Sunday, July 6, 2014

Three Loves Seven, Chapter 14, Part 4 - "Fishing by Way of the Song of the Earth"

Dear Gentle Readers,

Today is the last look at what happened on the Sunday that Clete decided to take his faith and devotional practice to the local "church" on Dog Island.

In this part, he is out of church, and Sunday is his day to go fishing, so he's off with Lee and two of the girls he promised to teach to fish. He thinks their request is frivolous since he regards them a perfectly capable providers in their own way and since he is the first to admit he knows nothing about how to "really" fish.

Ba and Yi think Clete is a better fisher than they are. Clete thinks the opposite. He marvels at their ability to take a deep breath, dive down with a hand spear, and come up with a fish. Who wouldn't marvel? He wants to make them better. Who is better? Who is right? Hard to say for sure. All we have are these collected 1st-person remembrances.

I hope you notice that one of Clete's character traits is that he severely underestimates his own abilities. He will NEVER overcome this, so don't expect that as a resolution.

I hope I'm only giving you set-up that you would come to yourself if you thought about it.

Time for the next installment. Thanks for reading.

Love,
Pops



Journal Entry into the Annals
Conversation regarding events of Dragon, Month 6, Day 11, Xingqi 7; Sunday, July 29, 2012.

This is a transcription of a recorded conversation with the Guardian of History and Princesses Ba and Yi where they recollect their fishing trip with Dr. Wong which occurred five days previous.

Qin:     Please tell me what happened that day when you and the Professor went out in the bay.

Ba:      Yeah, well, so the professor FINALLY kept his promise to teach us how to fish the way he does. But of course it was a total waste of time, because only HE can fish the way he does. At least he tried. I guess it taught us how he thinks, if you can call it that.

Yi:       But the really nice thing about it anyway, was that since there were going to be four of us, Auntie Lee had us go out in the big boat. Shes never let us on it before. Did you know it has an English name painted on the side? The Trojan Pacific Explorer.

Qin:     I AM SO JEALOUS. Why didnt you get me? I would have wanted to go on that boat.

Yi:       Auntie Lee would not have allowed it. Then wed have to have all the Seconds out. She said it was restricted just to only those that he made the promise of a fishing lesson to.

Qin:     OK. So go on.

Yi:       I was expecting him to show us how to bait a line, or how to make a fake insect out of thread, all of the kind of things you see line fisherman do.

Ba:      And then I was expecting that he had all this know-how of how each of the kinds of fish behave. But he said no. He had no idea about thatthat it would take a lifetime to learn about every kind if fish behavior and unless youre a pro or a marine biologist and whos got time for that? So he had this really weird sounding technique.

Qin:     Weird-sounding? He gave it an odd name?

Ba:      No, I mean peculiar. And it’s like doing a sounding, dropping a line with a weight on the end. We measure out a length of line that he said resonated sympathetically with the pitch of the Earth. Once you do that, he plucks it and the line, the weight, everything  vibrates and sounds so pleasant that fish are just attracted to it, they take the weight in their mouth and up them come.

Qin:     That doesn't sound like it would work very well. There's not even a piece of bait at the end?

Yi:       Nope. No bait. Just a weight at the end, shaped so that its easy for a fish to hold it in its mouth.

Qin:     So what is the pitch of the Earth?

Yi:       He says Western musicians would call it an E. It's just 20 or more octaves lower than the lowest E on a piano he says.

Qin      So could you tell it was an E when he plucked it?

Ba and Yi (unison): Nuh-uh.

Ba:      No, we could not hear a thing. He suggested maybe we needed to feel it instead, so he told me to sit kind of in his lap and to wrap my right leg around his. He said he feels the E in his body but it's strongest in his right leg.

Qin:     That sounds weird-peculiar. Even for Doc.

