Latest / Outer Space Adventures in Sci-Fi / 13 - Note For A Time Capsule

Transcript

13 - Note For A Time Capsule · Outer Space Adventures in Sci-Fi

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Note for a time capsule by Edward Wellen. This is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Read by Dale Growthman. Yes, I know the rating services
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: probably never called you up, but they call me up
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: twenty times a week. Note for a time capsule by
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Edward Wellen. I take it you sociologists living in what
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to me is the future. I take it that there's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a future, a future with a place for sociologists. We'll
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: note the unlikely revolution in tastes now going on for
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: your information. Then here's why the rating services are reflecting
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a sudden upping from the pelvis to the cortex. Just
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in case this will have become a cause for wild surmise.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: You probably know what the rating services are were to you,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to tense this document up. Most
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: people nowadays don't know about the rating services. They know
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of them. Every so often I hear someone say darkly,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know about those polls. I've never had a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: call from them, and know what I know has ever
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: had a call from them. I keep quiet or mumble
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: something noncommittal. I could say, truthfully, I do know about
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: these poles. They ring me up more than twenty times
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a week. I could say that, but I don't, not
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: so much because I don't want to seem a crackpot
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: or a liar, as because I don't want to spoil
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a good thing, or at least what I think is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a good thing. And for the time being, what I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: think is a good thing is what the world world
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: thinks is a good thing. Now, in order for you
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to get the picture, you must understand that the New
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: York Metropolitan Area fashions the literature and musical fads of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the United States, and the United States, by example and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: by infiltration via writings and movies and recordings, fashions the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: fads of the world, and the New York Metropolitan Area
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: goes by the opinions I frame. It probably seems strange
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to you that I, in any amassing of statistics, merely
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: one digit in the neighborhood of the decimal point can
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: claim to exert such far reaching influence. But I've seen
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: much the same sort of thing in my work as
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a CPA. Someone possessing relatively few shares in a holding
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: company may exercise an inordinate amount of power over the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: national economy. An analogous set of operations makes it possible
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: for me to be an aesthetic shot of digitalis to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the body politic. Here's why Barton's microcosis is at this
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: writing the top tune, and why archaeology professor doctor Loop
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: is the high man on the polls with his TV
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: show Dig This, and why the world has taken such
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a turn that you might very likely call this the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: day of the Egghead. But you're most likely asking at
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this point, why in the name of statistical probability did
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: this character get so many calls when so many people
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: got none? And your next thought is, or did he?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Is he paranoic? Here's my answer to your second question.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'm certainly not imagining any of this. You're bound to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: come upon some signs of these times and know what
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I've said about the revolution in taste is true. Otherwise
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: there'd be no point in my setting this down or
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in your reading it. The hard part is to convince
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you that the rest of it about my role is true.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The trouble is, there's nothing about me personally that would
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: help me convince you. There's nothing uncommon about me, except
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that my tastes were previously uncommon. As I mentioned, I'm
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a CPA. I live in a suburb of New York City.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I have an office in the city. I'm really semi
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: retired and take care of only a few old business friends.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So my listing in the Manhattan phone directory doesn't include
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the term CPA or OFC. I have a communication book
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and the usual gripes against the NY N, H and H.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I'm writing this while and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you'll have to blame not me, but the roadbed and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the rolling stock for any of this you may find
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: difficult to decipher. For really, I have a very neat handwriting.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Although there's no noticeable pressure of work. I stay on
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: at my office after the girl's quitting time. She still
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: choose gum, but all day yesterday she was humming Barton's Microcosmos.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I balance books until the line at the bottom of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the column becomes a bongo board on a decimal point,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and then I squeeze my eyes and shake my head
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and go home. I live alone. I'm a widower. I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: have one daughter, Thank goodness, she's grown and married and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: living in a place of her own, So there's no
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: one to tie up the phone. I've given up frequently
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the haunts of my old cronies. Although I missed their
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: argumentative companionship, I take comfort in the fact that I'm
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: furthering our common interests. I don't give a hang that
