Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind: Volume 2: The Athena Chapters,
Chapter Nine:
Dissonance
“You goddamn sissy-eared mollycoddle! When you hear strong music like this, stand up and take your dissonance like a man!”
Charles Ives
*****
Buford Lister leaned back in his chair, the big one at his favorite desk. He sipped whiskey out of a Klein Bottle with his right hand as he spun two red dice in his left. Around and around, back and forth, and then one over the other until one fell from between his finger and thumb and landed in his palm. It wasn’t a moment like Newton and his apocryphal apple or Archimedes and his apocryphal bathtub; it wasn’t a flash of insight that was going to change the world but, what the hell, it was close enough.
*****
I wanted the penultimate chapter of this book, a collection of essays that are supposed to be about a dude who met a chick at a rock show, to be very different. I imagined nothing more than a chapter heading and lots and lots of pictures. No text required (smiling faces holding forks don’t need any superfluous explanation). Didn’t quite work out that way, did it?
Apparently, I am nearing the end of the Athena Saga (yes, I said Saga!) with a chapter about the big question that Brenda asked me, a query that still has me off balance, listing strongly to one side. Any ideas about what she might have asked? It is a pretty big mystery, I know, but I promise I will get to her question. I make no such assurance about my answer. The thing is I simply don’t have one, at least I can’t yet think of one.
*****
Buford Lister was in no mood for Mozart today; he told his computer to randomly play a few dozen songs from some random punk group that he was vaguely familiar with. He turned the music down to a subtle pulse (not the way it was meant to be heard for sure) as he thought about what the dice might or might not tell him. He stroked the Magic Eight Ball that he kept on his key chain and contemplated what to do next. Dice, eight ball, eight ball, dice; does it matter at all? Sigh, I don’t think so. Am I really ready to do this? Am I going to give up total control? He looked around the room and began to become more and more comfortable with the idea that it didn’t matter, not even a little. Control, just like purpose, was a total illusion.
*****
An interesting thing happened today, my brother Terry called me. When I picked up the phone, he said, “I see you have made a clean break.” “Huh,” I said, “what are you talking about?” Apparently, the ringback tone on my phone expired, and he took that as a signal that I have made a “clean break” (at least in my mind) from Athena. Yeah, she has been on there the whole time. I still laugh when people try to get me to tell them who she is; all they have to do is call me, and they will hear her singing back at them as they wait for me to answer. A few of these curious individuals have called me, and I find that really delicious!
Unfortunately, Terry is wrong; the ringback tone simply expired, so I will renew it or find another song by her band to take its place. Now that I think about it, I should probably do that right now. My cell carrier offers a few choices, and I think I know which one I want. I’ll be back momentarily.
*****
Buford Lister made an instant decision while the dice were in the air. Odd is cereal and even is bacon and eggs. One die flew off the table and landed on the floor. Damn…decision time…does that count or not? That die would make the total odd, and he really wanted bacon and eggs, so he called the floor out of bounds and threw them again. This time he got an 11. OK, I’ll eat the damn cereal. He was on his way.
*****
Now that I have taken care of that bit of mundane business, I can try to get to the point of this essay. This chapter is about Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Mozart, and a string quartet Mozart dedicated to Haydn. Joe and Wolfie, what an unusual combination. In my mind, their friendship is as odd as one would have been between Sid Vicious and Frank Sinatra. (Sid old boy, loved the record! Thanks Frankie baby, the next round is on me.)
Haydn and Mozart: two people who, on the face of it, have little in common; nothing at all except for all that is important. Both composers of music (two of the greatest who ever lived) and yet one so much greater than the other. Job titles similar, occupations the same, and yet for my money, there is all the difference in the world between the two of them.
*****
Buford Lister (well-fed, showered, and shaved) found himself strutting down the boardwalk. He was full of confidence; you would be too if you were no longer going to take responsibility for any of your actions. He was whistling some obscure punk song (they all sound pretty much the same) when he noticed a flashing light off to his left. PSYCHIC…READINGS…PSYCHIC…READINGS…PSYCHIC…READINGS…
The woman inside the little office was young, and pretty so he took out the little magic eight ball on his key chain and asked: “Oh great and powerful Magic Eight Ball, should I go get a psychic reading from the pretty, young woman right over there?” He shook it and waited…it said, “YES.”