Yi:       Yeah. Auntie Lee, who was in the boat with us agreed. She didn't think that was proper for a young lady and that she would test it out first. So she sat in his lap on one of the fixed seats on the deck and they wrapped their right legs together. He let out the line, secured it against a notch he had put into the boat and then wrapped the remaining line around their legs a few times. He touched the line and told her to listen very carefully.

Qin:     And then what happened?

Yi:       And then they got into another argument. I’ve never seen them go at it close up. It was funny.

Qin:     I guess that was inevitable. What about?

Ba:      First he said:

     “OK. The boat has its own resonance so you have to throw that out.”
     “What do you mean ‘throw it out?’”
     “You have to ignore it and tune into the fundamental.”
     “You are talking nonsense.”
     “I’m going to hum an E. That’s the planetary fundamental. The line is set to be in tune with earth.” He plucked the line. He hummed. “Got that? Hear it?”
     “That is terrible. What is that noise? It’s awful. STOP IT.”
     “Hey, hold on. Settle down. I need to hear something.”
     “It is so irritating! Stop it I say.”
     “Lee, would you fuckin’ sit still?”
     “Release me NOW!”
     “Just fuckin’ hang on! Jesus H. Christ! Play it through.”


Ba:  Right then he put her hand over her mouth so he could listen to something as he plucked the line again.

     “OW! Goddamn you! What the fuck did you bite my hand for?”
     “Don’t you EVER silence me like that! I am not some animal.”
     “You wouldn’t shut up, bitch!”
     “You want silence you ask me.”
     “I fuckin’ did. You couldn’t shut up for a goddamn second—thrashing about like some stupid fish.”
     “I am unwinding myself.”
     “Suit yourself. Good riddance. Thank God you didn’t break the skin.”
     “Oh, poor little baby boy hurt his little finger. You are such idiot child.”

Ba:  So she separated from him, but the funny thing was she didn’t go away. She stood close behind him and kept her hands on his shoulders. I swear she even started to massage him.  I don’t think she realized she was doing it. Anyway, then he called me over.

     “Ba, Eight, come one on over. You first for resonance training.”
     “Oh no you don’t.” And the Auntie restrained me. “You’re not subjecting either of these girls to that torture.”
     “It’s not torture. It’s tuning.”
     “You never do this when you fish.”
     “I sure fuckin’ DO! Haven’t you been paying attention? I always measure out the line and hum.”
     “I’ve never noticed. You just drop the line and up comes the fish!”
     “It’s OK Auntie,” I said. “I want to learn this way.”
     “Hang on. Something’s off. I don’t want them to get entrained on the wrong resonance.”

Ba:      He then went back to the notch and starting letting out line and then started pulling it back in. He looked very puzzled.

     “For some reason the fundamental resonance today is F. It’s like the world went sharp by a whole step.”
     “Maybe the Island is tuned to F?” I suggested.
     “That’s a good thought. Hold onto that, but no. But it’s not what I’ve picked up in past weeks when I have fished. Girls? Would you like to go overboard and watch from under the water what happens when I strike the line?”

Ba:      So we started to take off our clothes to do the dive, but he stopped us.

     “Girls. Keep your clothes on. You guys don’t have bathing suits on this island do you?”
     “Bathing suits?” asked Yi.
     “I didn’t think so. I guess living in a single-sex society simplifies a lot of things.”
     “There is a man here. Old Rex doesn’t seem to mind seeing us without clothes on.”
     “Fuck an A if he doesn’t, I’ll bet. Dirty old man. Well, I’m an American and I’m a prude.”
     “But there’s a lot more drag, especially getting out,” I said.
     “Deal with it. You’re young and strong. Here, try this on.” He held out a diver’s mask. “Take turns. I remembered I had packed one in case I wanted to do shallow water observation.” I shrank back from him, but he gave me an assurance. “I forgot I had packed one in case I needed to take a look at your reef. I am not going to ask you to fish with this on, so I am not asking you to commit a local sacrilege. Put it on and see what you see and report.”


