Imitation and Analysis of an excerpt from View from a Headlock, by Jonathan Lethem

Daniel Alexander Apatiga

Professor Eckstein

English 2150

24 April 2014

Original:

“Get up, son, you’re on the ground!” Mingus at his happiest called Dylan “son” in a booming voice, another quotation, half Redd Foxx, half Foghorn Leghorn.

He offered his hand, yanked Dylan to his feet. Dylan wanted to clear the leaf from Mingus’s hair but left it alone.

They trudged down a grade to a hidden patch of land, a tilted triangle of desolate ailanthus and weeds, choked in exhaust at the edge of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, cars whirring indifferent below. The patch was littered with cigarette butts, forty-ounce bottles, shreds of tire—an oasis of neglect. Mingus leaned against the wall, and thumbed the blue lighter, held it sideways to the tip of a small, faucetlike chrome pipe, another surprise product of the green jacket’s lining. Head tilted, eyes squeezed in concentration, Mingus sipped at smoke, held it in with thin-pressed lips. Fumes leaked from his nose. He nodded his chin at Dylan, finally exhaled.

Imitation:

            “Stop lazing about, wake up!”  Jake despairingly gasped.  He called Robert a “friend” in a soft tone, and quoted his father’s diction, which was heavily influenced by the mix of Pink Floyd and the Beatles.

            He handed him the money, brought him to a sitting position.  Jake patted Robert on the back.

            They walked side by side towards the curving road by the river, a winding river that was brown and had dolphins in it, polluted to the n’th degree by heartless corporate pawns who couldn’t give a damn about nature.  The curving road was dirty as a speckle, no trash to be seen for miles, in the despairing town of Dystopia.  Jake leaned against a lamp post, and held up his passport, beholding it to the light that emanated from the alien sun, the former of which was another work of the aliens who controlled Earth.  His head was trying to discern the writing and so it waned, which was memorized into hieroglyphics.  He breathed in the dirty air with his nonexistent lips.  Sulfide leaked from his alien nostrils.  He erected his head at Robert, finally inhaling from a filter.   

Imitation and Analysis of an excerpt from View from a Headlock, by Jonathan Lethem

My imitation closely resembles the excerpt from View from a Headlock, paying close attention to content, and I try to use his syntax.  In my essay, I will look at the various dictions: first, Mingus’s mulatto status and his friendly, warm characteristics; and second, Dylan’s white, “pure” behaviors that he wants to reduce in order to fit into the African-American community.  Dylan also has a persona that inclines him to befriend people of similar characteristics.  I tried to take into account the stylistic choice made by Jonathan Lethem to reflect upon the characters’ various dictions with the omniscient narrator of his short story.   Also, I have tried to take into account the various points of view between the aliens and the utopians, as well, when I had written my imitation.  My analysis will describe how I similarly use elements that Jonathan Lethem uses (of a single setting and cultural imagery (such as the music quotation) to make my imitation just as complicated as Jonathan Lethem’s.  Then, I will explain why I chose this segment over other segments—essentially, why I liked this passage a lot. 

I think the passage I had chosen exemplifies dialogism, and so in my analysis, I will point out how I use dialogism, too.  Since the passage that I selected contains dialogism and to some extent, carnivalesque diction, I had written those into mine to some extent.  And lastly, I will explain how I used a binary opposition in my imitation, relating it to the few I discovered in the original excerpt.  I will relate the subject of my imitation to the original, answering why I chose to talk about aliens instead of everyday life. 

I also think the passage has binary oppositions, and so, I have my own that are interwoven into the prose-imitation.  For instance, the difference power between the two characters in my imitation: one has to advice the other to go to the airport instead of not being needed to be reminded; there’s a difference of maturity.  Next, the obvious difference between interests: there’s a human population on the planet versus the aliens that visiting and who we see through their eyes.  Similar to the binary opposition of nature versus manmade phenomenon in the original excerpt, I have included imagery of nature—the dolphins for instance and the river—and the curving road, which is human-made.   

             In the excerpt, Lethem paints his setting with two heterosexual men who appear to be sitting on a lawn and conversing amongst each other in a friendly, concerned tone.  They appear to be talking in a monologue since they are both similar in what they like: they both like comic books, for instance.  Jonathan Lethem chooses to explain their ways of interacting (in terms of behavior and interpersonal communication) by an omniscient narrator who knows their thoughts, perfectly.  The characters aren’t necessarily aware of their own thoughts, though.  The unspoken, bodily behavior to offer Mingus’ hand to Dylan is symbolic of his friendship: he shows that blacks and whites can get along, especially if one is mulatto, so the example does not count, almost.  The main theme of the narrative as a whole—not the excerpt—appears to be about racism.  As you mentioned in class in a lecture, the author had structurally set up the story so that the blacks had a sort of racist attitude towards the whites—not the other way around.  While the two characters appear concerned for each other in a non-homo-social manner, as any pair of friends would, the omniscient narrator paints a kind of static landscape.  It does little to define where they are going or where they are, aside from a lawn, since the narrator is more concerned with developing the characters, which is the crux of this drama. 

