within Jack’s consciousness
and into the global feed. The guide force hummed while the “soundronauts” and
crew slept. The hero’s journey began at dawn. 7 hrs., 04 min., 33 sec.
# # #
The rain had stopped, the oatmeal gurgled on the
stove. The Grail II was heating up. Everything was ready for Journey Four. Jack
sat down and peered over the console at Cesca, eager and calm – “yin-yanged” –
as usual. Then he spaced over at Geo, her communication headset on and eyes
fixed on the dials. The overhead monitors displayed the standard test pattern
and the remote cam crews seemed set. Jami was at his right side, holding the
halo.
“This is the final tune, rockster, be cool with
the Juice.”
“Halo on, . . . let’s go.”
He began his familiar metaphysical breathing
pattern: 1, 2, 3, 4. This time they used
a tape of Jack chanting the versions of Wagadu’s coming. Hooh! Dierra! Agada!
Ganna! Sila! Hooh! Fasa!
He lost the lab, his memory charged with the sandy
plain of the
Jack was now inside his guide, boy in man, ancient
warriors, a lute in their hand. He faced a great shinning star overhead, then
turned around slowly in a full circle, ending back at north face.
A vision appeared, hovering in front of him like a
TV mirage, hanging in space. A young warrior, handsomely dressed and obviously
rich, was admiring his image in a stream. Down stream, poor slave children
played in front of their aged mother. The warrior did not see them. Then Jack
heard the chant of Wagadu: “Hooh! Dierra!” Was it the woman who was calling
him?
The sky turned red and then the guide closed his
eyes and played some notes on the lute – sad, lush, yet powerful – simple
notes, singing cries of injustice and vanity.
Geo scanned the video. Jack’s experience, on the video screen, was
from the “inside.” The lab saw what
Jack’s cosmic camera saw.
They acknowledged the east. The sky turned black.
No stars appeared. The guide and boy again revolved 360 degrees and faced the
east for a second micro less: a politician appeared and then a crowd came. He
was promising protection from their enemies in exchange for a small percentage
of their crops and livestock.
The force made it clear to Jack that this man was
a charlatan who was playing between both tribes – a capricious profit maker.
Again they played the lute and Jack felt a pain
that shook him deeply. He cried.
“Hooh! Agada! Hooh!”
Then they rested.
In a soft, timeless, desert place. A quiet white screen to the folks in
A third apparition appeared on the Lab’s monitors,
a scene where a woman was exchanging her fish catch for a large amount of cloth
in a village market. She was stealing from her own villagers. She left with an
evil laugh.
The lute started to sing, melancholy and low, then
all was black.
Turning step by step on a single point on the
desert floor, they ended their ritual rotation facing the west. Under a yellow
sky, a battle was being waged. Warrior and his son, many dead, many more to
come. His guide did not transmit the reason for the fighting, but to Jack it
seemed boastful, wasteful.
Callers on the sideline changed: “Hooh! Sila! Hooh! Sila! Fasa!”
Suddenly the young son was killed and the “
Jack “stepped out” of his guide and felt the sky
return to night as he knew it. They faced each other and Jack played the lute a
final time.
The video depicted a fast time lapse run of the
heavens. The sky from dusk to dawn in three minutes plus. The Milky Way
Theatre! Jack strummed a spirit in pain,
a song of selfishness, war waste, and dying sons.
Strange strings slipping away, void. He was coming
back – and diving up – away, as his subterranean holy book closed.
Tones from the fall.
# # #
Jack was exhausted. This Journey was hardest on
his physiology. The most intense spirituality. Colors, lights, songs, fights.
“Can we playback the tape please?” Cesca stroked
his forehead softly as the TV. lights cooled down to a faint glow.
“Rest first, rock star.” Geo was too busy to argue. Buzz me after you
get some fresh air.
# # #
At the Journey Four meeting, transitions were
discussed over peanut butter and sprouts.
“You’ve got your myths and songs, kids. The concert, then. Geo was proud and distracted with her own
flag waving.
“What will happen to Schillart’s Grail II stuff?”
asked Jack. He was concerned with security for the truck convoy to
“We will decoy the damn thing and send it by
water! Then it’s 50-50 we get stopped
and hassled.”
“Cool idea, Geo.”
Schillart clarified. The presently stored
electromagnetic source will be drained and eliminated from the vessel before
they ship out. The Grail will travel without its matter.
“I’ll put a neat hex on both shipments,” exclaimed
Geo, a little too freakily. She was to travel down with one of them. “Rose will
remain here to do the Concern and sign contracts for the lab.”
“The script is under way.” Jack looked at Cesca,
hopeful.
“The band arrives this weekend.”
“Do we need more tamari sauce?” asked Jami.
“The Citadel Band, rock monster?” Geo chuckled,
the jargon of the whole experiment now too much – too silly.
“Right, Doc. Where does Jami go?” Nervous eyes.
“Ask him!”
“Well robot head?” Vin, it’s Armistead. Yang, it’s piggyback to
“Let’s rock, kids!”