Ba:      I really didn’t want to, but I put it on. I submerged and it was awful just like I was expecting, because I could see so much better. I did not want it to work. I did not want the way we were doing things be made to look like we were stupid and backward. But there it was. I motioned to Yi to surface and gave her the mask.

Yi:       Yeah. It was great. There’s no denying. And when I had on the mask, the Professor started striking the line rhythmically. It was amazing as hundreds of fish, or make that thousands, came around to enjoy the music. I couldn’t hear it, but they sure seemed to. Finally one of them took the weight in its mouth and I saw it pass by as the Professor drew it up. It was as if the fish just offered itself to him.

Qin:     That’s just crazy. I don’t believe it.

Ba:      I hardly believe it myself. But then something even crazier happened. Suddenly all of the fish became afraid and went away. I thought maybe a shark was approaching and we should get out, but Yi gave me the mask and I saw that it was a blue marlin, twice as big as both of us. He just circled, enjoying the sound.

Yi:       Ba signaled me to surface and we reported to the Professor what we saw.


     “A marlin? Goddamn it! Can you shoo it away? Try kicking it. It’s probably scaring away everything else we want. It’s one of the largest predators in the ocean.”
     “Scare it away?!” I said. “It’s just ignoring us. IT’s scaring us.”
     “Meh, this happens sometimes. That’s the trouble with good music, it’s indiscriminate and you get the wrong customers. Give me the mask.”


Yi:       He put it on along with a flotation vest and went overboard himself. He floated face down on the surface trying to locate it. It came directly to him and he laid his hands on it as it passed by him. He seemed to say something to it and it went away. We all got back in the boat.


     “Big things get attracted too, and it can be a problem. If we did this on the trench side we might even attract a whale. It’s happened.”
     "What about sharks? We get Great Whites here hunting all the time," I said. "What do you do about them?"
     "Sharks? Meh. Overrated as scary animals. They never bother me. I find them curious and friendly actually. Orcas and dolphins are another story. People think they're cute and cuddly, but they are so goddamned wrong."
     “How did you get the marlin to go away?” Yi asked.
     “I just hum a melody in the fundamental key, and then end it with a dissonance, like an augmented fourth or a diminished second. Bugs them all to fuckin’ hell.”
     “Does that mean anything to the fish?” I asked.
     “To me it means ‘Get lost!’ Who knows? It just works. I like to think I’m saying to them as I do it is: ‘Thanks for listening and offering yourself, but you’re too big. Have many children. Come back when we throw a banquet. Go forth in peace and under the protection of God til then.’
     “Wow,” said Yi, “that sounds like something a priest would say.”
     “Yeah, I went to the soft touch when punching them in the nose didn’t work.”
     “But you just told us to try kicking him,” I complained.
     “Meh, you’re girls. Maybe it woud have worked with you. Personally I find that the animal world is very sexist. Don’t you?”
     “Wah?” We both responded. We had no idea what he was talking about.
     “Anyway, can you imagine trying to pull something like that on board? We’d have to tow it and then the sharks would eat it up. Or an orca. Goddamned wolves. What a waste of time. It probably weighs 900 pounds! A commercial fisherman would call it a month if he landed something that big.”
     “Wouldn’t you want to capture something that large? The common fishermen are always wanting to land a big one.”
     “Nope. They’re trying to feed a town. I only pull enough for dinner for me and my friends. So, I’ve never watched what happens underwater when I strike a tune. Does it call over, what? I would guess 50 or so nearby fish?”
     “Damn! It was more like 5,000!” I practically yelled at him.
     “Don’t curse at your teacher. And no, that can’t be right. That’s not reasonable.”
     “But…”
     “Didn’t I tell you this in class? Don’t confuse correlation with causation. It will lead to erroneous conclusions and foul your research.”
     “But it seemed like it was your resonant line …”
     “There was a fuckin’ MARLIN down there scaring the shit out of all the fish down there making ’em move en masse. It’s like mother-fuckin’ Godzilla showin’ up in Tokyo. Let’s try again.”