The focus seems to not be on the urban landscape nor the natural “patch of land,” which are in binary opposition to one another (manmade phenomenon versus nature), but rather, how the characters are developing.  The focus then shifts from that of an innocent, urban setting, into what the humans have done to earth—they trashed it.  Lethem has inserted societal criticism into his imagery of the excerpt, though the focus is not on where they’re going.  Syntactically, he infuses each sentence with a lot of everyday imagery that are in dichotomy from one another, such as: “…weeds, choked in exhaust at the edge of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway…”; and a “…patch was littered with cigarette butts, forty-ounce bottles, shreds of tire…”  The narrator uses this imagery to take the focus away from the two main characters, temporarily, and it doesn’t detract from the story.  I try to do a similar thing in my imitation.    

            The stylistic choice of including a reflection done by the omniscient narrator on the first line where Mingus says, “Get up, son, you’re on the ground!” followed by “…another quotation, half Redd Foxx, half Foghorn Leghorn,” I have decided to include in my imitation but with a different character.  The tone of the author to include mood in the narrator’s diction I included as well where I said: “…Jake despairingly gasped,” except mine isn’t as positive sounding as “happiest.”  I also paid close attention to where the author includes nouns relating to characters and the relatively rare use of pronouns, which I decided to imitate in mine.  I tried to follow the syntax of the last, larger paragraph of the original excerpt in terms of where the author includes the subject.  My setting, however, with its similar, innocent-seeming city landscape is far more alien, which is what makes my imitation different. 

            Similarly to the author’s use of diction for the characters, my imitation is pretty casual sounding and matter-of-factly.  It’s not like my characters are in the military or speak in a secret language.  The characters, though abnormal like the author’s characters, are understandable to the reader yet they are alien, which is what makes my story unique.  Similarly to Mingus, Jake says “My friend, isn’t it time to go to the airport?”  This is what someone would say—not an alien.  Paradoxically, the alien seems to understand how to get across to the reader.  Similarly, Mingus, a mulatto, knows how to get across to the character on the page, and thus, to the reader. 

In terms of unspoken behaviors, Mingus, who offers his hand to his friend, Jake offered Robert some money that he owed and unlike Mingus, there are no homo-social problems among these aliens who speak among each other.  This difference can be overlooked however, as I do syntactically remain consistent in imitating the author’s prose.  Also, the behavior of Mingus “[leaning] against the wall”, I have my main character, Jake, do, but with a lamp post.  It is an uncanny lamp post, however, because it is created by aliens.             

I decided to write about aliens on earth who are personified, (if that word works), for it truly is impossible to understand aliens if we are to one day meet them, perhaps.  Sure, we’d be able to understand them in a limited way through their technology, math, etc., but our histories of development as a species is so radically different from theirs that we wouldn’t know how to begin to speak with them.  This is similar to the theme of View from a Headlock as a whole, because it’s about differences in histories and points of view. 

So what would happen if we met aliens like in my imitation?  In my excerpt, I have likewise chosen a scenario that aliens have conquered earth, like how whites mistreated blacks in a reversed sort of manner (during slavery), because in View from a Headlock, everything is switched.  Aleins would also consider us to be unattractive, and thus we would be like ants to them.  My imitation also explores the question: what if the aliens’ theory of Darwinian evolution is so wholly different and alien from ours that they view the definition of life to be not to breed, to survive, or to be able to move?  I take into account the possibility that Aliens would have other qualities that define their theory of life, and thus, we would be excluded.  It’s possible, and therefore, to add to the mystery of my excerpt, I decided to use this science-fiction aspect. 

The Prophetic Warnings in the Various Settings of Lady Audley’s Secret, by Braddon

Daniel Apatiga

Professor Anne Stapleton

RR #3 on Lady Audley’s Secret vol. 1

April 5^th 2014

The Prophetic Warnings in the Various Settings of Lady Audley’s Secret, by Braddon

In Lady Audley’s Secret, the various settings all seem to have a paragraph dedicated to their description at the beginning of every chapter, which begin in-medias-res, typically, and some have a tendency to create an uneasy feeling, as if there’s a bad omen, in vol. 1.  The imagery used in the various settings may be symbolic of or foreshadowing larger things, like for instance, when George Talboy is described as being on a ship that is heading towards England from Australia, why does Braddon use a ship set in a faraway location such as Australia?  It seems as though for her story to work or plausible, the ship’s distance is necessary to convey that George Talboy is completely ignorant of the news in England, which he later on reads when he’s with Sir Michael.  For him to have read in the newspaper that his wife is dead suggests the implausibility of this to happen if George had been in England all along—it means that there’s something in England that’s significant to Braddon’s story that the narrator is also not telling us.  Furthermore, in Lady Audley’s Secret, there are many extended metaphors used in the settings to describe the tone of what’s to come; Braddon uses uncanny settings to foreshadow what will happen, as well.  Especially in chapter IX titled, “After the Storm,” Mr. Audley believes that the weather will be over, but it in fact “…burst with terrible fury over the village of Audley about half an hour before midnight” (Braddon 67).  Could this be a metaphor for the story itself—that things are just going to get worse for Sir Michael Audley?  Braddon uses many literary devices in each setting, which seem to hold a special significance to the novel.     

