Tuesday, May 16, 2006

All the World's Music:

A woman tells me that there is a man Oscar that I should speak with. When I ask to see him she says I must wait until the morning for Oscar is sleeping, though I didn’t seem to be very late. In the morning I walk in Oscar's room, which seems equivalent in size to a hospital room, to find a large bulk of a man completely hidden by covers.
“Good morning Oscar,” I say as the bulk rolls over to reveal it is an ape who’s hair is not quite gray, and not quite black.
“You must be here to interview me about my music,” Oscar says as he sits his huge bulk up in bed, while his huge ape-hands run over his face.
“Music? Possibly, they just said I should interview you. They said you had much to teach.” No one at that point had mentioned why I should speak with him.
With that Oscar flips a sheet off a large counter to reveal piano keys placed haphazardly across the counter, some of the keys are sideways, some are above others and all are spaced slightly from the next. On the floor there are pedals, wires, and speakers.
“Pump that pedal, that’s where the fuel for this thing comes from.” Oscar is pointing to a pedal that sits to the far left of the contraption. I begin to pump the pedal and the whole machine begins to whirr to life. Lights and dials appear blinking on the front of the counter.
Picking up a golf-ball Oscar looks over at me, “Let us start this off with a bit of randomness.” The golf-ball ricochets off of the ceiling smashing into a few of the keys. A synthesized beat, though almost classical, fills the room.
“Eh,” grunts Oscar, “not quite what I want,” as he presses a few keys the song structure changes completely. It is now a tribal sounding beat, but Oscar is still not pleased; his fingers depress a few more keys.
The sound changes.
“What I think I’ve done is place all of the world’s musical expression into this machine. I think it’s all of it. I even remembered to put this in there.” Oscar pushes a single button and the music stops. “See,” he hits the button again and the music begins, but differently than it ended. “Pretty crazy hunh.”

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