AtDTDA 24: The Omnidirectional Confidence of the Dead 672/673

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I love omnidirectional mikes. If you've got a good, quiet room---no rumble from 
freeways or subways---and position the mikes right, the results can transport 
you to another place and time. Like Steve Hoffman said when talking about his 
experiences listening to the master tapes for RCA's famed "Living Stereo" 
recordings of the late fifties/early sixties [a combo of omni's & cardioids], 
it's like breathing the air of a different time.
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=2

I found it interesting that kindly Madame Eskimoff used a Parsons-Short 
Auxetophone to record the seance on page 228, as the Auxetophone is a high end 
playback device far as I can tell. But the use of a high end acoustic playback 
device does remind me of an episode in Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain", where 
the author offers up his considerable descriptive skills in demonstrating the 
beauty of such a costly plaything. Recordings can transport---Aldous Huxley's 
"Point Counter Point" uses Beethoven's Fifteenth Quartet in A minor as the 
trigger for a life transforming event. Harry Haller winds up Channeling Mozart 
via the spat metal and chewed rubber of a 78 player. In spite of his 
detestation of the horrible sonic distortion of the record players of his 
time Mozart comes through, Handel comes through exactly like a seance.
I know this may seem strange, way off into the hinterlands, but there is 
something in the parallel development of audio recording and the metaphysical 
terrain explored first by the Theosophists, later by ritual magicians such as 
The Golden Dawn and the O.T.O., all of whom happen to be players in the 
Great Game of Against the Day. As in "Tous les matins du monde", music is
played to contact the spirit world. Recordings exist as spiritual records, I'm
listening right now to Bruno Walter playing Brahms via a SACD, it sounds 
like it's happening in this time plane whlie in 'reality' it was recorded 49 years 
ago. And it sure sounds soulful.

Ah, but I digress. Page 672 has Reef questioning our lovely Estatica as regards 
the authenticity of her supposed channeling. Eskimoff suggests that Reef try it 
for himself. He says he's not the supernatural type, she says [I love this]: 
"You can never be sure, the gift shows up in the strangest people", most 
certainly true [channelers I've encountered tend to be the strangest people] and 
possible a veiled and somewhat joshing insult. Reef then proceeds to become a 
Parsons-Short Auxetophone himself: 

          No sooner had the sitters joined hands than Reef was under, 
          like that, off in some sub-ecstasy. Next thing anybody knew, 
          he was singing, operatically, in the tenor register and the Italian 
          Language, though Kit knew for a fact that Reef was tone-deaf, 
          couldn't get through "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" without 
          changing key. After a while whoever the control was arrived 
          at a high C and held it long enough to send Sanatorium staff 
          running off to find medical assistance.

Enrico Caruso was one of the most popular recording artists of this 
time, paving the way for such "Half-Assed Tenors" [Tony Soprano's 
term] as Mario Lanza and Andrea Bocceli.

After this scary musical interlude, Reef really channels his Dad. 

          "But I sold my anger too cheap, didn't understand how precious 
          it was, how I was wasting it, letting it leak away, yelling at the 
          wrong people, May, the kids, swore each time I wouldn't, never 
          cared to pray but started praying for that, knew I had to keep it 
          under some lid, save it at least for the damned owners, but then 
          Lake sneaks off into town, lies about it, one of the boys throws 
          me a look, some day's that's all it needs is a look, and I'm 
          screaming again, and they're that much further away, and I 
          don't know how to call back any of it. . . ."

And I say "hey pick up that Madeline", and remember what it was like living 
with a Father who would practice non-violent disobedience in the streets 
and plenty of verbal, sometimes physical, violence in the home. Webb's 
character is developing, growing wiser as a dead man. There are so many 
instances to be found in Pynchon's novels where those who have 
"passed on" have a major role to play in the outcomes of those left behind. 
Webb has become aware of all the damage he caused. My Father was 
luckier, he wound up much like those who Webb witnessed, dying in bed, 
surrounded by loved ones, long since apologized for, long since atoned. 
My Father reached his posthumous state somewhere around his tenth 
angioplasty, might as well get all the karmic accounting worked out before 
leaving. Webb didn't get to that state until after his unfortunate but 
inevitable demise. Like Bob Dylan sez "Thing Have Changed". Like 
everyone else in Against the Day, Webb is now on the road to Shambhala.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxPcXTdUwgk