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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 4, 1965] Space Prison of Opera (February Galactoscope #1)

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Please enjoy this duet of stories by a pair of veterans (both the authors and the reviewers!)


by Cora Buhlert

The Escape Orbit by James White

The Escape Orbit by James White

When I spotted The Escape Orbit by James White in the spinner rack at my local import store, what first attracted me was the cover, showing two humans fighting a tusked and tentacled monstrosity. But what made me pick up the book was the tagline "Marooned on a Prison Planet". Because stories about space prisons are like catnip to me.

Though the space prison in The Escape Orbit is rather unconventional, housing human prisoners-of-war in the sixty-one year war with an alien race called "Bugs", because nobody can pronounce their real name.

At the beginning of the novel, the surviving officers of the battlecruiser Victorious ("erroneously named," the narrator Warren muses) are taken prisoner and dumped on what they assume is an uninhabited world. They are proven wrong, when one Lieutenant Kelso appears. Kelso informs the newcomers that the Bugs have dropped off half a million human prisoners-of-war on the planet with only scant supplies. Escape is supposed to be impossible. If the humans manage to flee anyway, there is a guardship in orbit. Kelso also insists that the newcomers are in danger.

It turns out that the human prisoners on the planet are divided into two groups. The Escape Committee, led by Kelso, who focus all their efforts on escaping, and the Civilians, led by one Fleet Commander Peters, who have resigned themselves to their fate and set up villages. The Civilians and the Committee are hostile towards each other and on the verge of fighting. The newcomers are expected to side with one group. But before making a decision, Warren wants to listen to both sides. And since he was Sector Marshall before he was captured, that makes him the highest ranking officer on the planet.

Warren and psychologist Ruth Fielding realise that the situation on the prison planet is volatile. The Committee is losing members, so those who remain become ever more fanatical. Ruth points out that the Committee are chauvinists, because most female prisoners join the Civilians and then seduce Committee members. Warren fears that as the Committee becomes more fanatical, they may try to take over the planet and cause a civil war. To prevent this, Warren decides to use his position to keep things calm. He joins the Escape Committee as a counterweight to Fleet Commander Peters and the Civilians.

The Great Escape… in Space

Warren takes over the Committee, learns about the escape plan and schedules the escape for three years in the future. He starts a good will initiative towards the Civilians to persuade them to help. Warren also tries to squash the not so latent male-centered prejudice among the Committee and appoints Ruth Fielding to his staff.

Warren may be no chauvinist, but he doesn't know much about women and people in general. And so he is surprised that the Civilians are forming families and having children. At this point, one suspects Warren needs a crash course in human biology. Furthermore, Warren also manages to bungle the chance at a relationship with Ruth Fielding – twice.

Once Warren succeeds in winning many Civilians over, the bulk of the novel focusses on the preparations for the escape. However, Warren also furthers the progress of technology, improves the communication network as well as the distribution and preservation of knowledge and even organises the colonisation of another continent.

As the escape draws closer, tensions erupt both between Civilians and Committee members as well as within the Committee itself. Things come to a head when a new group of prisoners arrives a few days before the escape. Hubbard, one of the new prisoners, reports that the war is over, because humans and Bugs have managed to battle each other to a standstill and both civilisations are falling apart. Even if the escape succeeds, it will be futile, because there is no military to return to.

Warren imprisons Hubbard and goes ahead with the escape anyway. The attempt succeeds and Committee commandos manage to hijack both the enemy shuttle and the guardship. The surviving Bugs are taken prisoner and sent to the planet, while their ship is crewed by the most loyal Committee members.

Warren returns to the planet once more to explain his true plan. For he had realised even before the arrival of Hubbard that the human military would collapse and that there was little hope of rescue. Warren also realised the prison planet was on the verge of civil war and would regress to savagery within a few generations.

By giving everybody a shared purpose, Warren managed to smooth over the tensions, preserve knowledge and create a stable society. Furthermore, he also used the escape to separate potentially violent Committee members from the general population. Warren announces that he will take off with the Committee members deemed unsuited to peaceful life and leave the rest of the former prisoners behind to rebuild civilisation. He also admonishes them to communicate and cooperate with the Bug prisoners, so future wars can be avoided.

I'm usually pretty good at gauging where novels are headed, but The Escape Orbit surprised me. Initially, the book seemed like a science fiction version of the WWII prisoner-of-war escape tales that have proliferated in both the German and English speaking world in recent years. The best known English language example is The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill from 1950, which was turned into a Hollywood movie two years ago. Meanwhile, in West Germany there is a flood of POW novels such as So weit die Füße tragen (As far as the feet will go, 1955) by J.M. Bauer or Der Arzt von Stalingrad (The Doctor of Stalingrad, 1956) by Heinz G. Konsalik, who specialises in such tales and also penned Strafbataillon 999 (Penal battalion 999, 1959), where the twist is that prisoners and guards are nominally on the same side. All of these novels were huge bestsellers and turned into successful movies and TV series.

Not actually Sector Marshall Warren and Major Ruth Fielding, but O.E. Hasse and Eva Bartok in the 1959 film adaption of Heinz G. Konsalik's bestselling novel "The Doctor of Stalingrad"

In The Great Escape and the various West German novels, escaping from the terrible conditions of a POW camp is a matter of survival. However, the conditions on the prison planet in The Escape Orbit are far from terrible. And so I quickly sided with the Civilians and wondered why Warren and the Committee were so eager to escape, when they were better off on the planet than wasting their lives in what was clearly a pointless war. For a time, I even had the sinking feeling that I had accidentally purchased a military science fiction novel akin to Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 Starship Troopers, which I disliked immensely, once I realised I was not in fact reading about a dystopia, but about a society the author considered admirable.

But White tricked me, for Warren was on the side of the Civilians all along and the escape plan was a way to occupy the Committee fanatics and keep them from interfering with the establishment of a peaceful society. Of course, military (science) fiction can be both pro- and anti-war. The Escape Orbit comes down firmly on the anti-war side. I was surprised to see a high ranking officer like Warren portrayed sympathetically, because in West German postwar literature and film, any officer with a rank higher than captain is usually portrayed as a blustering idiot or bloodthirsty warmonger, probably inspired by real world experiences with both types during WWII.

I knew nothing about James White before picking up this novel. Turns out White is a long-time science fiction fan and author best known for his Sector General stories about a hospital space station. White hails from Belfast (Andersontown, the city in the novel, is named after the suburb where he lives) in Northern Ireland, where religious tensions run high. Thus, White knows how easily hostilities between opposing groups can escalate into violence.

The Escape Orbit is not quite as brand-new as I assumed, since the novel was serialised, almost identically, as Open Prison (a more appropriate title in my opinion) in New Worlds last year, reviewed by our own Mark Yon.

The Escape Orbit is very much an anti-Analog novel, where humans are not superior to the aliens, where war is pointless and cooperation, both between humans and aliens and opposing groups of humans, is preferable to fighting. This is certainly a message for our times, as the spectre of war raises its ugly face again in South East Asia.

Four stars

Space Opera by Jack Vance


By Rosemary Benton

Jack Vance is a gifted writer who has received a lot of attention in the last year. He has rightfully been awarded praise for his world building in Ace Double F-265 and "The Star King", but thus far has proven to be somewhat inconsistent in the pacing of his stories. This is not to say that he hasn't been rapidly improving his writing. At times his storytelling has been spot on, such as in "The Kragen".

Thankfully, with "Space Opera" he does not fall short in either department. The pacing and world building are both excellent, but with Vance's latest release there still remain issues that prevent his works from rising beyond "entertaining", or even "ambitious". He has yet to become "timeless", but by God does he come close sometimes.

"Space Opera" is Vance's newest novel. In it he tells the story of humanity's pride, and how fragile it is. In the far future, Earth's high society is still very much preoccupied with its perceived perfection of music as an art form and humanity's generally superior understanding of music as a universal concept. Dame Isabel, a patron of the operatic arts, takes it upon herself to honor a promise made to a troupe of visiting musicians from the elusive planet Rlaru. As they sent a troupe to visit Earth, so will she bring some of Earth's finest music to their planet. In preparation for this she gathers an exclusive selection of singers and musicians, she brings the world's foremost musicologist aboard the good ship Phoebus, and sets off to Rlaru with missionary zeal. On the way they will of course stop to educate other alien races on the magnificence of Earth's musical accomplishments. The success of the undertaking is… complicated.

What Makes Something High Art?

Our cast of protagonists begin their journey with a very well defined and well researched mindset. The first few chapters of "Space Opera" are lousy with musical terms, phrases and theories that are absolutely esoteric for general audiences. Intentionally, Vance is setting up a practically aristocratic 19th century approach to how culture should be defined: if a culture's art is too accessible, then it's not sophisticated. If it's not sophisticated, then it's inferior.

Exclusivity is a prime ingredient to make a culture great in their eyes. Exclusivity of musical theory, exclusivity of musical venues, exclusivity of the language of music (in this case favoritism of German and French language operas on Dame Isabel's expedition), everything about an advanced musical sensibility in a culture should speak to exclusivity. Which of course also translates to the most desirable audience being comprised solely of wealthy patrons. The favored company of Dame Isabel is academic specialists, and the audiences she most voraciously seeks at each stop along her tour are the alien societies' elite.

The best parts of Vance's story are when these very human expectations are subverted. On Sirius the company is unable to make sufficient adjustments for the cultural norms of the native population and the performance fails spectacularly. On Zade they are vetted by a native music critic who mirror's Earth's own narrow minded music specialists. He judges the performance of Dame Isabel's troupe by applying his own culture's standards against Earth's operas, and finding them deficient dismisses them and then asks for monetary compensation for his time. On Skylark the troupe finds that just because the people planet-side express appreciation for operatic craft does not mean that such appreciation is meant truthfully – it turns out that their attempts to keep Dame Isabel's people on for more performances is just so that the convict population can begin switching out the crew's musicians for physically altered convicts with comparable musical proficiency.

Music's Greatest Power

The emotional resonances of music are the pinnacle of Vance's exploration of music's power. On Yan, Earth's operas are interpreted to represent that which has been lost by the planet's people. The response is one of violence from the spectral remnants of the native population. On fabled Rlaru, Earth's operas are too dry for the natives to become interested in. Their culture already achieved the highest levels of artistic perfection, so seeing another people's comparatively primitive attempt at high art is boring and uninspired. However, a passionate performance held in back of the ship by a ragtag, informal group of the performers draws a massive, appreciative crowd.

"Space Opera" is a novel of massive potential, but Vance tries to compress the issue of human beings' cultural superiority complex in too short a time. The setup is exceptional. We know exactly where Dame Isabel, Roger Wool, and Bernard Bickel are coming from in terms of background, personality, and motivation. They go through a harrowing ordeal in the process of reaching Rlaru, and their time on Rlaru is extremely memorable. The fall of the plot is that there is not sufficient time given for the characters to reflect on their experiences. Because of this "Space Opera" ultimately falls short on its final satirical delivery.

Dame Isabel, the character whom I would argue is the central protagonist of the story, concludes her expedition to spread Earth's "highest" cultural medium by returning to Earth and holding a brief press conference reflecting on her and the crew's experiences. She starts the story as an elitist and remains one by the end of the novella. Roger Wool, her bumbling nephew, returns to Earth with his on-again, off-again fiance Madoc Roswyn, and some vague promise of a forthcoming book about the Phoebus' adventure. He begins as the naive, clueless, kept relative of Dame Isabel, and concludes the story as such.

The one character who has the largest arc was Bernard Bickel, Earth's premier musicologist. Despite being relegated to the role of a world building tool and Dame Isabel's consultant, his dialogue in the last few pages at least hints at growth. At the press conference mentioned earlier he comments in a round about way that the expedition gave him an appreciation for the varied reactions Earth's music got on the different planets they visited. But the story's detachment to his experiences relegates any development of his character, and more importantly what he represents, to the background.

At the best he seems like an anthropologist accompanying an invading fleet. Along the way he watches the Earth musical missionaries meet disaster after disaster on their blind quest to prove humanity's superior grasp of music. At worst he could be seen as a character who should have been the primary protagonist, but was swept under the ornate, oriental rug of Dame Isabel's sponsorship and her nephew's charming fumbling.

The Curtain Call

"Space Opera"'s concept would make a great full length novel. But as nearly a novella, it's just doesn't go deep enough. I thoroughly believe that Vance has something really special here, but unless he expands the story in the future it's a piece that will fade into the background of science fiction in time. Perhaps Vance will come to see "Space Opera" as a practice piece for writing satire, but as it stands right now it's merely a three star story.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[December 17, 1964] San Francisco as Cultural Epicenter (Woman in the Dunes, etc.)

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by Victoria Lucas

The City

Yes, San Francisco is known for earthquakes, and perhaps I should be more careful with that word "epicenter." However, just as earthquakes start deep underground, so did the current cultural cluster of motion in this town whose underground is decidedly showing.

Free the Muses!

That's "motion" as in "motion pictures," but also as in music, which is sound in time. Music has been locked up in conservatories and other academic institutions for far too long. Time to let it loose. And lo and behold it consorts with experimental movies and finds people with electronic talent, and you get a spectrum of separateness, with pure films at one end and pure music at the other, and in the middle a fusion.

That fusion was happening at the San Francisco Tape Music Center for years before I moved to this cultural epicenter, in the collaboration of artist Anthony Martin and the composers who work and perform at the Center. I've seen some of these remarkable pieces, although when I hear them on the live broadcasts on public radio station KPFA when I can't go, the theater pieces and light shows don't really come across. (Imagine me sticking out my tongue here.) The most exciting event this year, though, has to be the one that exploded onto the music scene on November 4, by composer Terry Riley, rendered at 321 Divisidero by fellow composer and Tape Music Center performers Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Morton Subotnik, and Pauline Oliveros.


Composer Terry Riley

In C

Here's what SF Chronicle music critic Alfred Frankenstein wrote about Riley's shaker "In C" under the headline "Music Like None Other on Earth":

"This primitivistic music goes on and on," and "At times you feel you have never done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be, but it is altogether absorbing, exciting, and moving, too."

Frankenstein captured my feelings exactly as I listened to the music.  Mark my words, in half a century this will look like the most influential musical event of this time period.

Sandy but not a beach

On the other end of the spectrum, there was also a VIF (Very Important Film) that debuted in September in the U.S. and somewhat later here in The City, another culture bomb that I predict will also be analyzed nearly to death in future rounds of teaching and criticism. "Woman in the Dunes" concerns a traveling entomologist (you could call him a bug catcher) and a woman who is not allowed out of her hole in sand dunes. It was made in Japan with an interesting sound track by Tôru Takemitsu, from a book by Kôbô Abe. I have been told that the Japanese title is "Suna no onna" (sand woman).


The sand woman lying in her hut covered with sand

Said to be a "new wave" film, even though it is "foreign" it might be an Oscar magnet. The performances of the two main actors have been lauded, and the story has been given different interpretations. What I find most telling about it is that of the two main actors the man is named (Niki Jumpei) but the woman is not. If she ever had a name, it is not revealed during this story, although we know that she is a widow. She is a captive of the nearby community, who keep her in the sand pit, shoveling sand for their use and sale; when the man is captured as well, her situation does not immediately improve, although Jumpei is ultimately responsible for her escape. Go see it if you can. Is this an "underground film"? No, but it's not mainstream either; you will not find it in your neighborhood movie palace.