Ba:      So he reset his line with a molded weight for a large fish, plucked it like he did before and in just minutes he pulled out an full-size adult tuna. It came out calm and then Auntie Lee chopped off its head, gutted it and gave back those parts to the sea.

Yi:       It was amazing. For all of their arguing and snapping at each other they’ve become a team.

Ba:      Auntie ordered him to pull a few more for the smokehouse, and he did it like it was picking fruit. You probably remember that tuna. We ate I all together that night. It was sooooo goooood.

Qin:     So can you two fish like him now?

Ba:      Heavens NO. Well, yes and no. I still don’t understand why his technique works, but it does. He did calibrate and tune a couple of lines for us. One tuned to E and one to F. It seems he can hear things that others can’t. He said that even if you can’t hear it, you can use a formula to calculate how long a length of line needs to be to sound any note. I think needs to be in the boat for that technique to work. We still dive.

Yi:       He does let us use his diving mask now and we’ve got a lot better take now. Just like he told us earlier. He said just hum F when we’re underwater, and if that doesn’t work hum E. 

Qin:     How does he know that fish like to hear E or F?

Ba:      I asked him about that.


     “I think I learned that when I found out that whales like to hum E. It was like an earthquake to me the first time it was so low, but it was soothing.”
     “When and where was this?” I asked.
     “It was …” His face went blank and then he closed his eyes and was trying hard to remember. It seemed like he started to tremble. And then he came out of it. “You know, Eight, I don’t remember. I’ve just always known it seems. And once I knew the whales hummed E, I heard them all humming it. All the fish. And I felt I could lay underwater forever.”
     “You were underwater?”
     “Was I? Did I say that?”
     “You did. Just now. ‘I felt I could lay underwater forever.’”
     “I must have meant ‘there’ wherever ‘there’ means. I don’t know. Probably on the beach when I was a kid. You can hear whalesong there. I hear them all the time working around here. In fact I hear something from that direction.” He pointed to the southwest. “Couldn’t have been underwater since I REALLY hate being in the water.”
     “You seem to be doing fine now.”
     “A man has to make certain allowances for his work. I will float on the surface like I did for observation, but diving. Ugh! I pay people to do that for me and take pictures.”


Ba:      And he left it at that and didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Qin:     So you’ve given up the traditional bare-faced method completely?

Ba:      It’s really hard to go back, and like the Professor says, “What would be the point other than pride? The important thing is to nourish your family.” It’s hard to argue with that. He suggested turning naked diving into a competitive sport instead. So that’s what we do for fun.

Yi:       Sure would be nice to have two masks. Even three.

Qin:     Why three?

Ba:      We want to take you down with us. The Professor thinks you’d be a great dive fisher.

Qin:     I can hardly see a thing normally.

Ba:      That’s why he thinks you would be good at it. He says he notices your vision is excellent at night, and diving is like going into nighttime. Something about your eyes having fewer cones but more rods. He said it’s why your eyes are more reddish-purple than the rest of us. We want to check this out take you with us diving next time.

Qin:     I have purple eyes? Nobody’s ever told me.

Yi:       Funny, right? But nobody sees their own eyes do they? He said that you probably don’t see colors as well as everyone else …

Ba:      He said something about your being to see contrasts and light versus dark …

Yi.       … and so your own eyes look brown to you in a mirror. SO ironic that a Fire Princess can see in the dark. You should have been the Tortoise Princess or the Water Princess. The assignments that Tiny Empress of the Moon made were so ill-suited to …

Qin:     Wait, wait, wait! Doc Doc told you this about me? He never told me! Why didn’t he tell me?

Ba:      He says you’re sensitive about your “self-perceived deficiencies.” He said he’d mention it when he thought the time was right. But I guess we messed up and told you didn’t we?