*****
Mozart wrote and dedicated six string quartets to his friend Haydn. Haydn adored five of them. The sixth, well…not so much.
On January 14, 1785, Mozart finished a string quartet for cello, viola, and two violins. It is the string quartet number 19 (K. 465), more famously known as the “Dissonance Quartet.” This piece of music, Mozart’s most famous quartet, is perhaps the greatest expression of genius (and not just musical genius) that I am familiar with. That is a pretty stout statement, but I will stand by it.
Haydn received the score and immediately realized that there were numerous copying errors in it, the scribe had obviously been drunk (I mean totally lit) when he sat down to begin his task. In fact, it was littered, not just peppered, with these egregious mistakes. Notes were obviously wrong, put in the wrong place at the wrong time, and even more problematic; other notes didn’t belong at all. When Haydn found out that Mozart intended the score to be this way, he had a fit. Haydn surely recognized the genius of Mozart, but this was way too much. He simply couldn’t understand what it was that Mozart was trying to do.
The beginning, so slow (damn unusual), key changes left and right, notes that are clearly wrong are played as if plagiarized from an adolescent author with no musical training. Haydn, the writer of beautiful “constructed” music, could not allow himself to see the music through the eyes of Mozart, he didn’t have the capacity to experience the music through the eyes of transcendent genius.
*****
Buford Lister pushed open the door, and their eyes immediately met.
“I have been waiting for you,” she said. After she spoke, she immediately regretted not saying hello first. She intended to apologize but didn’t get the chance.
“Really, waiting on a paying customer? Here is my $20, let’s get to it.”
“So quick to business. That is what I was told. That is too bad, and it is all so sad. Tell you what, if it is what you wish, we can get right to it. Sit down, and I will tell you a few things.”
Buford Lister took out two small dice from his pants pocket as he sat down across from the beautiful woman. He twirled them around in his hand as he said, “OK, show me what you can do. I have never been to a psychic before. This is so exciting. Look at me; I am having trouble sitting still.” Buford Lister gave her a playful smile, one that said I won’t be believing anything you tell me, but I will try to be polite and listen.
“You sir, are a man in trouble, you are a man who has no idea what to do, you are a man who has met his Twin Flame. Do you want to hear more?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, but feel free to continue.” He reached for the $20 and pushed it across the table toward the psychic. “One thing, what the hell is a Twin Flame?”
“Oh, you know more about that than I do. I have not met mine, most likely, I never will. You, on the other hand, are one of the chosen few, you are one of the lucky ones.”
“Uh, OK, sure. Go ahead then.”
“I see you with a woman, you are totally undone, you have unraveled and yet she is giving you nothing. It appears that any conversation the two of you are having is largely one way. Does this sound familiar?”
Buford Lister, totally intrigued, shook his head. He thought that most people go to see a psychic because they have love problems, that is just the nature of a psychic’s work. It is usually love or career, and she had a 50 percent shot at guessing correctly. It just so happens she got it right. Yep, that is precisely what he thought.
*****
A key, musically speaking, is nothing more than a bunch of notes that sound good together. That is pretty much it. Notes are considered to be in the same key if they sound pleasing to the ear when played together. You are listening to a dissonant composition if the notes you are hearing do not sound right when played one after the other or played together.
Musical dissonance is a very interesting topic; unpleasant and unexpected sounds make for unstable chord progressions and a tense listening experience. Modern listeners are so used to this type of music that we don’t even pause when we hear Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet. For the time it was written, though, it was totally scandalous. Haydn certainly wasn’t the only person who didn’t think very highly of it.
Dissonance strongly imposes (or subconsciously implies) lack of resolution in a piece of music. A series of dissonant notes leaves the listener uneasy; they know there has to be something more to come; intellectually and emotionally, the listener knows the piece is terribly unresolved. There is an implied promise that there is something pleasing to come, at least there better be if the composer wants to keep an audience.