The time that transpires between chapters seems to be in elision.  Braddon rarely explicitly states in a long journey between the Court of Audley town and London via carriage what Mr. Audley, the barrister, is doing, for instance.  When travel is concerned, time seems to go pretty fast.  Also, when George Talboy is on his ship sailing from Australia to England, only one or so day happens in a long journey that would take ten days, I think, according to the novel.  So in this way, the setting is a background image in my mind, yet, it’s central to the plot because it wouldn’t make sense for the things to have unfolded in the way they did.  

Time seems to slow down when we get into the mystery aspects of this sensation novel.  Particularly, the barrister who is the nephew of Sir Michael Audley, investigates as a police officer would the mysteries surrounding George Talboy’s disappearance, (he fancies to himself), and when he’s in dialogue with Mrs. Moloney in regards to the blacksmith who entered his office.  At that point in the novel, time seems to enter a more normal pace.  He discovers that, as it turned out, of course, his increasing paranoia had caused a false alarm.  Another place that time seems to slow down even further to the point where it stands still, is in the description of Lady Audley’s portrait and the day of the storm: 

”Yes; the painter must have been a pre-Raphaelite.  No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets… [etc.]” (Braddon 64)

“[He] took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life.  He lay on a sofa in the sitting-room, osensibly reading the five-days’-old Chelmsford paper… [etc.]” (Braddon 67)

Anytime we, as in us readers, come across a setting that seems to describe a painting on the canvas of the novel, which could be a painting of a painting, or a thunder storm, time stopped for me.  The feeling conveyed by the objects in the aforementioned settings seemed to suggest Braddon was offering to me two pieces of evidence that are significant to the enfolding mystery of Lady Audley’s secret precisely because time stood still. 

The settings to me was fantastic, because they reminded me of what Dostoevsky once said about his own works: that his own works were too fantastic.  And having read a few of his novels, I can say that the images that the words evoke are very similar in quality.  Not only that, but Lady Audley seems too fantastic of a creature, in terms of beauty and perfection, to exist.  But then again, I suppose that there are women who fit her descriptions quite nicely…

Cultural Artifact paper: Civilization V for PC

Video games intrigue me because they have uncanny effects on the population.  I’m affected by the experience of playing a PC game, Civilization, in a way that is most disturbing. Sid Meiers, who created Civilization, is a famous software developer when it comes to strategy games. I remember watching my uncles play his game, Civilization, in their spare time back when I was really young. Many people of my generation have played the Civilization series, the latest of which is Civ “V”.  As an artifact that was created in the United States, its cultural value is rather low—only a few gamers play it, while most people play World of Warcraft or prefer to watch a movie for entertainment.   But according to Sid Meiers, “Games have become the entertainment of choice for people all over the world” (Frum).

I started playing Civilization (III) when I was entering college for the first time, and I’ve been playing the series ever since, though today I quit.  As the primary source of entertainment, video gaming took over my time as a student because of its addictive qualities, in my opinion; I chose to work on improving my video gaming skills rather than improving my piano skills.  I have wrestled with the idea that video gaming does not flex any brain muscles at all but only is a detriment to human intelligence by confining oneself to more limiting rewards and punishments.  What I mean by this is that playing civilization causes a false sense of success when I “win,” as I do not actually win anything; it causes me to seek more pleasure from winning by playing it over and over again, and often I lose on harder levels of difficulty.  Supposedly playing it on Emperor Difficulty in civilization V is doable, but I’ve never been able to beat it on two difficulties easier (Deity difficulty). 

Sid Meiers designed the series over one principle--the human desire for power--though it's make-believe power.   And those who lose are left with a feeling of inability to perform to his norms/standards, and this is undesirable to me.  All that Sid Meiers has succeeded in doing is waste other people’s time in order to receive a bigger pay check.  The sense of power that is created by not just Sid Meiers but other programmers like him are driven by a desire to be “successful,” yet it is a success that is almost entirely worthless since Civilization is mostly played alone (though it can be played with other people).  During this time gamers could be hanging out with friends, spending time with family, and making relationships.  Some people like Johnathan Wendel (or more famously known as Fatal1ty) gets paid to be watched because of his skill at first-person shooter games.  Perhaps because he makes money at it, being a fictional paid assassin is ok?  Of course, I’ve never been able to draw that conclusion and never will.  In the game, every player has an evil apt for dominating pixels on a screen though he or she can’t actually put it into action, but it’s symbolic! 

We fantasize about breaking all norms and morals all the time—it should tell us something about the human race.  The things that I did in the game were stroking a dangerous philosophy that I never fully developed—world domination, the concept of being a “better” civilization, the idea that some civilizations don’t deserve to exist, the limitation that one has to expand, conquer, defend because there’s no other choice.  What does this do to none-fully developed minds?  Furthermore, should a fully developed mind even consider wasting his or her time on such a fantasy?  In my opinion, he/she shouldn’t. 

  Civilization, indeed, might prepare people to enter battle like a strategist that one has become after playing it for so long.  If someone can’t tell the difference between reality and delusion, then is it dangerous?  Is the government preparing us to become patriotic militarists?  But this is almost entirely like saying world domination is something George Washington would do, if I play as him, which I have done.  I suppose that's the illusion—that some people can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy—that computer games create. 