# # #
Springtime in
Cesca was reviewing the Journey Four rushes, while Geo and Schillart supervised
the dismantling of the small barn and its cooling contents. Busy beavers
jammin’ at the speed of light.
Jack was up to his thighs in long grasses long
neglected; in the back field, he was roping out the space for the elevated
stage. Video screen? Electrical
supply? Rain, speakers, monitors,
players, timing? He drew a sketch.
[INSERT MAP HERE]
Lopez had set up a teleconference for Sunday
afternoon with M.I.T., the Smithsonian, and PBS. Because the gig was to be a
special live world premiere event, many “voice shakes” were needed, details
listed and knocked off. MTV signed on to
help advertise the show and was waiting for promotional materials. Jack trudged
back to the lab through the bugs and wild spring wheat, looking for Jami,
estimating lumber as he danced.
# # #
Baxter read the report from Lopez and wondered
what was up with the mad scientist’s club in Armistead. A C.I.A. report had just detected a sharp
reduction in energy use through satellite surveillance. “Like turning off a lamp,” it noted.
He also noted the large trucks and equipment
scattered about the yards.
It appeared that some construction, or . . .
removal?
“What the fuck?”
He gathered the material and headed for the special map interpretation
unit down the hall. “Is this enough to
reopen the case, hit the chief again?” he wondered.
He could loose his job – or his mind.
# # #
The band from
Geo was on the Truth System to Ramone, exchanging
computer-encoded messages over the internal modem. Their machine was “coming
off the mountain,” for security reasons, and Armistead equipment and database
were to be combined in the
# # #
With Hugo, Lucey,
“The Media Lab has sent us a huge hologram of the
globe – about 7 by 12 feet,” exclaimed Jack!
He smiled at Hugo, the drummer. The screen would be placed directly
behind him, thus framing the "rear wall” of the outdoor stage.
Cesca:
“While we watch the Journeys tonight, keep notes as to various
combinations, segues, orchestrations, instrumentations, tempos, what have you;
we need to incorporate the earth sounds and cycles and build a score toward a
higher consciousness. This is for our global friends. We must speak a magic
hybrid song.”
Jami: “Pink
Floyd in a Yellow Submarine spaceship.”
The robot comic was on a “heavy roll” again.
Jack: “Let
the mythic power form your immediate ideas. This is a meditation! We’ll have a written journal that Jack is
finishing for everyone, tomorrow morning sometime, just as soon as the Truth
System kicks out a final edit.”
“Take some time to settle Schillart’s meatless
mush. Hey! Let’s cruise to the staging
site!”
# # #
While Jack and Laura mowed the lawn,
Back at the lab, Geo was handing out legal pads and slipped a disk into Jami’s
shoulder disk port. Jack winced. He was always the object of that “split
personality robozoid.”
# # #
“Okay, okay, Baxter. Very well. Notify our
undercover people in
The Chief likely believed him “off the wall.” Baxter had no evidence of any military
applications. The whole world read the research paper from the Smithsonian New
Bureau about the Truth System -- just
another “high ed-tech Disneyland Cooltank . . .” He decided to take a leave of absence on the
way home that night. His C.I.A. tattoo
was wearing thin.
# # #
Tea and oatmeal cookies awaited the sound
explorers in the library, now a small mandela of chairs, focused by a 42 inch
color television monitor. Each artist was consciously and subconsciously keyed
into his/her instrument for the showing.
The Australian, Toltec,
Final script writing and editing began in earnest
after breakfast.
# # #
Nobody slept too much that night. The kids jammed
the moon slide, comparing notes and staging ideas under the stars with the
smell of freshly mowed grass in their hearts. Music is reborn! Jami taped the informal concert as programmed
– history needed his ears (and hers.)
# # #
The field session from Jami’s late-night remote
played in the Truth System as Geo dubbed the gig for the sponsors and fathers
and co-workers far a field. The kids were wild!
Now they had a sound bite to chew on, a critical reference to serve as
foundation for the Citadel Concert. Jack punched up a presentation template and
created a large graphic through the Educational Arts Program that had columns
for descriptions and characteristics of each Grail-powered voyage, and rows for
each Journey. Sound types, mood, video, story line, etc. All possible elements
were all factored into each musician’s vision for the final script for the
Concert.
# # #
By supper, they had a rough musical outline and
animation script for the gig incorporating the Journey’s sounds and
instrumentations, vocals, live visuals, lighting and portable cam shots. Jack
suggested that the band compose and rehearse in the evening, when it was
coolest; construct the stage and electrical interface during the mornings; and
take personal time in the afternoon for solo work in the make-shirt lab/studio
and Truth System. They promised Rose a time-coded script by the weekend and
asked Jami to construct his “logical version of the Concert,” using the same
mythic elements from their outlines.
The raised platform was like an altar, with barn
wood support from the lumber mills – tinged with “Grail II dust.” The kids pulled and reused the “ancient”
square nails from the homesteaders. The platform was four feet high, with pole
extensions for a rain tarp if needed. “Rock’n’roll manger.” They prayed for a clear moon to go with the
“lightening.” Three successive working
meditations each day.