Qin:     Wah! Everybody knows more about me than I do!

Yi:       Oh shut up and quit crying. That’s what you get for being the youngest. Besides, he likes you better than anybody else.

Qin:     Does he?


Reporter’s Note: The next day while I was working in the lab with the Professor, scanning and uploading more of our records, he had a phone call come in. He usually asks me to leave if it’s about our Island and us and he has to report to his institute about things. He said it has to do with confidentiality and not wanting to cause bias or misinformation among the native population. But today he forgot I was there or didn’t care.


     “Bobby? Hang on. I’m going put you on speaker. I’m doing something here on the bench but I can talk while I work. No, it’s fine. Done this thousands of times now so the hands know what to do. How’s that? You hear me?”
     “Cool. Got it. Clete? You old capitalist bastard? How’s the raping the earth business going? Anyone ever tell you that ‘fracking’ sounds like the less polite word for rape?”
     “Bobby! Yeah? And how’s it going fleecing freshmen and their parents of their life savings in exchange for a mediocre state education? How’s that racket goin’? Or ripping off the American taxpayer through your bogus work on NSA grants?”
     “Always a pleasure. Only got a few minutes here right now. Boy oh boy, that e-mail of yours! I swear. You are the Indiana Jones of the Bermuda Triangle. It’s ‘Dr. Anomaly’ himself. When you going to do some grown-up work? ‘Is the goddamned Earth singing in the key of F now?’ What instruments are you using to get this reading? Acoustic? Seismic? Tomographic?”
     “If I tell you, you’re just going to hang up on me.”
     “Nothin’ surprises me out of you.”
     “The arthritis in my right knee says so.”
     “Bullshit! Tell the bartender on that island your staying on to cut you off on mai-tais.”
     “It’s not that kind of island.”
     “Whatever. When I remember that people are calling YOU ‘Dr. Wong,’ it makes me want to change my name to Smith. You need to change your preferred reference to ‘Witch-Doctor Wong.’ Gotta say, I always enjoy relaying the subjects of your phone calls to my wife. You make me look like a genius. You pull the oddest bull poopie out of your ass to ask me. When did you take your so-called reading?”
     “Sunday, July 29, midday local time. Can you humor me and do the calc? I know you’ve got all the instruments running. Run the bracket."
     "Ho, ho, ho. For someone so opposed to state-sponsored education, you're more than happy to make personal use of the state's scientific instruments."
     "Just trying to reclaim some value out of my taxes. Hey, I’ll take the two of you out to dinner when I get back.”
     “Denny’s again?”
     “We could hunt for a fern bar for you two? They’d be so retro you could probably find a historical re-creation for hipsters now.”
     “Go fuck yourself. Oh, I forgot. That’s the only kind of fuckin’ you do now. Bastard.”
     “Now, now. It is impossible to ridicule the sex life of a celibate monk. Hey, how about I give you a working interest in a gas well of mine? It’s cheaper to me than dinner since I’d have to pay cash money at Denny’s, AND you’d be relieving me of some tax service. 'sbeen producing consistently since 1995.”
     “Really? From the ‘Worldly-Wise Wizard of Oil and Gas?’ Nah. Elsie’d kill me if I put fossil fuels in the retirement plan.”
     “OK. Let’s make it the South Pas Jack in the Box then. You get served faster than Denny’s and it looks like a Craftsman Bungalow from the outside, sort of.”
     “God, you are channeling my dead Baba. Stop it. It’s so creepy!”
     “So what do you think would be the result of a higher rate of oscillation?”
     “It happens all the time being a natural process and all. It’s not strictly consistent. One whole step seems extreme to me. Maybe an earthquake in the right circumstances—like if it were sudden? I would think it would be the other way around. That you’d have the earthquake first and then a change in measurable oscillation. But come on, you’re not asking this in a vacuum are you? I know you too well. You’ve got some half-baked idea in your mind.”
     “Ever hear of a guqin?”
     “A goo what?”
     “Guqin. It’s a Chinese musical instrument.  Seven strings? You hold it in your lap or on a stand and it’s the same pitch as a cello.”
     “Oh, OH! Yeah! You're putting the wrong tone on your pronunciation. My great aunt used to play one of those things. Basically a hollow board and you slide your fingernails all over it?  Hey. Like giving you a massage.”
     “Shut up.”
     “It’s a U.N. World Heritage instrument.”
     “Yeah, well there’s a virtuoso of that thing on this island here. She let me tune the thing and I’m thinking that … oh God.”
     “Yeah? What?”
     “You know, I decided I can’t finish that sentence. It sounds like I need to be committed. I’m regretting that I even e-mailed you on this now.”
     “Spill it! Bastard. ‘Thesis interruptus’ is VERY bad form. No giving intellectual blue balls, or you’re going to get a rep and nobody will want to play with you anymore.”
     “I’m wondering if when I tightened the string from an E to an F that it tuned the world?”
     “You’re thinking the ‘butterfly effect?’”
     “Something like that…”
     “Delusions of grandeur are a new thing for you. Branching out? Is this your mid-life crisis working itself out? You know, I really appreciate your calling me for this kind of thing rather than something scientific, or logical, or within the realm of belief for a change. It shows we’re friends.”
     “Yeah. It was a bad idea to contact you. I’m sorry.”
     “Clete? You know those things are not very loud right? I swear that a butterfly flapping its wings is noisier than that thing my auntie played. Hey are you still there?”
     “Yeah I’m here.”
     “Are you having a nice time there?”
     “Yeah. It’s fun. I’m doing a general survey for 90 days. Old-school style.”
     “Ah. Good times. Hey, I gotta get back to fleecing my freshmen Geo 101 students making up their graduation deficiencies in summer session. See me when you get back. You know this ‘man-o-pause’ time-travel trip of yours into your doctoral apprenticeship? It sure would have been a lot cheaper to just buy a red convertible, boink a couple of your coeds who are ready to drop their hot pants for A’s, and pay off your HR department to overlook the matter.”
     “Sage advice, which I suspect comes of experience. I’ll look forward to your report.”


