Don't Forget to Wind Your Watch
55As adults are bombarded with new cell phones every year or so, their children get new gadgets. Starting with the infamous Generation X, to what’s called the Y generation, and whatever the hell individuals born in the twenty-first century decide to call themselves-- the power of silicon is marketed specifically to age groups under three, all in the name of child development. An important part of this development is hand-eye coordination and such; Sally presses the red button and the lights flash, and Mommy drops the coffee cup at the teeth-grinding noise which erupts from the jack-in-the-box. Nevertheless, buttons and sounds seem to be quite popular for the little ones. No wonder every child receives some form of musical instrument to smash and spit up on.
I must have just been passing the toddler age, you know the time where the colorful plastic pieces no longer seem to taste very well but they’re still fun to stick them in places-- the hallmark of age transition in which little Mickey no longer swallows quarters, however they also start ending up wedged inside the seat-belt buckles in the back seat. My parents decided that to stimulate my consciousness, they would buy me a toy piano; it was the type of thing, I’m sure, which was inside a box where a cartoon pasty thin man in a powdered wig and coat tails explained that your child would be under-developed should he or she not own the particular line of children musical instruments.
It was a working piano, although the reason it was a working piano escapes me-- or rather the idea fails to even form in my head. Four year olds cannot play piano (and if they could I’m damn sure their parents would give them a real one). I don’t recall being interested in the keys anyway. Even at that point I think I still favored strings-- perhaps it was all the old photos of my grandfather (maternal) playing various forms of guitar. Although he played and taught many instruments, short of an accordion I’ve never seen him photographed with anything else in his hands.
Colorfully shaped buttons above the keyboard beckoned the young for a touch. So I did. They each initiated a preset melody, perhaps for the child to learn or imitate ( once again, I fail to grasp that concept as I hold firm that four year olds cannot play the piano, and if they did their parents would buy them a damn real one, and they can read compositions on lead sheets). These presets also held the purpose of introducing children to the popular melodies of timeless composers of what we call the Classical era in western european music. I’m sure it included works of Mozart and Bach, and perhaps a line or two out of Carmen (Habernera is a particularly cache tune). However I must have only enjoyed one, as it’s all I can remember, and is responsible for the slight obsession I have with its composer. It’s of Beethoven’s Für Elise that I am speaking, of course.
Ah, how I enjoyed running from the living room to my mothers at full speed with the wonderful Ludwig filled fist of mine. The only other aspect of this white plastic toy which remains carved into my skull is a tempo meter. The device contained the ability to raise and lower the tempo of any selected melody which currently flowed out of the internal stereo speakers. Naturally, I neglected the legato and primarily had it always switched to something one would describe as very presto.
I wonder now what it was the Beethoven had that the other spectacular composers of the era did not-- at least in the appeal of small children of centuries future. Of course, Beethoven was the new blood, the youngster, the rebel. But surely, I’d not yet developed the glorious rebellion which my heart pumps through my veins now? Corrupt the minds of the innocent? I’d have been anywhere from four to six but I’m quite sure I had not had much of a mind on opinions ‘till at least seven. This must be my tribute to Beethoven, I may feel bad. And as a musician I may be trying to float the idea that it was his composition alone which somehow changed my path in life forever. Unfortunately it is a half-hearted lie. Maybe not lie. That sounds much too harsh. Poor Ludwig whose been buried twice. I swear it was at least his image which corrupted me into a musician.
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At some point in the future I must salvage a laserdisc player. I get so nostalgic over this old technology. I’d always been easy to catch on with electronic technology, particularly audio and video technology, and my father mostly encouraged and supported me in it. That is my period date. If I were a crumble of ash deep under the streets of Napoli that would be my roman coin from which the site date would be established. The laserdisc player was not to be touched by me, and I shan’t smudge my tiny fingerprints all over the reflective surface of the LP sized flying saucer. I must have been quite small to achieve such prohibition out of father (admittedly I was, for I never remember seeing it from a level of top view on it’s high throne of an entertainment center). So, I was always left to ask an adult to aid me in choosing a film, placing it in the automatic tray, playing it, rising up from the sofa mid-film to turn over the disk, and remove it at the end and place it carefully back into it’s large cardboard sleeve.
Barely streaming out of the Betamax and into fierce competition with VHS I couldn’t imagine laserdisc have much of a title list. In my more adult experiences (many of which experienced from my four lovely nieces) I’ve found that small children enjoy playing certain films over and over again, for reasons unknown to their caretakers. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure on Laserdisc, apparently, was mine. Over and over again I watched that movie: a pair of young untalented rock musicians who travel through time collecting persons of historical significance and travel to the future only to find out that their music was so amazing it solved world hunger. Not a word of previous descriptions lacks wonder. In fact I can only call it Non non non hanus. Which Bill Espreston Esq. would explain as a positive response.
After collecting some historically significant personages the two protagonists must leave them to tend to themselves for an hour or so while they go rescue Napoleon from a most bogus accident at the water slide park. My favorite scene involved Sigmund Freud, Socrates, Billy the Kid, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Beethoven having their own way inside a southern California shopping mall. Our Ludwig had quite a time in the synthetic keyboard emporium. Just as the lot of them were arrested, Beethoven was enjoying his command of seven electronic pianos at once-- playing along with a quick metered heavy metal guitar tune. In recollection, I believe it might be near impossible for a small child to witness that with such enthusiasm tens of times and have it not result in flying around the house with Für Elise blaring at top speed.
Especially in the twentieth century, generations have been infused with technology. One of my favorite films of my childhood hold a place in my heart just as large as the defunct medium I watched it on. In fact, I find myself holding on to those mediums dearly. I enjoy the feeling of bringing up specifics on typewriters, or 110 film cartridges with my peers and have them look at me with confusion. Such simple things they are. “You’ve heard of rotary dial telephones, attached to the wall socket, haven’t you?” I sometimes sarcastically ask. Then I probed deeper into things I didn’t always remember, or things clearly before my time.
There was a period of time where I became obsessed with turn of the century industrial monsters. Something a bit more of a hallmark was my fixation with luxury ocean liners. I’d collect blueprints, cargo manifest, construction process notes, anything I could find really. I was greatly intrigued by the mystery of the H.M.S. Titanic. The large gaps in information, the excessive loss of life, and the losing of the ship for near a century; conspiracy fanatics had a field day with those inconsistencies, and I loved to listen to what they all had to say. It all had nothing to do with anything nautical, it was simply because it was the past. I felt a distant connection to it, like rediscovering a lost treasure that you sort of remember from your childhood.
It was if I picked out periods in history to collect them, to display them on some kind of a mantel. Not entire periods either, but sometimes just little things-- I might have read somewhere about a saying or phrase used at a certain time, then I’d go out of my way to use it in my conversations. I believe I do this sort of thing as a way to artificially extend my consciousness. Despite the fanatical adventures of time travel I may read or watch in film, or science fiction and horror depicting re-animation, it really is impossible to live forever-- even pushing a century is considered a great feat and an accomplishment. By absorbing the finesse and culture of the past, the near past which I can just almost still relate to, I slowly extent my grasp and stretch out my experience.