Sid Meiers toys with my desires in a way that appeals, which is why his game causes euphoria when I win.  In the book “1984,” Orwell created dystopias in constant war and Winston lost the battle with his mind, accepting political passivity in a one party system.    Sid Meiers created a fantasy for world domination.  In a way, I am Winston who has been indoctrinated into Civ’s framework.  Strategy, and by strategy I mean tactics and outsmarting opponent(s), fostered paranoia because I wasn’t sure whether someone was going to attack my civilization.  It’s difficult to know who will attack or whom to trust in Civilization V, which is why I’ve quit. 

The game always started off the same.  I have a settler, which I must decide where to build its first city; then, I have to choose something to make: a building, warrior, worker, or another settler.  Later on, I made world wonders, national wonders, a huge navy, an army that swept every civilization away.  I pillaged, razed, and occupied cities in my way as any dictator would and under the guise of George Washington.  I lost everything every time I played—usually I felt fake afterwards when winning on too easy of a difficulty.  I built a scout so I could explore the lands that are darkened by blackness, which is a core concept behind Civilization.  In the beginning of the game, all the lands are darkened because they are unexplored except the lands that my scout and city can see (which usually has a radius of two squares).  I had lost by building a powerful attacking (or defensive) force, however way you looked at it and I never won the game by cultural, diplomatic, military, or space race victories in Deity difficulty.  I built a sufficient military in easier settings and never succumbed to winning by military force.  There’s not enough time to build every world wonder. When given a choice between good and evil, perhaps intelligence is choosing to lose even though I can win by being evil.  ­­­­­

What had caused me to return to playing this game is the seemingly endless outcomes, the new “features” that expand the possibilities, which complicates the game.  I was the kind of guy who tried to win via cultural victory, which is the least blood-shedding method, but was occupied myself.  This forced me to seek a stronger military—I don’t think that is the solution; there is something wrong with the equations that Sid Meiers and his team created.  What does this do to one’s political beliefs?  My plans for cultural victory always “failed,” though it shouldn’t.  Is the lesson to be learned that scientists say video gaming teaches is to conform to the software developers’ framework?  Should I learn to abandon my dreams to have the right to exist in a state of war?  Sid Meiers says, “that’s the most rewarding experience for a player: learning by doing, and then owning that concept because you did it, because you tried the alternatives and that was the best one” (Dolan).  I felt guilty that I wanted to destroy other civilizations who pissed me off.

                Sid Meiers is quoted as saying, “the core of Civ is the idea that the individual pieces, if you look at them in isolation, are actually pretty simple” (Donlan).  He then likens the pieces as the pieces on a chess set.  The game itself is a lot like a chess game in that each unit (or piece) has its limitations.  Some pieces are different by their inherent purpose—some serve to spread religion, expand the empire outwards like settlers, or workers that are “slaves” essentially who build improvements—they aren’t paid from the government coffers, which is another limitation of Civilization—I never get to see the whole picture.  There is no way to avoid the use of military in the game; I can avoid cultural or diplomatic wins, which this game has encouraged. 

Civilization was developed into the sophisticated game that it is now (with a new expansion about to be released called Brave New World), because of its many new elements added by “…fans and the talented folks who work on the games…,” according to Sid Meiers (Frum).  The original civilization for instance didn’t have hexagons for areas to occupy, which was supposed to be included (Frum).  It wasn’t until Civilization V that it was included, which has allowed more directions to move for my and my opponents’ units, which creates constant questions such as: what would have been different had I explored that unit or attacked in that direction?  Another thing that has changed over time has been the inclusion of cinematic scenes, which I had skipped because I considered them a waste of time, but they are well-acted and “beautifully” rendered by well-known voice actors.  In Civilization IV, the main voice actor was Leonard Nimoy, or more commonly known as Spock from the original Star Trek series.  Also, the beautifully rendered graphics are demanding, of which had nearly burned down my machine and therefore my house due to the overheating it caused on my GPU (graphics processing unit).  I had to compensate by buying a new laptop with PC quality specs, which had cost me a fortune.

  

Works Cited

Frum, Larry, and Special t. CNN. "' Civilization' Creator : Games are Taking Over the World." CNN WireJanuary 23 2012. Print.

Minson, John. "THE PROGRAMMER'S PROGRESS ; John Minson Meets the Man Who Built a Railroad and Went on to Create Civilization." The Guardian (London): 29. January 23 1992. Print.

Donlan, Christian.  “Sid Meier’s cultural victory” Eurogamer video game reviews, news, previews, forum, and videos Web May 2013.  7 July 2013.  

Juul, Jesper, 1970-. The Art of Failure an Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games / Jesper Juul. Ed. Inc ebrary. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2013. Print.

Free writing object: basketball (pretend to be the object)

Free writing object: Basketball (pretend to be the object)

I see people walk by though no one picks me up.  After ages a group of young boys¹ pick me up, fondling me.  They place their hands on me on every spot eventually—those sweaty hands.  I tell them to lay off and to let me rest in peace but now I’m bouncing up and down.  I am being hurled, thrown at them—each other—to the hoop.  I am ricocheted off the backboard but it doesn’t hurt.  I feel nothing but I sense I am part of a bigger plan/game².  They set me to the side and I’m not sure whether I feel relieved or sad—sad that they do not continue to play with me.  Now a group of older humans—female³—pick me up and they are putting pressure on me, making sure I am inflated, playable.  They proceed to throw⁴ me around from person to person.  One time a lady threw me from one end of the hall to the other and I made a swishing sound through the hoop.  They could not believe her—she made me score⁵.   