Avant-garde films

Most of the films made in and around San Francisco are not considered to be Oscar-worthy, but they could be called "underground films." They are made, for instance, by members of the Canyon Cinema, founded by Bruce Baillie. The experimental films made by Baillie and Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage, and many others, are played at small venues in the Bay Area. Mostly distributed on black and white 16-mm film (with some Super-8 after Brakhage's equipment was stolen), they blur and sharpen focus, play with sound and light. Some filmmakers draw or paint on the film itself, or use color sparingly. It appears that film, too, needs to be released from the movie theater, even the ones that play foreign films like "Woman in the Dunes."

Digging deeper

To find the venues for the music and movies I am coming to love (including, by the way, the beautiful "Window Water Baby Moving" by Brakhage that still gets played from time to time), I increasingly find that I have to know someone or pick up a mimeographed flyer or see a small poster tacked up.


Scene from Brakhage's "Window Water Baby Moving"

Now that I've wormed my way to San Francisco, I seem to be digging my way further underground. Who knows how far down this rabbit hole goes!




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[July 28, 1964] Beatlemania Arrives Down Under!

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by Kaye Dee

I was so excited last month to talk about the first Blue Streak test launch that I completely forgot to mention another huge event occurring in Australia in June — the first tour Down Under by The Beatles! Yes, the Fab Four made a whirlwind visit to Australia and New Zealand last month and Beatlemania took the country by storm. Mr. Kenn Brodziak, the local promoter, made a lucky investment when he booked The Beatles last July to tour here, because they weren’t anywhere near as famous then as they are now. The newspapers are even saying that this tour has been the most successful event in Australian show business history.


The Beatles, arriving in Adelaide

The band arrived in Australia from Hong Kong on 11 June. An unscheduled touchdown in Darwin in the early hours of the morning was a taste of things to come, with 400 fans and journalists turning out to greet them. Unfortunately, when their plane arrived in Sydney it was bitterly cold and pouring rain (remember, it’s winter right now in this part of the world): in fact, the rain was so heavy that I could not even get out the door to go to the university — I’d have been soaked to the skin before I got to the bus stop! Oddly enough, there hasn’t been a drop of rain since and the long-range weather forecaster Mr. Lennox Walker is now predicting a drought over the next year.

To tell the truth, I didn’t mind being stuck at home because of the downpour, since it meant that Faye and I could watch the live broadcast of The Beatles arrival at Kingsford Smith Airport. There is no morning television in Australia, but both Channel 9 and Channel 7, our two commercial stations, had outside broadcast vans at the airport to provide a direct telecast. The pictures were even relayed live to Melbourne via the new co-axial cable. It shows how much everyone wants to see this amazing pop group that has taken the world by storm! There were thousands of fans at Sydney airport, braving the awful weather to catch a glimpse of the Fab Four as they struggled with umbrellas in the driving wind and rain.


The Fab Three and Jimmie Nichols braving the rain in Sydney

I say the Fab Four, but when the band arrived in Sydney, it was actually the Fab Three and a ring-in. Ringo Starr had been hospitalised with tonsillitis and pharyngitis before the start of the tour and his place was being taken by British drummer Jimmie Nicol. Ringo wasn’t able to join the tour until their first concert in Melbourne on 16 June. 


The Beatles with Jimmie Nichols

The Beatles travelled to Adelaide on a chartered plane for their first concert and when they arrived, more than 250,000 people lined the route between Adelaide Airport and the city. According to my WRE friends, this huge turnout was a ‘thank you’ to recognise that the promoter had added Adelaide to the tour schedule in response to a petition signed by 80,000 fans. I’ve read that this is the largest crowd to turn out for the Beatles so far, anywhere in the world! There’s certainly been nothing like it in Australia before: I even heard a commentator on the radio say that the eruption of Beatlemania in Australia has been more intense than anywhere else in the world so far! Mind you, not everyone has welcomed the Beatles so enthusiastically. In Brisbane, where their plane arrived at midnight to be greeted by 8,000 fans, a handful of anti-Beatles protesters threw eggs at the boys, which I think was a pretty stupid gesture.


There's Jimmie Nichol again

The Beatles played 20 shows in Australia — in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and everywhere they were greeted by enormous crowds of screaming fans. There were a lot of reports in the press about ‘hundreds’ of fans in Adelaide and Melbourne being injured in the crowds, although Mr. Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager said in response to a question at the Canberra Press Club that he believes these reports to be greatly exaggerated. The police took them seriously in Sydney, though, and more than 600 officers of the Special B Squad were on duty around their concerts and other appearances in the city, to prevent major disturbances.

Faye and I managed to get tickets to one of the Sydney concerts (yes, I admit we’re fans, even if we might be a little bit older and less-inclined to scream than most of the audience). The tickets cost us 37 shillings ($3.70) each, which certainly wasn’t cheap, but it was well worth it to see the Fab Four performing live. It was just as well that we could see them, because I’ve got to say that we could hardly hear them over the screaming of the young fans. It was even more hysterical than at the Frank Sinatra concert I went to in Sydney in 1961! 


Screaming fans in Sydney

The concert itself was really entertaining. The first half of the show consisted of four Australian support acts, including Johnny Devlin (something of a favourite of mine) and Johnny Chester, who are well-known Australian singers. The local acts performed for about 45 minutes, then, after the interval, The Beatles came on for the second half of the concert. In half an hour, they gave us 10 songs from their first two albums, as well as Can’t Buy Me Love from their ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ album, which has just been released in Australia this month. Of course, I would have loved them to perform more songs, but, as they did two shows every night (one at 6pm and the second at 8:30pm), there wasn’t time for any more. I’m told that the concerts had the same format in each city and it must have been incredibly exhausting for all the performers.


On stage at Sydney

On 18 June, while The Beatles were in Sydney, Paul McCartney celebrated his 22nd birthday, with a party thrown by the Daily Mirror newspaper. After the Sydney concerts, the Beatles made an eight-day tour of New Zealand, where they performed 12 concerts in four cities. 10,000 fans saw them off from the airport in Sydney. There was an article in the newspaper saying that Johnny Devlin actually helped to solve major sound problems at the concerts in Wellington, which had annoyed John Lennon so much that he threatened to cancel the remainder of the tour. Fortunately that didn’t happen and the Fab Four were back in Australia at the end of June for their final concerts in Brisbane.


The Beatles, off to New Zealand

The Beatles tour has been a major event in Australia, with more media coverage than just about anything apart from a Royal Tour! I suspect that it’s going to have a big impact on music and teenage culture in this country. I also suspect that these talented young men from Britain are destined to go on to achieve great things in the world of music and entertainment.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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Fashion, music, politics, sports, TV

[December 5, 1963] A Composer After My Own Heart (A theme song for Dr. Who)

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by Victoria Lucas

Tracking down the Dr. Who theme

After reading Mark Yon's column mentioning the British telly program "Doctor Who," I distracted myself from (shudder!) the assassination by trying to find out anything I could about that program, particularly the unique theme music (new music is my bag, you see).

My usual sources are the libraries at the University of Arizona (UA) and in downtown Tucson.  When those turn up empty, I start in on my private network–folks I know.  Someone mentioned that the music was supplied by the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, who do all BBC sound effects and theme music.  But how to find out more?  And if it’s the music I’m interested in, how can I hear it?  There appear to be no plans to broadcast "Doctor Who" in the US.

OK, now I’m right up against the wall and climbing as fast as I can, because I’m stubborn.  (If you knew my family you’d know I come by it honestly.) And besides, I promised to write this column.  Oh!  My tape network.  I’ve mentioned before, in connection with hearing a radio program I missed, that I’m part of a sort of round robin that sends reel-to-reel tape around for hearing, copying, etc.  (I do sound and other services for local little theater–it comes in handy if there’s some effect I can’t produce or some music I need.) So I phoned my contact, who phoned his contact–etc. 

A gift from London

To my utter surprise and relief, it turned out that there was a package waiting to be sent from England, and I am the ideal person to receive it and send it on.  You know how composers are–well, maybe you don’t. 