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: my lawn needs mowing. Let the wind violin through the grass.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I'm staying near the phone. It's between six and seven
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in the evening at the office and between eight and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: midnight at home that I receive the calls. That brings
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: me to your first question about why I constantly get
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: so many calls when so many people get none. Let
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: me make it clear at once that even if the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: polls were biable or fixable, and I'm not suggesting they are,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I haven't the means to buy or the electronic knowledge
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to fix supposedly random calls. Besides, I'm fairly ethical. Then
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: what's the question? Naturally, I've given this phenomenon more than
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a bit of thought, and I've formulated a theory to explain,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: at least to my satisfaction, why what's happening happening. I
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: believe the drawing power of my phone number inheres in
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the nature of the number. Now, don't go hot under
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the collar. If you're still wearing collars before you hear
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: me out. I'm not talking about numerology or any such
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: mystical hocus pocus. I'm talking about the psychopathology of everyday life.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: That's what's skewing and skewing the law of probabilities. I
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: know this demand's explaining, so I'll be specific. Apart from
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: these calls from the rating services, I keep receiving calls
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: on my home phone from people who set out to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: dial a certain undertaker. I beg his pardon, funeral director.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: We have the same exchange. In fact, his number differs
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: from mine only in that the first of his last
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: four digits is a zero, while my corresponding one is
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a nine. Of course, by now you put your finger
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: on it. These people are dialing the under a funeral
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: director because in a certain colloquialism, someone's number is up.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: They misdial because they're unconsciously saying nay to the zero
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: of death. I've analyzed both my home phone number and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: my office phone number in this fashion, figuring out what
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: their components connote singly and as gestalts, and I can
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: see why these fortuitous combinings command attention. Why these numbers
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: leap out of the directory pages right at you? Privately,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I call such a number a common denominator with a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: way of asserting its numerator. I hope you're not laughing
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: at me, after all, when you remember what number is,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: what's happening follows naturally numbers a language who can use
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to blaze our way through the wood of reality. Without number,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: we couldn't say what is more or less probable. We
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: couldn't signpost our path. But using number is like trying
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to detect the emission of a photon without having to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: receive that photon. The difficulty lies in trying to get number,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: at least one remove from the font of all language
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the human mind. Possibly we'll come closest to order be
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that one with reality when we can order number at
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the level of statistical probability to be truly random, at
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: one with chaos. At any rate, There you have it.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I'd like to go into greater detail, but I'm afraid to.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Before my phone numbers up and added him, I was
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: content merely to turn out the noisome and the fulsome,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and sigh to myself, that's life. You ask for beer
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and get water that is, I thought I was content.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's only now that I'm getting beer with an egg
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in it that I realized how passionately I hated the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: way things were, and how passionately I'd hate to have
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: them go back to that way. I don't know how
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: long this phenomenon will go on, but while it lasts,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I mean to make the most of it. I unashamedly
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: enjoy watching the expressions of bewildered enthusiasm on everyone's face.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: That expression is there because everyone listens to and looks
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: at what the polls tell him is popular, and because
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: everyone tells himself he likes it because everyone likes it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: But in some respects my feelings are more uncertain. I'm
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: glad and at the same time sorry for the long
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: haired musicians. It seems more embarrassing than pleasing to them
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to find them themselves suddenly idols of bobbysocksers. I try
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: not to think of Stravinsky barricading himself against the adulterating
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: adolescence souverning him and his underwear. As you see, I've
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: had to harden my heart. It's tempting to say I
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: have become a number, and I intend to be even
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: more ruthless. I'm planning, for example, to place on the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: hip Arraide Dolls concerto in alpha wave for a silograph
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in woodwinds. That's why I'm being exceedingly careful to leave
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: nothing to chance. Though this document is sort of a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: hostage to fortune, I'm taking into account the possibility that
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: i might lose it while commuting, and that it might
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: fall into the hands of some unsympathetic contemporary. So I'm
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: not writing down my phone numbers or my name. I
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: want to keep the lines clear for the post. The
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: end of Note for a Time Capsule by Edward Wellan