1: A group of teenagers who happen to be best friends from Roosevelt Elementary school when it wasn’t abandoned in Ames, Iowa.  The school is now closed and the whereabouts of the basketball are unknown.   2: The game they were playing was half-court because another group of kids were playing on the other half.  3: A group of sixth graders, where before, it was a group of fourth graders. 4: Their method of throwing the basketball was significantly stronger, being older and taller than the younger boys.  5: In the game of basketball, the score means shooting through the hoop.  Past the 3 pt. line, it counts as 3 pts.; from the half-way mark, it’s 4 pts.; and lastly, anywhere nearer the 3 pt. line, it’s 2 pts.

Practicing Piano

Practicing Piano

               The thing that I’ve focused most on in life is practicing piano.  And it used to be difficult for me to remain focused.  I was often distracted by life’s quick pleasures.  But, when I was young, I practiced at least two hours a day usually to prepare to go to a reputable university or college for studying music composition in order to be a concert pianist of my own musical compositions.  When I lived at Florida State University for two years, I began to lose interest in the discipline of piano playing.  My college professors had begun to continually criticize me during lessons in an alienating, unfriendly, and strict manner that made me lose touch with the musical “oneness” I had with the piano.  Ever since leaving FSU’s school of music, I could not handle the stress and despair that entailed practicing.  And much like the pianist in the autobiographical essay, “Every good boy does fine,” by Jeremy Denk—a renowned pianist—I have experienced tedious, torturous, heart-wrenching exercises that I mostly avoided and attempted to cover up (in lessons), which might have something to do with the fact that I’m not a concert pianist.  I’ve had many good teachers and many poor ones.  One of my piano teachers who I’d admired had a particular disdain for me and my methods, and taught me in a put-down, arrogant manner, I thought.  She one time made fun of me during master class, I thought, when she said, “don’t you think it’s amazing how he stops in the middle of the passage and plays the chord over again, class?” when I had difficulty finishing a piece.  Don’t get me wrong, though, I learned a lot in my convoluted experience at FSU, mostly from Mrs. Mastrogiacomo, a former piano professor with whom I had a class for ensemble, Piano Duo.  We played Rachmaninov’s “Vocalise” for four hands in front of a large audience.  During the performance I had rushed and she later complained to me about this, which was a legitimate criticism.  But the one lesson I took from being at Florida State University in the School of Music was how to keep a beat during a performance.  The driving force behind a composition is a steady beat, I’ve learned from her, and one absolutely must count in one’s head otherwise the piece will be unintelligible.  The trick is to not make the notes fit into a beat (when performing eighth notes or quarter notes), because that would just make it sound mushy.  The trick is to play as “naturally” as you can, and also confidently.  The other teachers I had made it seem as if I had uncontrollable problems with my playing, and I never felt included among their seemingly “favorite” students.  (I was kicked out of the music program due to bad grades, which fortunately brought me back to Iowa).  I had entered the university with a scholarship, and perhaps I could have practiced more, but I had lost interest due to mental illness, and in many ways, I became a worse pianist when I left than before I had arrived.  Except there are many phrases that stuck with me ever since, such as, “hear the beat when you play,” “the piano keys are like levers,” “practice scales,” “learn Mozart,” that became obsessive mantras whenever I sat down to play.  Like Mr. Denk, I recently found a way to quiet these hallucinatory voices. 

               Not that piano “practice” is a process that I cannot enjoy; it’s easy to practice by myself without any guidance.  When directed by a teacher, piano practice is a difficult concept to grasp for anyone because I am not sure what it entails, which was a vague request my teachers made of me.  Since I had passed my auditions with a scholarship, I felt like I had to envelop and maintain everything my teacher said which may or may not have been what they intended.  What does a concert pianist do for practice without a teacher?  Somehow, I felt less sure of music programs in general since I received little guidance on how to feel at ease with the piano.  I am flabbergasted with the idea of a performance degree that schools of music offer, because you spend so much time learning how to play a piece already composed by someone long ago so that you can perform it “in the way that it’s intended.”  But, it doesn’t add anything to the realm of music because that would make you the thousandth person who has played that piece—maybe the fiftieth who has garnered enough reputation to make a recording.  Music “reiteration” seems to me like it’s almost as passive an activity as watching TV, unless of course, you are there to learn.   One teacher put it, “piano playing is orally passed down from pianist to pianist,” which is true for some disciplines, though some are passed down through literature.  I think only a few people, though, understand the hours that is necessary to compose that piece that you are playing—say, for example, Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata.   A piece with that many notes is someone else’s creation, copyright, and therefore, why waste your time learning it?  Maybe that’s why music performance is a dead-end job.  There’s no creativity in re-interpretation compared to, music composition, for instance.  Essentially, piano performance majors are hardly different than oral story tellers.  Don’t get me wrong, however, every pianist needs to learn about the renowned concert pianists of the past, because they have things they expressed that are relevant to us today.  The “serious” Artistic stuff is composition because you are adding something new to the world and somehow leaving a unique imprint for others to follow. 

When I was alone, I wasn't really alone.