Music composition is not a lucrative profession, for the most part.  It’s sort of like the few sports stars who occupy everyone’s attention, and everyone else who isn’t on one’s hometown team is ignored.  This is the age of the 20th-Century Canon, in the sense that "classical" musicians put their faith in a slightly varying list (like a set of sacred books) of composers and music that symphonies play and national radio and television favor.  When you go to a concert, leaving "pop" or jazz alternatives aside, you know you’re usually going to hear at least one of the four B’s (Bach, Brahms, Berlioz, Beethoven).  And a few others, most 19th or early 20th century European "classical" music..  I’m tempted to add a fifth "B" for Borge, but he makes a living playing (not composing) "classical" music, with a few jokes on the side.


Victor Borge in concert 1957

If you don’t compose or play music that sounds like the items on that list, you will have to find some other way to make a living, or live very frugally, squeezing out a few dollars here or there from donations, commissions, or occasional gigs that pay actual money.  Just ask my friend Barney Childs at UA, who holds a PhD in music composition from Stanford.  He teaches English as an assistant professor and composes in his spare time.  His music is often highly dissonant and doesn’t appeal to your average concertgoer, who expects dominant, consonant melodies presented in classical formats by musicians who, in turn, usually expect the same and may be so offended if their sheet music does not conform to what they learned in the conservatory that they will walk out or otherwise disrupt a concert.  Finding performers who will play unusual music can be quite difficult, making electronic music, despite its complicated techniques, attractive, since often the only performer is the composer.


Barney Childs and his ever present pipe

And in this case the composer who is to receive the package is more or less homeless, sleeping on other people’s couches or floors and traveling when and where he is paid to perform.  So I actually feel pretty good about inserting myself into this delivery process, quite aside from being able to listen to the very latest in (as it turns out) electronic music.  I’m responsible for finding out where he is from the local contacts I was given (too much long-distance calling for folks in England) and sending it on.  Best of all, the tape I just received and played has a sheet of (legible!) comments on the music and even some words about and a photograph of the performer, with her equipment. 

Meet the maker


Delia Darbyshire on tape machines

According to the comments, it seems that someone by the name of Ron Grainer composed music for the "Doctor Who" theme.  Another somebody–by the name of Delia Derbyshire (what a veddy British name that is!)–realized it as electronic music in the Workshop!

The anonymous writer also says that Derbyshire wasn't allowed to compose music on her job for the Workshop, but she was allowed to do "special sound by BBC Radiophonic Workshop," which apparently is anything she wants to do.  What a job!  But it sounds as it if was lot of trouble and some luck to get there, and some knocking around, because Derbyshire had a hard time finding anywhere she could use her degree in mathematics and music.  For instance, she was told that Decca Records wouldn't employ women, and … well, whoever heard of a woman composer?


Clara Schumann

I wanted to compose too after I learned to transpose while studying piano, but I didn't know anybody who had heard of a woman composer, and that includes my mother and aunt, harpists who had performed in the concert circuit.  My father was not supportive, although my mother always indulged me.  Without specific encouragement to realize my dream, however, I saw my future stretching before me, always playing other peoples' music that for the most part bored me, and I didn't like that future.  So I stopped studying music and started looking for some other way to make a living.  (Mind you, I was 12, as you might see in my previous column.)


Composer Luciano Berio

Derbyshire, on the other hand, had an opportunity to work with Luciano Berio last year when they attended the famous Dartington Summer School in Devon, England, so she was able to hobnob with at least one VIP of new music decidedly not in the Canon.  I wonder if this was the fulfillment of a dream for her.  It would be for me.

Behind every great man…


Ron Grainer

There is a brief note in the comments that made me laugh aloud: Derbyshire is so clever that when Grainer heard her music for "Doctor Who" and delightedly asked, "Did I really write this?", she answered "Most of it."

The same page in the package shows a small drawing of the composer’s music described as "swoops," and nothing more.  So there was a lot of room to improvise.  Come to think of it, the lack of a staff and apparent use of graphic notation remind me of John Cage, who used a transparency with lines to overlay dots and lines in his "Fontana Mix."  Talk about its being hard to find performers when your music is unusual, think of Cage’s predicament after the debut of his last year’s "4’ 33" after which many people consider him a joke!  On the other hand, put yourself in the position of a classically trained musician confronted with that composition’s page of sheet music indicating three parts, each declaring only "Tacet" (musicianese for "silence").  Was Grainer "avant garde," too?

I have to wonder whether what Derbyshire meant by her remark about his composition was that the rest of "most of it" was written by her, or by her assistant Dick Mills, a sound engineer who I understand is responsible for sound effects for a programme (note British spelling) called "The Goon Show."  Something tells me I would be surprised by the truth.


Dick Mills on the left

I can't imagine getting to England anytime soon–especially since I’m paying for the next leg of the journey for a piece of tape and its wrapping, a photo and a piece of paper, as well as some long distance charges.  But maybe I'll get to San Francisco again before long, where there's a place I keep hearing about called the Tape Music Center.  If I can’t make electronic music, maybe I can at least listen to it.  This little piece I received today, which I had to use a lot of leader to bind to a reel for enough time to play it, is a delight!




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[November 7, 1963] This Performance Not Wholly Silence (John Cage and his art)

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by Victoria Lucas

Oh, it was so magnificent!  I will never be the same.

You see, I was sitting on a chair in the wide lobby of the Drama Department after hours, with the glass doors closed, a typewriter table in front of me with my typewriter on it, transcribing an interview that my mentor (composer) Barney Childs did with his former teacher Elliot Carter.  My location was prescribed by the fact that my office (and the entire area below me), under the theater itself, was under construction.  This was my only opportunity to work there on my office Selectric typewriter without the noise of jackhammers. 

As I typed I noticed something strange.  Carter spoke about another composer, whom I had barely heard of: John Cage.  He had nothing good to say about him, even going so far as to call Cage’s music “obscene.” I had heard a lot of stuff said, seen a lot of stuff written about composers, but I had never heard one composer call another composer’s music “obscene.” This is the age of Lenny Bruce, after all.  I can understand what would be obscene about his material, but music?  What could be “obscene” about music?

I was so intrigued by this what when drama graduate student Susan Jackson said she was driving to a concert/dance performance in Tempe to see a friend in the Merce Cunningham dance company that travels with Cage, I asked if I could accompany her.  Susan is only a couple of years older than I am, but she is so sophisticated, so funny.  It was Susan who once tested my statement that no matter what name you use to call me I will know you are referring to me and answer accordingly.  In a crowded, noisy room, probably in my office or that lobby of the Drama Department, she shouted some name.  I didn’t know she was looking at me, but I immediately turned to face her and answered her call.  She laughed; then, when I understood what had happened, so did I.

Just the two-hour trip to Tempe, on the outskirts of Phoenix, was a delight, although Susan had to concentrate on her driving (a Volkswagen Beetle) because it was snowing!

Now, for those of you who don’t live in Arizona it might not be obvious that snow is a rare commodity in the flatter parts of the state.  It snows in the mountains and in the higher ranges, like Prescott and Flagstaff, more or less regularly each winter.  But in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, which are in valleys, it snows maybe once a decade or so.  Therefore, it was an event when we unfolded ourselves to get out of the car almost across the street from the concert hall, and crunched through a light crust of snow. 

But we did not go into the hall immediately.  We were parked outside the little house of another of Susan’s friends, who also knew the dancer.  (Merce Cunningham and John Cage are at this time on tour of the United States, the two of them in a Volkswagen van traveling with the dance company and accompanist David Tudor and his electronic equipment.)