Reporter’s Note:  Maybe I’m very nosy, but I decided to keep an eye on his e-mail, which he did ask to me sort for spam as his assistant, so it’s not like I was trespassing on his correspondence. I saw Dr. Roberta Wong’s response to him and decided to capture for this section of the Annals.


Subject:         Earth’s Oscillation

To:                  Clete Wong

From:              Roberta Wong-Chen

Clete,

I’m giving you a grade of ‘F’ for your field work, but you pass. Once again, Dr. Moonbeam, you get the prize for being the Professor Most Likely to Be on a Twilight Zone Episode.

Measured a consensus sonic F starting July 26 somewhere in your region station, it spread and has persisted for days. Interesting. No, make that vexing.

If you want to test your theory of “The Butterfly Effect and the Magic Guqin,” tune it back down and let’s see what happens?

But, let me know if you do. We better NOT get a Mag 7 here in California anytime soon, or I’m going to sue your bony ass for some kind of geological malpractice.

Regards,
That’s Dr. Bobby to You




© Copyright 2012, Vincent G. Way, all rights reserved.


PS: Just in case you thought I got my pronouns wrong, no, geology professor Dr. Roberta Wong at some unnamed California state university is a woman in a same-sex relationship (with Elsie Chen), and there is no point to it other than that's who she is. She's running a report for her old school chum Clete as her contribution to the advancement of the plot. I have no other plans for her, but who knows? BTW Bobby thought it would have at least pleased her parents that she had married Chinese as she had been instructed, but she was wrong there. Oh well...




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Be truthful and frank, but be polite. If you use excessive profanity, I'll assume you have some kind of character flaw like Dr. Wong. Tks!