Solitude

               In the fall of 2012, when I was alone I wasn’t really alone, technically, but I felt alone.  I was with many people at an outside restaurant whom I did not know.  They were speaking with each other unintelligibly to me, the content of their dialogue was conveniently tuned out by my ear-cancelling headphones.  For weeks I would show up there and I would concentrate on writing poetry and composing music.  Some of my favorite compositions were composed while I was in a state of solitude.  I had minimal interaction with waitresses during this time, as I really wanted to finish my thirty minute composition and my goal was to make it sound as Tchaikovskian as possible.  I quickly found that it was too difficult to write a single piece, especially in the shadow of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which lasts 18 minutes.  He had actually written a shorter version first then he later revised it after consulting with Balakirev, a contemporary.  I used software to be able to compose music away from the piano: Sibelius is a notation software, and cakewalk is a simpler notation software that has a more user-friendly interface. Cakewalk also has a playback function, which is an absolute necessity.  For me, one has to hear the melody sort of in one’s head much like how one remembers a melody from a composition.  Even before one improvises on a piano, one must hear the melody before actually hearing it and expanding on it.  On the outside, spectators look at you as if improvisation is a spontaneous art and just like the method of composition, but actually a lot of thought has gone into it beforehand.  When I sit down to improvise, I can immediately tell whether it’s a bad melody or good one, and it usually is luck that lands on a good one.  One must learn to separate the visual aspect of the keyboard from the abstractness of music theory behind the keyboard.  It’s not enough to memorize I-V chord progressions and more complicated ones, although they are helpful.  The trick is having an idea, much like a computer scientist has with a project, before beginning an improvisation or composition.  When I sit down to compose, I don’t see numbers for chord progressions because I simply don’t have the time to write them out, although, I can create something that sounds amazing using advanced music theory, I presume.  Knowing which note is going to be a voice and then, knowing the rhythm of the voice and hearing where I want it to go next is the skill I’ve sought to develop since middle school.  I do this by figuring out the interval, or if I have a really good ear, I can immediately tell what the interval is, and then inputting it into the software program.  I wrote six pieces that Fall that I thought were going to be thirty minutes long each, but they turned out to be five minutes long on average.  But later, I discovered that if I combined all of them, they sounded unified.  And much like Tchaikovsky’s tragic eighteen minute composition, this one has many pauses and climatic moments, I think.  If I had the time and the courage, I’d learn my own composition and play it.  As an improviser and composer without any real distinguishing license, I am content with just feeling like I have piano composition as a side hobby; it’s not that important to me to finish the music degree I had started eight years ago.

Another time I felt absolute solitude—like nothing bothered me and I wasn’t psychotic—was when I was alone in my room for days on end, though I did not confine myself entirely to its location but since I did wonder about the house frequently.  I remember being in there the most while I was unemployed during a summer years ago, mostly while my father was away at work and I still had some remnant of discipline left in me.  I would see my dad return regularly from work at 3:30pm, but I was alone and I could divide my tasks up how I saw fit according to my priorities, such as: reading, playing/practicing the piano, and watching TV/playing video games.  While this was hardly nature driven as in the case of Thoreau’s story, “Walden,” I thought that surrounding myself with technology would ease the passage of time.  In retrospect, I have found this to be rather passive and a wasteful way to spend time, except for reading and composing music.  But during this time, I improvised a few pieces that I recorded (and put on YouTube) of the exact feelings, emotions, and desires I had for a particular woman who’s now moved on.

Types of Pianos

Daniel Alexander Apátiga

A poem with repetition and in list form

Types of Pianos

Steinways cost so much I can’t afford one.

They sound so perfect I have to play on one.

They sing the music as we’re supposed to hear it.

I can’t imagine any pianist who doesn’t want one.

Electric—if they can incorporate electronics into one,

An electric grand piano would be a new invention.

How come there aren’t any electronic Steinways?

Uprights—they cost less and you can afford one.

But still I can’t.

My pockets are deepening without money though with lots of debt.

Uprights sound worse than baby grands,

Which to you they sound melodic and they sit there desirably,

Waiting for you to play on it.

They range in size from small to medium.

Grands—they’re the large baby grands.

Grand pianos cost more and can be up to nine feet.

But I have to wait ‘til I’m rich.

My pockets are deepening without money though with lots of debt.

Yamahas are good but as good as the Steinways?

Organs were the precursors and were the first keyboard instrument.

But Organs are too big to have in the house.

Boston pianos—they’re made from the same dudes who make the Steinway,

Only they’re made in an assembly line and are cheap.

Of course, I can’t afford one, ever.

My pockets are deepening without money though with lots of debt.

Boston pianos also don’t sound as good.

Some grands have more than the normal amount of keys or less.

Some have more than one register I bet.

Some may even be polka dotted with pink, white, and blue.

Some ancient pianos have unique patterns painted unto their frames.

Your piano is the best I’ve heard and I want to know how much you sell it for.

My pockets are deepening without money though with lots of debt.