We spent a brief time with her friend and then bundled up again for the walk to the Tempe Union High School Auditorium, when I entirely lost the two of them.  When I got to the box office, I looked around and they were gone.  After buying my ticket, I looked for them in the lobby, in the theater, the restrooms, but didn’t see them.  I was reluctant to try to go backstage, where my friends were most likely to be.  I finally got a look at the program.  I have never heard of any of the other performers: among them Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Shareen Blair, Barbara Lloyd, and Steve Paxton.  I wondered which of them was Susan’s friend.  The absent composers included Pierre Schaeffer, Toshi Ichiyanagi, and Bo Nilsson, who occupied the first part of the program.  Cage had the second part, after intermission, all to himself, a piece called “Antic Meet.”

Nevertheless, it was Cage whom I saw first after reluctantly seating myself in a noisy audience.  The stage had been stripped of everything including the back curtain, was clear all the way to the brick back wall.  The only thing on the stage was a baby grand piano that had been thoroughly wired for sound, sitting off to one side where it would not be in the dancers’ way.  The lights did not dim, but sometime after 8 pm there was some man with salt-and-pepper hair pushing a wooden light ladder on wheels (you know, those tall things they use to change ceiling lights for a stage) down the central aisle!  I thought he was demented.  I didn’t know then that that was John Cage.  I didn’t realize that he was pushing it because it was a musical instrument: it made a squeaking noise as he moved it.

When he got it at the apron, as far as he could push it, he walked over to a wall near the steps at stage right and began rattling his fingernails against the newly installed acoustic tile.  The audience seemed fascinated, but the event didn’t incur silence; in fact it seemed to make it noisier.  The audience began to settle when the occasional figure in a leotard floated, ran, jumped, or walked across the stage.  The house lights never did diminish.

Presumably this was to let patrons who wished to walk out do so in the light.  I say that because they did.  Rather than fight the fact that their music is not standard, the performers simply let people leave and lit their way, and they put in a little mini-intermission after each piece.  I went into the restroom once and heard the other patrons talking.  They were asking each other for aspirin to cure their headaches they claimed were induced by the music.  Some left altogether from the restroom door.

“And what was the music like,” you ask.  Well, apparently Cage is in a loud phase.  The only instrument not already played by Cage was the piano, and it was managed by David Tudor, who had (I learned later) spent the five hours before the concert wiring the piano for sound.  Two large speakers decorated each side of the stage.  Cage kept walking over and adjusting the volume—up.

I really don’t know how to describe it.  I realized that I was trapped, because I didn’t know where my host or driver was.  I didn’t even know—with my poor sense of direction—if I could find the car and house again in the dark, but it wouldn’t help even if I could, with no keys.  I contemplated going out and sitting in the lobby (rather than outside in the snow), because the noise from the piano harp, legs, sounding board, and everything else Tudor wired was so loud.  That was how and why I experienced the breakthrough I did.  I couldn’t leave.  I decided to stay and started to resent the people who were leaving, although I soon didn’t care.  They couldn’t help leaving any more than I could help staying.  The music was loud and had no melody, no rhythm, nothing definable to get a handle on it.  It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before.

Exactly.  That was exactly it: I had never heard anything like it before, and eventually that was why I stayed in the concert hall rather than sitting in the lobby.  At some point early on it was obvious that the music and dance were on separate tracks, had nothing to do with each other. 

Nevertheless, I remember one moment of rapture: two dancers were onstage, a man cradling and rocking a woman lying on his stomach as he stretched out face up on his elbows and knees, when the music and dance came together in a lightning stroke of simultaneity.  This is it, I thought.  This is what happens when separate lines of action meet and entwine unintentionally.  Chance.  Chance interactions.  Cage’s stock in trade.  These wonderful surprises are the dessert for the meal, the punchline to the joke, the treat for the trick. 

The rest of the evening was all tricks, but I was not in a mental space where I hoped for more such treats.  I found myself in a heightened sense of awareness that was unperturbed when people stumbled over me in their flight to get out of the building.  (All I remember is trying to see around them as I eagerly stared at the stage, my ears open and willing to receive any sound.) When the concert was over, about a third of the audience was left, and most of us drifted onto the stage, where Cage stood and Tudor dismantled the piano wiring.  I wouldn’t have dared go up there, but, as I hesitated, more and more people climbed the steps on either side.  At last I too climbed up and listened to what others asked Cage.

Some of the questions were hostile, like “Do you call that music!?!” To which Cage calmly answered (I suppose that he is used to this) something like, “Not necessarily.  We could call it noise.” He was not attached to his music, not attached to being liked or complimented.  He was serene.  I had never met anyone like this.  I could not think of anything to ask him.

I walked the few steps to Tudor, who was busy with the piano but answering questions as well.  I asked him how long it took him to set up the piano and how long to break down—or maybe someone else asked one of those questions.  I’ve given the time to set up, five hours, and the time to break it down and pack it up (known in theaterspeak as “striking the set”) is two hours.  So Cage and the company had plenty of time to answer questions, meet with people, get out of costume and pack, etc. 

At some point Susan found me.  Breaking away reluctantly I walked back with her and her friend to Susan’s bug and got in.  It had stopped snowing.  Like a famous composition of Cage’s in which performers do not play their instruments, the evening was finally silent.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 11, 1963] A Myriad of Musicks (the state of popular music in 1963)

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by Gideon Marcus

Humans like to categorize things.  Types of people, varieties of animals, kinds of music, boundaries of epochs.  As an historian, I find the latter particularly interesting.  The transition between ages is often insensible to those living in them.  After the fact, we tend to compact them into tidily bounded intervals.  The Gay '90s.  The Roaring Twenties.  The Depression.  The War Years. 

Decades from now, historians will debate when the "'50s" truly began and ended.  Did they start with the armistice in Korea?  Did they end with the election of Kennedy?  Looking around, it's hard to draw a sharp line between Ike's decade and the current one.  Things are changing, no doubt, but it's much of a muchness.  The battle for Civil Rights continues.  The Cold War endures. 

If anything, this year feels like an interlude, that time of uncertain winds before the clouds march confidently in a new direction.  You hear it in the political rhetoric.  You see it in the fashion, with the flared skirts of last decade still living (though decreasingly) alongside the pencil-cut of the '60s. 

And you particularly notice it in the musical trends.  For instance, many of the genres of '50s are still with us.  There are lots of new ones, however, competing for time on the airwaves.  The last time this happened, it was 1955.  For a brief time, swing, schmaltz, rock, and calypso competed for our ears' attentions.  Once more, we have an unprecedented level of sonic diversity:

Pop

Pop, as a genre, has been around for several years.  Ricky Nelson, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Darin were all big in the late '50s, and they're still tops today.  A couple of big changes have occurred over the last few years.  In 1960, we saw women entering the field more frequently.  Ingenues like Rosie Hamlin (who recorded Angel Baby just a few miles from my house, Linda Scott, Brenda Lee (straddling the country line), and Kathy Young.  Not to mention Little Peggy March (I will Follow Him) and Eydie Gorme…singing about the one Latin music form still popular in the States:


Blame it on the Bossanova, by Eydie Gorme

Individual girl singers seem to have peaked in popularity last year, though, giving way to Black girl-groups like the Chiffons, the Crystals, the Shirelles, and the Ronettes, which also began hitting the charts around 1960.


He's so Fine, by the Chiffons

Producer Phil Spector is a big force behind these groups, introducing a new concept in music called "The Wall of Sound" that loops in huge numbers of strings and layered vocals to weave a rich tapestry of music.  You can hear his work in hits like…


He's sure the boy I love, by the Crystals

And on the other side of the Pond, we have British artists that sometimes get airplay over here.  Occasionally, I hear an import from Cliff Richards, the crooner front-man for The Shadows.  His latest soundtrack topped the charts in the UK for a while, though it's since been knocked off by a newcomer band that is still virtually unknown in the States:


Please Please Me, by the Beatles

Motown

Both a style and a label, Motown is a Detroit-based record company producing a slick evolution of DooWop, Soul, and R&B feauturing hits like:


Let me go the Right Way, by The Supremes


Laughing Boy, by Mary Wells


Come and Get these Memories, by Martha and the Vandellas

I have a feeling this may be the next big thing…if it can break out of the Steel belt and the Negro stations.