# # #
Geo split up the Grail II hardware after
cataloging everything with Jami for later assembly. A fisherman pulled away
from his chowder and beer in
# # #
Jack put down the phone, restacking the
photographs and graphics that the Band had edited for the record company.
Greenpeace offered to transmit some whale songs to them for the Citadel Concert
mix, but Jack said no thanks. The material was all set. His log was ready and
included selected photographs of the halo technology and laboratory areas, plus
the magical field session. All went straight to
# # #
Jack punched the planning chart through the
copier, substituting special heat sensitive paper that could place an ironed-on
image on a tee shirt. The “menu” was already in his heart. He made solar glow
yellow Citadel Concert shirts for everyone and slipped one into the package for
Greenpeace. And he made a huge “maternity smock” for the robo love machine from
Armistead.
[INSERT LINE DRAWING OF JAMI HERE]
# # #
Three dates emerged from the planning meeting.
Everyone leaped at the calendar at once:
in three days a fully moon would rise over their theme park. Rose
approved the kids’ three and a half minute video montage of sights and images
for the M tv spot, which was sent on the next red eye to
Citadel Concert:
76 hrs., 00 min., 00 sec.
# # #
The day before, Geo sipped her tea and marveled at
the monitor in her cluttered alchemy lab. The band all had their bright yellow
tee shirts on, bounding around, drumming, chanting up a storm.
The 35 foot power snake went slithering into the
lab to mate with the Truth System and the satellite interface. They would
rehearse the ritual before they broadcasted it to the world.
52 hrs., 16 min., 37 sec.
# # #
Jami veered into the picture to get programmed
from Cesca.
“It must be Movement III,” Geo guessed aloud as
Lopez entered the room.
“The buffalo stomp.”
“Neil Young gets the Goddess!”
For all of the electronic equipment and
instrumentations available to the kids, they primarily found the rock sounds of
the late 60s, 70s and 80s to their liking. The music wheel of rock kept rollin’
round.
30 hr., 29 min., and 41 sec.
# # #
The press corps wanted passes. But spectators
except crew and staff would be allowed into the back yard. The exposure that M
tv had fostered overnight had an amazing effect: an odd assortment of hippies,
students, artists and “long-time” chums were camping at the gate.
Was the hex on Geo?? A final press conference was called, set for
the Armistead Public Library. It was electronic and interactive – a production
of the local PBS news service. It began at
# # #
Geo put the oats on to boil; she hadn’t slept
again. The Citadel that everyone worked so hard to imagine and animate was
about to bear a “syzghitic vibration,” new alchemical fruit. The Concert, now a
mere twelve-plus hours out, was like a child she had never planned to have, a
techno-mythic mass of power cords and para-consciousness. Revealed with the aid
of the gods themselves? Or so went the
“show and tell” to come. How and what the gig would affect could not be
crystal-balled. Her thoughts, initialed out in the back field, were hypnotized
by the huge hologram backdrop behind the drum kit. She could feel the beat. She
was a believer.
# # #
Cesca and Jack slipped out with their bicycles
after a breakfast meeting with the entire group, heading for the
Armistead-Pacifica Busline Depot and a package of last-minute supplies from a
8 hr., 16 min., 21 sec.
# # #
By
And this all started with a little hex from
# # #
For all practical applications, the kids had
programmed Jami to run the electronics, all sound and light functions and live
video inserts. Geo monitored the satellite connection with the PBS producers
and techies in
0 hrs., 00 min., 00 sec.
The Citadel Concert . . .
# # #
Dusk came with a purple, starry passion. The
players climbed into their space-like ancient priests hiking into their king’s
pyramid. Floor light beams arched bright light straight up into the cool night
air space – earth-bound royalty joustin’ with the full moon!
The drumming began.
# # #
No one knew that Jami had carried some off the
lightning Force, held in a circuit even Schillart couldn’t detect. The “
Movement II used the simple sounds and winds from
the Toltec Journey. A faster beat pushed the viewer into the sonic tower. The
hologram was slotted into the concert mix, juxtapositioned with aerial pieces.
Then hoof beats pounded Movement III as a quick
segue was realized, under a beaming sky-bound orb. The surprise worked; they
played into a psychic Pink Floyd/Church-like chorus, supported by the animals
and percussion from their snake friend and the wicked Wolf Jack howling. Then
Cesca dialed the buzz opera down with her “Hawk Over Piano” piece. From band to
Jami to living rooms, across the planet, the Citadel Concert had opened to a
hungry world.
Children and adults in
The band chanted while the supporting video
clipped into segments of the fighting. Cesca played a duet with the soundtrack
from Journey Four: Movement IV.
Then it was credits. Silence. The moon cast a
spell on the players below. The earth, a powerful yang to the shinner above.
# # #
The Citadel Concert spun the hour allotted it by
PBS. Fame was theirs. But Jack, Cesca, Geo, Rose, Schillart and the
robot star couldn’t hear the music just ahead, magic tunes from an ancient box
– with a wondrous leak!
But that’s another tale.
# # #