A new ending to a story by Poe

Daniel Alexander Apátiga

Revised Version 2

A new ending to the end of a story by Poe

               M. Valdemar, being on the brink of death, was still in a state of deep hypnosis when suddenly a woman from the future briskly entered the room without revealing her true purpose.  At this point he was beyond death in either world—heaven or hell.  Just as the hypnosis experiment had entered the phase in which he was “reanimated,” she and I had a chance to talk.  Chasity told me she’s a doctor who has a cure.  There was no cure besides the one I had theorized, in my expert opinion, though she convinced me hers was different.  I did not believe in her because I had no idea who she was.  Despite wanting to see my experiment be drawn to its inevitable ending, which was as I theorized, a death without a death… also better known as the state of reanimation, I allowed her to carry out her plan.  I decided to allow her to follow through because she was stunning.  The corpse of M. Valdemar would have some remnant of life left of who he was had I been allowed to follow through with my experiment.  Perhaps his memory, speech, and cognition, would all be there still intact indefinitely, though not truly, because he would be in a state of hypnosis.  And my solution to mortality would not spell the impending apocalypse as promised in the bible—as every sick, old, decrepit human being scrambles to plead for my aid—hypnosis on their death beds as a means of escaping judgment.

She might have been a fallen Angel, but I began to know her as the days grew brighter as Miss Chasity.  The way she lightly moved around the cabin made me rethink her purpose.  She made some intelligent movements with her hands over M. Valdemar that weren’t sexual in nature, but rather of unearthly methods beyond my grasp.   She pulled out a shiny device that emitted a beam that most closely resembled light, though it was a state of matter that wasn’t energy, as I instantly knew as a baby would immediately know solid from a liquid for the first time.  Nor was it solid, liquid, gaseous, or plasma; it was something never before seen.  To have this ulterior scientific knowledge could make me famous if I had decided to steal it from her.  My conscious helped me see that it wasn’t a knowledge we were ready for, it was for some grander purpose that she is here.  Not only that, my obsession with the promise of hypnosis as a way to extend life had evaporated, which would mean I’d have to pursue some other art.  My desire though for fame was greatly outshined by my desire for her intricate personality, which wasn’t limiting me from fantasizing her beside me in bed.

               As she finished her strange movements, I felt greatly inferior to her knowhow with a device that produced strange results.  It was for some purpose that I could not explain, but M. Valdemar began to speak, telling me of how he felt better and that what I had done had cured him.  It was most surprising.  I thought that he was suspended from death indefinitely, that it was her action that had saved him.

He began to speak as if it was the most important thing in the world, “I hear melodies and harmonies!” 

The lady, Miss Chasity, muttered something in his ear, her device long hidden from view.  She left rather matter-of-factly, unhurriedly, because I had wanted to see her. 

“When I get home I will write down this divine melody, because the complicated music is up in my mind.” He told me. 

This piece, which was very moving and later affected many people in society, was one of his many soon-to-be-famous compositions.  I knew he was a musician beforehand, but imagine if he had died and no one became acquainted with this musical genius!  He was a composer before I had met him and he sought my aid in the techniques of hypnosis when he became infected with Tuberculosis.  But I did not save him, she did.

Months later, after he transcribed it onto some parchment, I told him, “I’m glad that you are alive.”   

In short, if he had not been resurrected by her I wouldn’t hear people sing his songs.  I wouldn’t see them cry at the moving music, their souls touched as she touched his.  This future would be different and society both high and low would have been robbed.   Only God could guess what affect good music has on a generation, society, and the future of a race. 

She disappeared from view and society later that week.  M. Valdemar and I tried to find her and even called the police, but there was no one by that name who matched her appearance.  Later, the government police contacted me and questioned me just the same as I had questioned the police.  One thing remained unclear, however, and that was how she did it.  There are no words to describe it.  She did it to save or avert us from the fate of the future.

Unrequited Love

Unrequited Love

Every time I look to the water,

I see a fossil.

They are stuck there lazily

Amidst the sand.

And when I pick one up to say, “look!”

She has to respond, "you're not sanitary.”

Deep in the sand

A crab crawls without a sense of being sanitary.

She asks me to look,

But all I see are fossils.

I begin to swim in the water

And I float on my back lazily.

She examines the crab as it lazily

Digs a hole pushing away the sand.

A big wave of water

Slaps across the shore giving the crab my sanitary

Sense while the fossils

Jolt around as I look.

She sits down on a hammock to look,

But I feel too lazy

To walk past the fossils.

And tread on the sand

To her smelly feet that’s un-sanitary.

I hear the water

Recede as she sips a coconut shell full of water.

I see the crab peering out of the hole to look

While the lady becomes more sanitary

Absorbing the sun and making vitamin D lazily.

I make my way back across the white sand.

I step on a fossil

By accident and I bleed without any sanitary

Sense.  She bends her head down to look lazily—

And all I see is the ocean of water.

Review of an opera album on Spotify, "Madame Butterfly"

               Giacomo Puccini's “Madame Butterfly” is about the passionate love between a Japanese lady and an American sailor, Pinkerton.   However, the sailor prefers to marry an American, but wants to take advantage of a Japanese lady.  She doesn’t mention this to her, which leads her to think he loves her with genuine feelings of passion.  The opera ends in tragedy, when Madame Butterfly realizes that her American husband has remarried without letting her know when she thought he left on a mission.  She kills herself.  The album was released in 1996, with a performance by Ying Huang, which was made for a film by Frederic Mitterrand.  Interestingly, Puccini’s life was riddled with many affairs with women.  The most notable one was with a married woman who eventually left her husband because he had many affairs himself. 

