by Victoria Lucas
The Aquarium
Today’s title is a result of having two reports and a book review to present to you, dear readers. There is no common theme except for me as narrator. I am inviting you to assist in performing a silent(?) version of a musical piece, “Tropical Fish Opera,” by Ramon Sender. I first experienced it at the Tape Music Center in San Francisco a few years ago. Picture three musicians sitting with their instruments around an aquarium, with another person standing at a microphone. The score is simple, and they have easily memorized it. The person at the microphone has a list of apparently random words that he or she recites as the musicians play. Each musician has been assigned a particular fish that must be followed as a guide for how to improvise in collaboration with the other musicians. The fish in this aquarium are swimming below, and I will act as a narrator who is trying to string words together in an understandable way, so that your silent(?) experience can have some meaning. Think of your voice as your instrument, although if you improvise drums or other means of making sound you can of course add to my silent voice.
The Sinking of the Alvin submersible (Fish No. 1)
If you have never heard of the Alvin, you haven’t been keeping an eye on your fish. The Alvin is the most recent and innovative submersible paid for by the US Navy, assigned to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Commissioned in 1964, it was named after the mover and shaker who pushed for its creation, Allyn Vine. The Alvin is essentially a large steel sphere (holds 3 people) with plexiglass windows, using syntactic foam for flotation, with weights, hung with cameras, sample containers, and a mechanical arm, and certified for dives of 6,000 feet.
On October 16 the Alvin made an unscheduled dive to almost 5,000 feet, from which it has not been recovered. Yet. It seems the hatch was still open when the chains holding its cradle snapped, and the submersible slid down its usual course into the ocean, with the pilot and two observers leaving their workday lunch behind in the sphere as they scrambled to safety. Water poured into the hatch, and the Alvin quickly sank to almost 5,000 feet as the crew of its tender, Lulu, threw everything that would float overboard to try to mark the spot. Although the Navy bought the argument that Woods Hole (WHOI) made that no recovery had yet been made from that depth, and backed the experiment of finding and raising the submersible, storms have so far prevented the consummation of the plan. Stay tuned to this story. I think they will succeed.
New Digs, New Job (Fish No. 2)
I’m also the performer keeping my eye on this fish. My husband Mel and I moved from Fortuna, California, where we had rented a house, to the non-metropolis of Rio Dell nearby, pooling our money to buy a piece of land. We have fruit trees, a walnut tree, and a small garden, and interesting phenomena like different weather visible from windows on every side of the house except one. I’m happy there are no windows on the 4th side, because I only know 3 general kinds of weather: rain (including fog, drizzle, etc.), snow (including sleet), and sun. I don’t want to know about that 4th side. We also have a neighbor, a teenager, who received our permission to hunt deer in our backyard with a bow and arrow. We can sometimes see him up in the walnut tree, waiting patiently. He lets us know when he will be hunting. Just in case he mistakes one of us for a deer. In the meantime, both of us are temporary workers for the County of Humboldt, Mel at the airport, and me in different office gigs. Sometimes we wave to each other as he drives home in the morning in the Jeep from his shift at the airport, at the same time I’m leaving in our car to start my day wherever the County sends me. Wish us luck. We’ll need it as we head into winter weather and knee-deep mud.
Book Review: The Unholy City (and) The Magician Out of Manchuria (Fish no. 3)
This is your fabulous fish. I think you will find it delish. I do. Charles Finney (author of The Circus of Dr. Lao) saw the first publication of The Unholy City, in 1937 but this paperback edition (Pyramid Books) published last January combines that irreverent and self-referential story with the delightful Magician Out of Manchuria, which is my favorite of the writings of this Arizona Daily Star editor. Finney is not as prolific as some authors, although he has written many short stories and a couple of articles published in magazines aside from the occasional book. However, when away from his desk at the Tucson newspaper, he has the opportunity to take as few words as possible and place them carefully to weave weird tales, and he seizes that opportunity with both hands. These two yarns are very different from one another, and The Unholy City is not to everyone’s taste, dealing cynically not just with excesses of the consumer society, but (as the “plot demands”) with poor impulse control involving large “zellums of szelack” that seem to have an intoxicating influence. Nevertheless, I find the “Magician” with his manipulative ways, along with the woman he discovers and enhances, and his poor young servant who keeps (literally) losing his head, to be utterly irresistible. Only one of the two has a happy ending. (Guess which one.) I award this fish 5 stars out of 5.
Applause?
I once heard one musician say to another during a lecture and demonstration of the original Opera, “You’re not playing your fish right.” So if you and I were playing our fish right (right for you, that is), perhaps you enjoyed our little experiment. I hope you did.
There will be further adventures of Mel and Vicki. Where will they keep their Jeep while they wade through the mud to their home in the mountains? Will Vicki be able to work in an office where the regular secretary (on vacation) has locked up all her work? Will Mel be able to get along with his temporary boss as the airport enters a study of how it copes with the fog that envelops it every morning?
Stay tuned for the next episode!
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