Surf

Out of the prototypical instrumental music days of the late '50s, typified by folks like Duane Eddy and Link Wray, the genre has come full flower.  It started in 1960 with the Ventures and The Shadows, with their intricate renditions of standards like Ghostriders in the Sky and Apache.  Then someone figured out how to send strummy vibrato into a speaker (probably Dick Dale, the self-crowned "King of the Surf Guitar), and now the airwaves are filled with that fluttery, tubular, sound that's straight out of the ocean.  Numbers like:


Miserlou, by Dick Dale


Pipeline, by The Chantays


Surf Rider, by The Lively Ones

Country

With the recent death of the Queen of the Grand Ole Opry, Patsy Cline, it's worth taking stock of who our luminaries in the Country genre.  This is a genre I've been a fan of ever since The Sons of the Pioneers and Hank Williams were twanging Western and Honky Tonk. 


Patsy Cline's Crazy, written by Willie Nelson

Another country star who came out of the 50s and is still going strong is (my favorite), Wanda Jackson:


Whirlpool (sounds like a modern redo of Funnel of Love)

And you've probably heard Skeeter Davis' latest country-pop crossover hit:


The End of the World, by Skeeter Davis

Folk

Out of the culturally meaningful, commentary-laden folk songs of the 1950s, two main movements have formed.  The first, exemplified by new star, Bob Dylan, hews closely to its roots.  Dylan's voice is as friendly as a buzzsaw, and his guitar is unadorned.  But what he sings sounds like the truth.


Song to Woody by Bob Dylan

The second is the harmonious, still simple, but beautifully polished works by earnest bands like The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary, as well as more playful stuff, for instance by The Rooftop Singers. 


The New Frontier by The Kingston Trio


Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, and Mary


Walk Right In by The Rooftop Singers

It's difficult to tell which school will in out in the end, but as the 1960s promise to be a turbulent decade, with the fight for Civil Rights and the wars in Indochina heating up, one can bet Folk will be with us throughout.

Jazz

Once king in the 30s and 40s, Jazz has become more of an aesthete's bag.  There are dedicated stations and a semi-regular TV show, Jazz Casual, and plenty of records, but Jazz is definitely not found on the popular airwaves.

Plenty of older artists, like Count Basie, Dexter Gordon, and Duke Ellington remain active, along with mid-rangers like John Coltrane, Earl Bostic, and Dave Brubeck. 


Cheesecake, by Dexter Gordon

The new big thing (though it's been around since the '50s) is "Free Jazz" or "avante-garde" which cares not for fixed chord progressions and time signatures.  At its free-est, it's almost incomprehensible, but tamed, it's exotic and vibrant.


Congo Call, by Prince Lasha

Straddling the jazz and Latin line is Cal Tjader, a '50s vibraphone phenomenon who continues to be popular (you should see my nephew, David, cut a rug to this stuff…)


Cuban Fantasy, by Cal Tjader

—

Of course, this is just a thumbnail sketch of what's out there, and I haven't even touched foreign movements like Jamaican Ska or Brasilian Bossanova.  With so many different genres struggling to catch the public's ear, it's hard to place bets on which ones will be ascendant in the years to come.  For now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the unrivalled musical diversity while it lasts. 

What's YOUR favorite genre/artist?

(If you want to hear these hits and more, tune in to KGJ — Galactic Journey radio plays the newest and the mostest!)
–

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 10, 1962] Eyes on Oedipus (Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex)

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[I am pleased to present an unusual piece from our fan-turned-columnist, Vicki Lucas. It covers one of the oldest fantasies, as presented by one of the newest musical artists. As we all have had a Classical education (do you remember your Latin declensions?) this review of a modern interpretation of Oedipus should be right up your alley…]


by Victoria Lucas

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass 8/3/1857

Those of you who have read my previous columns may remember that I have strange tastes in music (hallucinating music as a tactile object when I heard a totally new form) and that I have a somewhat political slant on some things (my participation in a lie-in and my feminist musings last time).  The above remark of the former slave Frederick Douglass is relevant to some music I’ve been listening to—and its composer.

Last year I was surprised and delighted to hear relatively modern music on television and see Igor Stravinsky’s 1927 oratorio Oedipus Rex. So when I returned from Stanford, I checked out of the library the 1952 record of Stravinsky conducting, with Jean Cocteau as narrator. I’ve been listening to it over and over. Stravinsky is best known for Rite of Spring, a ballet with a throbbing beat that caused a riot at its premiere in 1913, but this music is very different.

And then I heard about Stravinsky’s return this year to Russia for the first time since 1914. On this same trip he conducted concerts in South Africa. I found out that Stravinsky appears also to have politics. He will not drink Russian vodka but asks for Polish, saying that Russia did terrible things to the Poles (a slant on Stalin, perhaps?). In South Africa in May he did not know that he had been scheduled to appear before whites only, and when asked if he would like to appear before a mixed audience he replied, “I would like to appear before human beings, that’s all.” He asked to give a free concert to those the South Africans call Bantu (blacks), and was allowed to do so.

So I started thinking about politics in Oedipus Rex. Not just by Stravinsky. The literary original was a play by Sophocles first performed about 430 BC. There was also a play by another ancient Greek playwright, Euripides (best known for Medea), but the script did not survive; there are fragments. Also, Stravinsky asked Jean Cocteau (best known for his film Beauty and the Beast) to write the libretto. That took three tries that may not survive, but which may have been reworked into Cocteau’s 1928 play. And there was the Catholic cardinal Jean Daniélou, a seminarian at the time, who translated Cocteau’s libretto (with Stravinsky’s corrections) into Latin, Stravinsky’s chosen language.

Everyone knows about Oedipus: Freud's Oedipus Complex presented as Everyman's desire to kill his father and marry his mother.  However, the real story is ancient. Sophocles’ original Greek title of his play was "Oedipus Tyrannos," but it is commonly known by its Latin title. The word “tyrant” is more accurate when it comes to Oedipus — an unconstitutional monarch accepted by popular acclamation.

You also probably know the story, but briefly it is this: Oedipus was born to a king and his wife but under a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. The royal couple gave the baby away to kill it, but it was given to and adopted by another couple. When Oedipus is old enough, he consults the oracle, who tells him the same prophecy, whereupon he leaves his adoptive home, unwittingly encounters his father and kills him. On his way he finds the Sphinx, whose riddle he solves, thereby saving a city from starvation. He is acclaimed king and by custom marries the old king’s widow. The dramatic works start at the point where a new crisis forces Oedipus to consider his past, revealing that the prophecy was true and making it necessary for him to leave his throne.

Stravinsky’s piece was written as a short opera.  The library recording is an oratorio–music with minimal staging and costumes.  As in the premiere in Paris, the narration on this recording is in French and the libretto in Latin.

The idea of using Latin was something that captured Stravinsky's imagination because, in 1925, his native "Russian, the exiled language of my heart, had become musically impracticable, and French, German, and Italian were temperamentally alien." Stravinsky felt uprooted ("déraciné") from his native Russia because war and revolution had made his return impossible by destroying his family home and fortune. Thinking about Latin, he realized he could probably use its "monumental character" to create the "still life" he wanted. He also found it compatible in "scansion" (rhythm) with his music.

So he wrote to Jean Cocteau, whose remake of the Sophocles play Antigone he admired. But when Stravinsky finally felt he could use the third draft he also entrusted the Latin translation to Cocteau, who knew a 20-year-old seminarian. So someone my age translated Cocteau’s work into “Ciceronian Latin” (not medieval in pronunciation). And he apparently did it with the original Greek in hand or in mind, because the Latin approximates Sophocles rather well, at least where I could see the Greek compared with English.