The music throughout the opera seems it’s written for a particular key, though I’m not sure.  There always seems to be a bass-continuo while the opera actors sing.  One can easily fall in love with Madame Butterfly’s voice, because of the music.  The tender moments occur when she ends a musical phrase on a high note, but then tapers off.  I like how the composer has the singer end on a relatively higher note (than the rest of the musical phrase) by steep, disjunct motion.  The music was written in a late romantic style, which is obviously homophonic, with multiple melodies at the same time at parts.  At parts Puccini blends between polyphonic and homophonic textures.  In the beginning few tracks, I noticed that the sailor begins to be associated with the U.S.’s national anthem, which recurs throughout the opera whenever the sailor is about to enter the scene (or during), which is an interesting way of word painting.  Puccini word paints a lot in by fading in with the sailor’s voice, implying distance.  Madame Butterfly, who’s on a higher register of the keyboard if it were composed on one, seems to be much louder and forefront because she is the main character.  The music seems to have many recitative moments intermittent within the arias.  The most impassioned music occurs when Pinkerton and Madame Butterfly share the stage.   Otherwise, when she’s with her maid, Suzuki, she sings as though she’s in a meditative, self-reflecting state of despair (in Acts 1-2).   

At the track, “Viene la sera,” there seems to be three distinguishable melodies; one in the orchestra, the sailor, and Madame Butterfly, of whose music is played simultaneously.  The style is briefly contrapuntal.  The sailor and Madame Butterfly have an impassioned duet, singing together at parts and alternatively towards the end of the track, “Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia.”  The piece, however, is Puccini’s way of saying “I’m just getting started,” because the piece is less climatic and powerful than the music in Act 3 in my opinion.  Towards the end of Act 2, the US’s national anthem returns in Madame Butterfly’s voice, which seems to foretell that he will return and that she believes he loves her.

In Act 3, there’s a prelude with mostly instrumentals and brief vocals made by Goro, a matchmaker for Madame Butterfly.  The music moves in a more agitated manner; there are less impassioned duets of love, rather, the music foretells a gloomy end to the relationship.  The last piece, “Tu? Tu?... piccolo iddio!” is when Madame Butterfly slits her throat, thus ending the opera abruptly.  Towards the end of the piece, there are only instrumentals played in fortissimo, making the dynamics of the opera having a big range between quiet and loud.  This piece seems to disappoint, because I thought that there would be more vocals and duets between the sailor and Madame Butterfly.  Puccini also didn’t add the third act until later, which is why, to me as a listener, the music felt out of place. 

Overall, I think this is an excellent recording and I like the music.  The music made me understand what she was feeling and thinking more so than if it was a play.  Also, it was impossible to see the performers, so I didn’t know exactly what they were doing while listening, which is my main complaint.  Puccini seemed to base this opera on his own life in an allegoric sense, although it was based on a book.   The album isn’t my favorite recording of the opera, but, I liked the pieces particularly from Act 1 the most.    

               

Orwell was right, Orwell was right

In my twenties I walked mad and discontent

Due to scandals.

I thought there lacked an equal.

My father and I bar-hopped while it felt new,

A pulling force seemed to make us walk inside.

My wife I saw and all my life I waited for her,

My love!  “Suddenly,” I said, “why do you not answer my messages?”

Alas, it's my personality that strikes you down.

Your silence begs for me to talk to you,

Though I did not know my silence would haunt me to this date.

A bright and white lady appeared, a transparent ghost.

Like Molly Pitcher, she helped injured soldiers

From Iraq and Afghanistan while I had no job.

She's an androgynous communist, a Russian-American.

Far from weak and devoid of thought for anyone but me.

I didn’t know how to react to poor service.

The other venue had a waitress who complained

Of the most ridiculous assertions against me, yet--

The police—they heard every shaky voice.

I was paranoid that they would be at my doorstep.

Out of respect for the law I kept quiet and played the idiot role.

I was clad with a moral impetus to visit you,

To make you mine and make you do things you’d never do.

A lady dined across the packed bar, that night, she stood up.

She was a vile, dark demon who walked gracelessly

Towards me who was in fancy to all but you, in fantasy about you!

Meanwhile, Molly Pitcher poured beer at the back.

I, like the waitress, was clothed traditionally.

Her tanned, unique face and agile, light frame—

I did not have her number so I asked and forgot the other.

She didn't have mine either, and I shall never forget:

Her lack of courtesy and rude allegation.

Her allegation was impolite and without material. 

The White Lady who was Molly Pitcher vanished.

I last saw her beneath the counter.

While she left with an ugly man,

Orwell foretold the future that we lived in.

We lived in it.

A deep thought in my anomic head droned endlessly without you.

“Don't worry”, I thought to myself, “I lived in Orwell's book and now,

Surveillance cameras are recording my voice though they belong to me not.

My non-wife welcomed me to a bar without trust or love.”

Trickery and falsery covered her in a delusion. 

She never welcomed me nor fell in love with me.

I learned later she hated me.                                          

The White Lady looked at the cook and then towards me—

The cook stared in a wide-eyed, idiotic way.

My anomic head and my embarrassing self… 

Who never learned from Brother's Karamazov.

But I told myself: 

“When I saw her face, she was not on the same page. 

I was going to be her teacher and we were going to get married.     

When I heard her voice her voice was always music.

That meant everything to me.