*****
“So, this woman is not a regular woman, and no – she is not your Soul Mate, she is, in fact, your other half. That is why time stopped, and the unseen dimensions opened up to you when she spoke. Tell me I am wrong. You can not because I am right. I see her now; I saw her before you came in here. Her hair, four different colors with a large purple section down the right side. Tell me I am wrong. You can not because I see her. Such a tiny woman. So beautiful, so charming; you instantly knew her, you not only knew everything about her when she spoke to you, but you knew everything about the world and your place in it when she said ‘hi’ to you.”
Buford Lister could not believe what he was hearing. How could this woman possibly know this? There is no way she could know about something like Kaylee’s hair. This is really weird. “Actually, she never said hi, but I must admit you are right about everything else. How do you know this? Who are you?”
“I am just a person like you, one in tune with her surroundings. The big difference is that I accept what I feel, and you let your rational mind push it away. Do this for me right now, explain to me what happened when you met her. Tell me why you met her where and when you did. Tell me why it took you so long to find her and then…nothing. Tell me why she won’t even acknowledge you. And while you are at it, explain to me why you have felt a strange and urgent explosion of creativity since you met her. I will now sit here quietly and wait for your answer.”
Buford Lister looked around the room, and all he saw was the flashing sign, the same damn flashing sign that caught his attention in the first place. PSYCHIC…READINGS…PSYCHIC…READINGS…PSYCHIC…READINGS…
He wanted to shake the magic eight ball; he wanted to run out the door, he wanted lots of things. He got nothing except a cold chill. “I don’t know what I am supposed to tell you. What do you want me to tell you? I have no idea how you know all this about her, but I must admit you described her perfectly. What is going on here?”
“Like I said, I am just a person like you. I see things, and I feel things. The difference is I am able to understand things, that makes me quite unlike you and very much unlike her. You both are hopeless, and that is a shame, more for you than for her.”
Buford Lister started to say something, but she cut him off. “No, you need not say anything, you need to listen. You know that you found your purpose in life when you met. You instantly felt that the reason you were born was to stand before her as time ceased to exist, as the universe stopped to admire the two of you as you stood across from each other. You quickly became confused as you realized that those around you seemed totally oblivious to the magical moment itself; it was as if you were the only person, and I do mean the only person, in the room who got it. You know exactly what I am talking about.”
*****
Charles Ives was perhaps (maybe, just maybe) the first great composer produced by the United States, he certainly was one of the first to gain an international reputation. His compositions were ignored during his lifetime, but his music is performed today; not a lot, but it is played. Ives was an experimentalist and, you guessed it, a major proponent of dissonance. Perhaps that explains why he lived a largely anonymous life, maybe he was just born before (or after) his time.
Ives, who played football at Yale, loved the music of Beethoven. That is a little curious because it seems he loved dissonance even more. Mozart seems a more logical choice for Ives’ affection, but no, I can find no mention of Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet in Ives’ musings. What I do know is that Ives disliked “pretty” music, and he was no fan of the beautiful music that Mozart typically created. In general terms, he thought that Mozart “emasculated” the music he composed.
Ives was one interesting character. He was known to stand up and yell at the “sissy eared mollycoddles” who had the nerve to boo and hiss when they heard dissonant music being played as they sat, as paying customers, in various concert halls. Ives would have none of it; any such uncultured poseur needed to get with the program and “take their dissonance like a man.”
*****
Buford Lister had to remind himself to breathe as the psychic continued on. She went on and on about the technical differences between a Twin Flame and Soul Mate. At one point, he could have sworn he was sitting through a talk on string theory instead of listening to a bunch of spiritual nonsense. After some time, he finally pried his eyes off her and glanced around the room. Off to the psychic’s right were three degrees in unassuming frames nailed to the wall. They were all from MIT.
The psychic noticed Buford Lister admiring the degrees, but she was not distracted. She continued on. “Time not only seemed to stop when you met her, it did stop. That is what happens when Twin Flames come together. The laws of physics become suspended, at least in the localized region of space that the two people happen to be occupying. I also know that similar things have been happening to you since you met her. I know that you have been having issues with your perception of time.”
Buford Lister’s ears, as well as his eyes, opened wide. How can she possibly know that? None of this makes any sense at all.
