Week 21: The Spinns (AKA Week 23: A Twist in Time)

Also included: Part 8 of The Book of Fables.

To Ed Boomslanger.

A couple of weeks back I wrote about The Spinns and one of their live shows. I contacted Todd Spinn to get some live recordings of the Spinns for the NAPcast, but he didn’t get back to me on time. But better late than never, he has now given me a full CD of live Spinns material. So this week will not be this week, this week will be two weeks ago and I will send a couple of those live songs to EM for the NAPcast. I think you will agree that, like many of the great live bands, the studio CD songs (on NAPcast XI) didn’t quite capture their live performance (on NAPcast XIII). I personally I’m very glad to have the live CD.

And here’s part 8 of The Book of Fables:
TIME AND THE CRITIC

This is the part of our story that explains how the timeline of events that we have been following is possible. So pay close attention because we will now be moving among the quicksand of time, and in the quicksand of time explanations sometimes don’t explain.

Time did not start at the beginning. And by this I don’t mean that time is a man made concept applied retrospectively to the past. No, time is undeniable and has always been undeniable. But time did not start at the beginning. Time didn’t start until much later, years, centuries, millenniums and eons after the beginning of time. We all know that there are things that are and there are things that are not. A mountain is and a dragon is not. But then there are things that both are and are not all at once. Time is one of these. But even more than that, because time can be and not be all at once, it is possible for time to be one and be many, also all at once. So the start of time is not at the beginning of time but sometime along its timeline. Somewhere along the timeline time came to be even though it already was. So there was no eureka moment because what was discovered was already known, what was created had already been created. Time was there before time started and time was there after it started. This is what is now known as the Maritzavi Paradox.

It all started when botanists in various high altitude locations around the world simultaneously recorded a strange burnt-like effect on the leaves of all their plants. Further analysis showed that the effect was the result of sudden exposure to extremely high levels of carbon dioxide. The levels needed for this effect were so high that scientists were at a loss as to how those levels could’ve been possible in such a short time and simultaneously in places separated by oceans from each other. Many hypothesis were presented some extremely far-fetched some more reasonable and for a while the question gained popular attention in the media amongst theories of extra-terrestrial intervention and government conspiracies. But it was Dr. T. Maritzavi, a small town psychiatrist and mathematician that found the answer. Through a series of mathematical proofs revolving around Zeno’s Dichotomy Paradox, which he then applied to photosynthesis in plants, he discovered what he called chronoation. Chronoation is the result of chronoactive decay. Chronoactive decay is the process that instantaneously converts a particle of time, or Chronum, into time at the very instant that the Chronum comes into being. Chronums therefore never really exist as such and are more of a potentiality of time. But even though they are mainly potentialities we know about them because of the chronoation that they leave behind. Currently there is great debate over whether there can be more than one chronum. But that is another discussion that would take us beyond the timeline we are currently involved with. The chronum in question, discovered by Dr. Maritzavi is the one from which all our time chornactivates.

Dr. Maritzavi also discovered that the chronum works like a reset button. The instant when the chronum is in existence, that non-existent instant, functions as a reverse black hole for time inside of which our universe exists. From that instant all past and future radiates, and just like a newborn baby takes its first breath when it is born, so does the universe and everything in it take a big breath at the chronum instant. And it was immediately after this very instant that The Critic was born. And when The Critic tried to take his first breath, he found the oxygen lacking and the air filled with the same carbon dioxide that caused the burnt-like effect on most plants under our atmosphere.

So The Critic was always short of breath. He was also always out of step and hunched over with the weight of time out of time. He was born old and even as a child he looked older than time itself (even though technically he was an instant younger). And he was mean and had few friends. And he spent his time listening to music. Music took him out of his time. It was painful, but he was drawn to it. He listened to any music that came within earshot. But all the music he heard was out of rhythm, all the music he heard was out of tune, all the music he heard was wrong. And he suffered every time he listened. But he listened anyways, because he could hear in all the bad music the hints of a true music out there somewhere, music that was in tune with his ears, music that was in rhythm with his heart, melodies that would lift his body instead of tripping him up with its sour sounds. So he listened and he listened to any music that came within ear shot. And he would deconstruct the music he heard, looking for that little bit of truth in any of them, because he knew it was there, and he would find tiny shinny glimpses of joy buried deep in musical garbage, and those little glimpses kept him listening and listening and listening. But over the years his disappointment grew and grew. And his search consumed him more and more. And The Critic forgot to eat or wash and he smelled horrible and was ferocious. And he growled in his search for more music, like a desperate starved animal that can smell the sustenance, but can’t find it. And when he approached, mothers held on to their children, grown men crossed to the other side of the street, policemen slowly took steps backwards to let him thru, dogs barked and cats ran for cover. And his power became so brutal that musicians from far away were drawn to him. Full of fear musicians were drawn to him, to play for him. He would listen to their music and then spew violent truth about it to them, showing them the garbage of it all, and the musicians would leave destroyed by his words. But soon they would haunt him down to play him more new songs. And again and again they would be shattered. And all musicians secretly wished they would find the one song that would make everything right for the The Critic.

Only one musician didn’t care; The Critic saw him sitting outside a club, and immediately recognized him as The Metalhead. And The Critic told him, You are The Metalhead. Good and evil are at war in the world, each fighting for the souls of humanity. You are The Metalhead. Your soul will not be taken by either good or evil. You quietly observe and after good and evil destroy each other in a spiral of violence, then and only then you and the other Metalheads will emerge to play your music to the wind, and the world will be at peace. The Metalhead looked at The Critic with interest, listened to what The Critic had said and said ok. So The Critic walked away pleased to have met The Metalhead. And The Metalhead walked to the woods not to be seen again for a long long time.

Ok, now that we know how it’s possible for the past to be in the future and the future to be in the past, I will tell you about The Teenager’s song, the one she taught The Burdens how to play and which has become so popular in recent times. She not only taught the song to The Burdens, but she also taught it to the Mountain Marching Band. They in turn taught it to the Motionless Busker who played it to The Teenager when she first left The Basement Hippie Camp. The Teenager thought the Motionless Busker had taught her the song, but like with time, as soon as she learned it, she realized she already knew it, and had known it all along. But it wasn’t until she met The Critic that she understood about her song and realized that it was her who had written the song at the very start of time. But we’ll get to that later, first I’ll tell you about the Mountain Marching Band.

Moral: The song you are playing is your song.

For other parts of the Book of Fables, or for the first Week 21, click on the label links below.