What are the differences between Stravinsky’s oratorio, Cocteau’s play, Sophocles’ play, and fragments of a play by Euripides? Stravinsky’s and Cocteau’s work is based on Sophocles’ play, so there are more subtle differences among those three. Euripides is another matter entirely.

For one thing, in Euripides’ play there is no plague. In Sophocles’, Thebes is under siege by a plague. As it happens, there was a plague in Athens (Sophocles’ home theater) at the time Sophocles wrote. Was this the first time that a play was set somewhere else to avoid accusations of political criticism? If so, it certainly wasn’t the last. (Shakespeare used the device a number of times in the sensitive Elizabethan political climate in which one could easily find oneself beheaded.) Apart from the plague, Athens was under siege by Sparta in this second year of the Peloponnesian War.

The plague and the siege by the Sphinx (rather than Sparta) figure largely in both Sophocles and Stravinsky. The current (430 BC) head of Athens was also a tyrant, Cleon. He was described by contemporaries as a “demagogue,” and three years later (427 BC) his opinion of what should happen to a city in the Athenian empire whose people had revolted and were put down was to kill all the men and enslave all the women and children. Fortunately, at the last moment someone rescinded that order.

The fictional plague of Thebes figures large in Stravinsky’s work as motivation. Early on the chorus repeats “serva nos” (save us), three notes forming a tritone, which, along with descending and ascending thirds, create a repeating musical theme of threes in the oratorio. It was at a particular type of crossroads that Sophocles has Oedipus kill his father King Laius–a trivium (three roads coming together). Stravinsky was taken with the concept of the trivium and won’t let us forget it while those thirds and tritones are played.

Stravinsky’s Oedipus is less affected by the pleas of the chorus than Sophocles’ tyrant. Instead of telling the chorus he feels their pain (as in Sophocles), he says, “I, the brightest Oedipus, will save you.” He promises to search for the killer of Laius after his brother-in-law Creon brings news that an oracle has decreed that the plague will not leave the city until the death of Laius is “avenged.” He tells Creon that it is unlikely they will find the perpetrator of such an old crime and, once again calling himself “the brightest,” boasts of solving the riddle of the Sphinx and says he will solve this too. The Latin for what he promises to do is “eruam,” which has three syllables and is an uncommon word for “search,” but it matches the Greek word Sophocles used, which is more like “root out,” and Stravinsky repeats those three syllables.

Cocteau’s introduction to his own play states: “It is not a piece of theater that you are going to see. It is a torture, a famous cause, a trial.” This is particularly true of Cocteau’s version of the tale, in which Oedipus is on trial but doesn’t see it that way.

Oedipus’ behavior is consistent in the three scripts:

  • Oedipus won’t take advice and sabotages every effort to spare him the fate he pursues and finally faces. If he had followed Jocasta or Creon inside and had private conversations, perhaps that would have led to his leaving the city and never being exposed. Perhaps this would have placated the gods, given that leaving office and living as a pauper would have been punishment, maybe even punishment enough given his sense of entitlement. But it wouldn’t have satisfied his sense of drama.
  • He attacks Tiresias when that prophet is trying to save him. Oedipus threatens Tiresias instead of taking his advice, unnecessarily provoking him into a public disclosure.
  • He attacks his brother-in-law when that worthy tries to calm him down, accusing him of being in a plot with Tiresias.
  • He even dismisses Jocasta’s increasingly desperate efforts to get him to shut up and go inside. When he learns that he was picked up by a shepherd who delivered him to a childless couple who raised him, he chooses to believe that he might be the son of mythical creatures or gods. When Jocasta gives up and “flees” (Cocteau’s version), he opines that she is ashamed of the possibility that he was the son of a slave.
  • Finally he interviews the shepherd who took him to his adoptive father. He says (Cocteau) “I order you to tell me everything. If you are stubborn, I will have you tortured.” When the shepherd pleads with him, Oedipus calls out, “Bind him!”

At every turn, Oedipus refuses to see the truth. Then he blinds himself when he does see it, still not wanting to see what is plainly before him—that he has been the ruin of his wife and children as well as himself. (At least this is true in the three scripts we have; Euripides has Jocasta accompany him to exile, and in that version he does not blind himself. Sophocles and then Stravinsky are harder on him, and Cocteau hardest of all.)

Why did Oedipus attack his father and his father’s retinue in the first place? This is never settled in the Stravinsky script. In both Sophocles’ and Cocteau’s version it happens because: (Sophocles) “They ordered me out of the way”; (Sophocles and Cocteau, Cocteau’s words translated by me) “They jostled me, I hit … I killed!” What a temper this man has! He threatens everyone around him but his wife, and even her he accuses of being haughty and unmotherly.

The chorus’ reaction to Oedipus’ downfall is interesting: they see him off, no longer pleading with him to save them, but telling him they loved him (a Latin past tense that indicates the action went on for a time but is now over). They have no regrets for making him their tyrant, but of course now he has to go. This is all matter of fact, lacking Oedipus’ flair for drama.

So what did Sophocles mean to say about the politics of Athens in the time of plague and the tyrant Cleon? We may never know unless we unearth more documents from that time, but were there those who believed that a solution to Athens’ plague might lie in a change of leadership? Or were there those who thought that the government was as bad as the plague that had killed its last lawful leader? I look forward to more archeological findings, but in the meantime we can speculate about whether Stravinsky (and perhaps Cocteau) was saying something about Stalin and other dictators of their youth, and further about the similarities between Sophocles’ demagogue and living men today.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[July 6, 1962] Enjoy Being A Girl? (Gender and Possibilities in the 1960s)

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[The rush of modern technologies has created whole new industries, one result of which has been the breaking down of traditional barriers, as Ms. Lucas will illustrate…]


by Victoria Lucas

As a child I learned that there were expectations.  Not so much rules.  I don't remember being taught rules except for rules of grammar or other school subjects, including physical education class.  Those Expectations determined What You Did, Who You Were, and other facets of one's life including Who You Know.

My encounters with Expectations came to a head on two occasions that I remember in my childhood, one when I was somewhere between 6 and 8, and one when I was 12.  When I was 6, maybe 7, I remember sliding out of bed on the way to getting up and, with my head touching the floor but my legs still on the bed, having the epiphany that I was responsible for my own actions–not my parents or anyone else.  Obviously it took me some time to work out the ramifications of this, but I had the basic concept, anyway.

When I was 12, I discovered that I was A Girl. 

This hit me like a heavy blow.  Suddenly lots of things were excluded from my future.  Girls didn't do science or compose music.  Girls were nurses, assistants, secretaries, and so on, but not generally People of Importance unless they were actresses.  Even then they were inferior to Actors, and people didn't really take them seriously.  I had never heard of Hedy Lamarr, and I don't remember knowing anything about Eleanor Roosevelt or any of the women who have been resurrected from European
culture as having had something to do with their own futures.

As a teenager I ran into the Girl thing again when my high-school counselor specifically delimited my career choices: secretary, wife and mother, waitress, teacher, or nurse.  That was it.  I had to choose among those.  Since I had no boy friends, couldn't remember a food order even after I myself had made it, and was squeamish about blood, that left secretary and teacher.  I kind of held onto "teacher" for awhile since there was nothing I could do about it till I finished college.  So I took secretarial courses, sacrificing a third year of my beloved Latin to be sure I could get a Job after high school.  A Career?  Now that was something totally unknown.  Mostly those were Men things.  I haven’t got the hang of those yet.

I was never given the results of the intelligence test I took when I was in school.  I don't think anyone paid any attention to it (possibly the Girl thing, but it never occurred to me it might be a “Spic” thing too, given my name.) I tended to be a Teacher's Pet, but that wasn't an advantage.  Socially it was a bad disadvantage, and it took getting through a few grades to latch onto that concept.  So I accepted my father's preference of a nickname ("Vicki" for "Victoria"), learned to be very vague about answers to any question like "So how'd you do on that test?" and was careful to be ready to expound on anything we had to have read before class. 