“You no longer experience time as continuous; it is lumpy; it comes to you in discrete chunks. I can tell by looking at you that when you get home, it will feel like it has only been moments since you left.” She took a long pause as if to gauge the unspoken response of the man sitting across from her, a man she had never seen before but whom she appeared to know intimately.
“Look, I am not interested in any of your philosophy or your metaphysics. I don’t want to hear any more mumbo or jumbo, and I certainly don’t care what those degrees are in. You haven’t told me one thing I find useful. I have only heard nonsensical gibberish. It would have been equally useful if you had given me a lecture on unicorn anatomy or the social structure of Leprechaun society.”
The Psychic took a deep breath, such a hard case, she thought. “All right then, what would you like to know? I am at your service.”
“So, what happens now? What am I supposed to do? You tell me about a thing called a Twin Flame, something I must admit I have never heard of, and then you go on and on about a bunch of other stuff that I simply do not understand. So give me my money’s worth. Tell me something useful. Tell me about my future. Do I have any type of future with this woman? Will I ever even see her again? I gave you $20, and you haven’t told me anything helpful. Look, if you want I will go halves with you, we can change the sign outside to read RANDOM…BULLSHIT…RANDOM…BULLSHIT.”
*****
I set out on a 90-minute run today. I had a cooler of drinks in my truck, an extra shirt, and a couple of towels. Funny thing, 30 minutes in both my knees started to hurt. I said a rhetorical “NO!” to myself, and then I yelled a literal one. The Athena Mojo appears to be wearing off; I no longer have the power within myself to make my knees stop hurting simply because I want them to. I had to stop, go home, and start typing. So here I am, right now, trying yet again to find words to explain the unexplainable. I find myself constantly wrestling with the vagaries of construction and wondering about the inherent promise of Dissonance.
Having my knees hurt is not the only interesting thing that happened to me on the run. I was rounding a corner when I noticed something off to my right. There it was, a hawk, a big beautiful hawk had just swooped down and taken a rabbit. Its attack was quick and precise. I doubt the rabbit even knew what was happening. As the hawk tried to fly away with its prize, an unexpected thing happened. The hawk, apparently startled by me, dropped the rabbit as it flew away into the trees. I did a few more laps, but I didn’t see the bird again. The dead rabbit was still there but it wasn’t yet a meal. What do you think of that, Athena? Pretty intriguing sequence of events, don’t you think? Knees hurting, rabbits dying, and me struggling to find words to type.
*****
She took out a very old, and very large, Rider-Waite tarot deck.
“Oh, you need a little help? I thought you were an intuitive, a true empath. Why are you using cards?”
“I don’t really need the cards for help; I use them mainly for clarification purposes. I know exactly what I am sensing and what I am being told by my guides, but I want to be sure the cards confirm the messages.”
“I see, bad news. You just want to make triple sure of everything before you send me on my merry way.”
She shuffled the cards, and shuffled, and shuffled. She never took her eyes off Buford Lister. “Tell me when to stop shuffling.”
Buford Lister waited; he didn’t want her to stop shuffling. He wanted her to continue; he wanted to remain seated across from her, the last thing he wanted to do was to get up and leave. The next to last thing he wanted was to hear what she had to say.
“OK, now. Stop now.”
She moved with a sense of purpose, her actions swift and decisive. The cards quickly found themselves in the pattern of a Celtic Cross.
Buford Lister didn’t bother to look at the cards; he spent the whole time watching her. It was as if her brain was turned inside out, the cogs and gears spinning just for his amusement.
“This is not making a lot of sense to me. My guides keep saying something about some type of artistic endeavor. My main guide is a man named Roland, and he is telling me to tell you…oh this is very strange, he is writing on a piece of paper with a pencil that is in the shape of a baseball bat. Does that make any sense at all to you?”
Buford Lister didn’t want to tell her that it made perfect sense to him. Instead, he asked her what the cards were telling her.
“The cards in this layout are being intentionally ambiguous. I have seen this many times before. The cards do not want to give you a straight answer. The cards are telling me “maybe yes” and “maybe no.” Nothing really that helpful. I am being told that it is up to you. The thing to keep in mind is that extraordinary circumstances do not respond well to ordinary strategies. That is what Roland is telling me.”
*****
I started writing these essays because I wanted Athena to pop her head up and let me take her to lunch. After the passing of some time, these essays have turned into nothing more than a cautionary tale that I am leaving behind for my niece and nephews. At some point, they are going to get old enough to contemplate the nature of the universe and their role in the cosmic ballet (albeit one that might be accompanied by a provocative orchestra trained in the ways of Dissonance). When that time comes, long after I am gone, I want them to be able to load this volume up and learn a thing or two about their uncle and the most unusual experience of his life. At some point, I hope they sit their own grandchildren on a knee and tell them about a long-dead relative that once met a woman at a rock show. They can talk to the kids about deep questions concerning this and that and the other, and then they can casually mention to them that this guy (a man in a pork pie hat and checkerboard Vans) wrote an entire book about meeting a chick in a dive bar. The grandparent can look the kid in the eye and tell them that the dude did find some answers to all those questions, but unfortunately, the answers just implied deeper and more disturbing questions. “My uncle would have said the answers he found simply created more Dissonance with a capital D. Yes, that is what he would have said.”
The kids can then ask their grandparents about the meaning of life and if there is a purpose to be found in any of this. Papa or Mama can then hand them a pad with a digital copy of this book on it and tell them: “Well, my uncle claimed to have found something very profound along the way. The book you are going to read is in his own words, take your time, and maybe you can figure out exactly what he learned.”
*****
Buford Lister went back home and sat in the dark as he contemplated what he was going to do. He knew exactly what the psychic meant. If he did nothing, then he had no chance. If he did something normal, something expected, (something constructed), then that was the same as doing nothing at all. Big risk, big reward, blah, blah, blah.
He wasn’t a writer (hell, he was trained as a scientist), and yet he was compelled to write. He got a bunch of books and learned all he could about how to write elegant sentences, how to construct linear arguments, and how to push a story along. He learned about “show don’t tell” and “writing the gutter.” He sat down, and he wrote and wrote, and wrote. Of course, the more he wrote, the better he got at it. Eventually, he had written an entire volume on what had happened to him when he met Kaylee, the punk rocker chick with the purple hair and the sunburst Telecaster. He finally realized that with resignation came, well… resignation. Peace, like the concept of a multi-dimensional universe or that of a Twin Flame, was way too abstract an idea for him to wrap his head around.
*****
I am a student of the universe, and I am also a student of human nature. In the last few years, I find that I am also a student of Dissonance. Where exactly does that leave me? Am I supposed to continue to struggle to try to find some ultimate meaning for this highly unusual experience? Am I to dodge and weave and put my trust in those who speak with utmost authority on topics such as wood nymphs, unicorns, and leprechauns in a feeble attempt to gain a little comfort? I don’t think so. What I will do is hope that this type of Dissonance is somehow musical (literally and figuratively) and that Athena eventually comes forward to offer the resolution that I think (and I hope) I deserve. I have no idea if she will but hoping and wishing that she might offer up a simple “yes” or “no” (or even an “OH HELL NO”) to a request for a stupid lunch date is a pathetic waste of time. She either will or she won’t, and there isn’t anything more I can do about it. I have done all I am willing to do…I am spent.
I guess I will close this chapter with the following thought. It has been a long time since I have heard from her and an even longer time since I have seen her (it has already been years with an “s”) but if you can all keep a little secret I will let you know that I still can’t help but smile when I think of her. I still know for a stone-cold fact that she is the most random, most inexplicable, and most extraordinary person I have ever met.
Oh no (damn it all), so much for my dramatic ending. I just realized that I promised to get to that one big question Brenda asked, a question I can’t ever (and I mean EVER!) remember anyone else asking me. So Brenda, am I happy? I am surrounded by way too much Dissonance to know how to answer that. I spend each morning fighting with all I have left to rage against the “Hayden-esque” life the universe so desperately wants me to live. In the afternoons, the fight turns inward as I weigh the pros and cons of my decision to give up on my fool’s errand of trying to convince a punk rocker chick that something magical and highly profound happened on the night we met. In the evenings, after my run, when I rub my knees and lean back in a feeble attempt to let Mozart’s music elevate me, I find myself numb to the whole experience, the experience of meeting Athena as well as that of life in general. I apologize Brenda, but I have no response; I simply have no idea what to say.