This gave me the reputation in high school for being happy to explain anything to anybody in the minutes before class started so they could rush it onto paper and onto the teacher's desk, making homework out of it.  And the further nickname "Encyclopedia."  Classmates would tackle me on the way to class, and I would move slowly to the classroom door followed by people asking me to regurgitate the day’s book report or lesson.  So I was trying to avoid other peoples' Expectations – for instance, being smart made one Stuck Up. 

I tried to go to parties, but my Expectations that these would be rational and enjoyable events were ruined the first time someone drove me to a drunken high school shindig.  I think I went to two parties
during high school and regretted going to both of them, not because anything bad happened, but because I realized I didn't know what Fun was, and I was terrified of the driving my rides exhibited.

My idea of Fun, as it turns out, has a lot to do with foreign movies (including British "Carry On" comedies) and some few American ones, along with reading, writing, research, and intellectual company.  Also with interesting music, and my idea of "interesting music" turns out to be very strange.  Last summer at Stanford I took an Introduction to Music course to round out my summer units. 

Sitting at the back of the practice theater in the basement of Dinkelspiel, I would nod off to the strains of Beethoven or others of the (to me) boring 20th-Century Canon—which was mainly what was being taught.  I should explain, since like as not the “20th-Century Canon” will not be a term with which most people are familiar.  It refers to the works in Western culture that are considered to be worth teaching.  In music it refers to what people call “Classical Music”– the “three Bs,” Bach, Beethoven & Brahms, but also the rest of the “important” male composers who made European music from about 1600.  From the time I began to occupy my own piece of the house (built for my uncle and aunt before they left) I played records, starting with my mother’s 78s and finishing with all the ones in the public library—over and over.  I knew all the stuff in the course.  I just was having it organized and analyzed for me.

But, as the last thing he did in the class, the instructor introduced "tape music" to us by telling us that it was the latest thing, putting a tape recorder on a chair in the middle of the stage, starting it up, and walking off.  Now, I know what a tape recorder is.  Here’s the little portable number I used to do sound for Bob Hammond’s “Solitaire” and “Bon Voyage” and Robinson Jeffers’s “Cretan Woman” at the Playbox Theatre.  It only weighs 25 lb.

My friend and mentor Barney Childs wrote the incidental music for those.  But this …

As I sat listening, the music spilled out of the machine and over the apron, into the orchestra pit.  Since music has no gravity, only levity, it went UP the aisle stairs all the way to me in the back and swirled around my ankles before it receded.

I haven't been the same since.  Neither have my Expectations.  This time, the only thing that being A Girl has to do with it is that I don’t even remember whether the composer was male or female.  It didn’t matter.  Whoever it was spent perhaps hundreds of hours recording, rerecording, treating recorded sounds, whether music or any sound, as material to be distorted, slowed down, twanged and edited with the same little razor-blade kit that I use, then rerecorded onto a final reel of tape that would bear all the machinations of the composer.  This was new. 

It was a hallucinatory hopestorm that drove that music up the aisle.  There is still room for the new, even if it’s female.  Even if it’s me.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[September 3, 1961] Musical interlude

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by Gideon Marcus

Galactic Journey is all about spotlighting the exotic, from science fiction to the Space Race.  Sometimes, the far out stuff can be found right here on Earth.  I'm talking about music, man.  Music.

Music is a weird thing.  Unlike evolution in animals, which scientists believe is a smooth, unbroken process, music seems to evolve in sudden spurts.  A genre will be born, flourish, and then become overripe.  That's when another will spawn out of nowhere and supplant the old one.

For instance, in the 30s and 40s, popular music was all about Big Band Jazz.  Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, they all peaked pre-War and kept us dancing while our boys (and ladies) went to fight the Axis.  After the War, that music evolved into a syrupy, schmaltzy mess.  By 1954, the radio was almost unlistenable, filled as it was with crooning and orchestras. 

Unless you tuned into the Black stations.  There, a fusion of Western and Blues called "Rock n' Roll" was catching fire.  The Crows and Chuck Berry were joined by White performers like Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, Elvis Presley.  All of a sudden, music was alive again.  The late 50s, right around the time I started this column, were an exciting time for listening.

(Don't get me wrong — Jazz was and is still a thing.  Coltrane, Gillespie, Brubeck…just look at the recent popularity of Take Five, for instance.  But it's for hipsters and hepcats, not for the hoi polloi.)

This may be a purely subjective view, but the 60s seem to mark another transition period for popular music.  It seems to be floundering, torn between the classic (and now stale) riffs of the last decade and…something else.  Of course, one rarely knows how a revolution will work itself out until its over, but there are a couple of movements might be indicative of where things are going.

On the one hand, you've got The Miracles with last year's popular tune, Shop Around, and The Marvelettes with their brand new hit, Please Mr. Postman.  These acts show off the Motown Records sound, a Detroit based mix of Pop and Rhythm and Blues.  You can add Bobby Lewis to that list: his Tossing and Turning was probably the hit of this year, and while he now lives in New York, he started his music career in Detroit.  To my ears, the music these acts produce sounds fresh, and it may well become the emblematic sound of the '60s.

On the other hand, you've got instrumental music — what people are calling "Surf Guitar."  If you're not familiar with surfing, it's wave-riding done on a long, flat board.  The Hawaiians made it popular, and it's become an overnight craze here on California's coasts.  A certain kind of music has become identified with it, a lyric-less, guitar-intensive sound. 

Big acts include Link Wray, The Ramrods, and The Ventures.  On the other side of the pond, Cliff Richard and his Shadows have refined the genre to a high art.  Dig their hit single, Apache, in particular.  And don't forget the Swedish Spotnicks!

Surf music is a big departure from the rock of the '50s.  The simple riffs are gone, as are, for the most part, variations on the 12-bar blues (God, may I never hear them again…) In their place are throbbingly energetic, almost raucous tunes.  These songs aren't vehicles for words — they are raw emotion, displays of real musical prowess.

I saw a prime example of one of these guitar masters last night, a local talent who still hasn't cut his first single.  Dick Dale lit up a Vista stage with traditional and original songs, all sizzling with his instrumental virtuosity.  The man is fab. 

Maybe instrumental guitar won't be the "in thing" for the decade.  It probably requires too much skill, and the audience may be too limited (coastal types).  But man alive, I'm sure digging the scene.  I hope it lasts a good while, at least!

Next up…  a report from Worldcon on this year's Hugos!  Will they match my Galactic Stars for 1960?

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 17, 1960] Dancing to a new beat (The Twist)

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We interrupt this cavalcade of science fact and fiction articles to bring you…some pop culture.

Seven years ago, The Crows came out with Gee, what is now generally recognized to have been the first "rock 'n' roll" song.  It was a revolution–within months, the crooners and the overripe schmaltzy swing tunes were swept aside in favor of the new mode.  Well, at least on the Black stations.  Then Elvis and Pat Boone came along and made this scary new music safe for everyone else. 

This year, it appears Chubby Checker has sparked a similar, related revolution.  With a simple, catchy rock 'n' roll tune, The Twist, he appears to have single-handedly invented solo dancing. 

Think about it: for centuries, from the Estampie to the Waltz to the Cha Cha Cha, dancing has been something you do with partners.  Now, with The Twist, you can shrug all by your lonesome–or with hundreds of friends.  There's no denying its popularity.  Checker's song is at the top of the charts this week (displacing Elvis' short-lived tenure, thankfully), and if you caught his performance on American Bandstand the other day, you were probably tempted to join in the fun.  There may not be a jukebox in America what doesn't have, at any given hour, several teens around it Twisting the night away.

I only hope that Checker, a promising nightclub player with a talent for mimicry (check out last Christmas' surprise hit, The Class), doesn't get pigeon-holed, doomed to release dance number after dance number to stay afloat. 

I suppose it is better to have one hit than none. 

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