“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.”
Apocalypse Mommy was in the living room assembling a fourteenth century French castle from king-size Duplo pieces. Alice had drowned the invading English army in the moat, beheaded Winnie the Pooh and sent the guards down the toilet.
“Alice,” I said as we sat amongst the lockdown rubble, the house creaking under the slow tumbling of the Coronavirus dice. “We can listen to any song in the whole wide world. What would you like to listen to?”
Pearls of three, six and nine beats to a bar, hidden amongst the infinity of the internet.
“Daddy,” she said. “How many songs are there?”
“A lot.”
“More than sweets and flowers? How many flowers are there?”
“In existence?”
“What’s existence?”
“The fact or state of living or having objective reality.”
“How many daffodils are there Daddy?”
Imaginary tourists ambled hither and thither as slowly as hypnotised quarks in interstellar space. Triumphant bit-part players in the gigantic woven tapestry of life.
“Alexa,” I said, bringing the algorithm to life. “How many songs have been recorded, please?”
I’d read you had to be polite to algorithms. Children don’t know the difference between inanimate objects scything through life at a billion computations a second and an adult. If you don’t say ‘please’ to Alexa, your children won’t say ‘please’ to anyone.
“The music of Nebraska,” Alexa said, her voice a robotic sneer, “is traditionally a variety of country, jazz, blues, ragtime, and rock. Several towns across the state have active musical venues, with several communities having a particularly important musical legacy.”
“Alexa,” I said, more interested than I should have been in the music of Nebraska. “Stop. How many songs have been recorded to disk?”
“You didn’t say please Daddy.”
Ineptitude was everywhere, crawling over the Earth like some kind of evil termite infestation.
“Please.”
“In the chromatic scale there are seven main musical notes called A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.”
“Alexa, play me a song please.”
“You can download songs to your Audible account.”
“I don’t have an Audible account.”
“Would you like me to set one up for you?”
“No thanks. Can you play a song, please?”
Artificial intelligence breaks music down into its binary components. It doesn’t feel the melody, it doesn’t hear the distortion or dance to the groove. It can’t hear the crowd baying for Bob Dylan’s blood when he chose to do something different and upset a folk crowd unable to compute change.
“You can download songs to your Audible account.”
“Are you taking a cut of the download fee?”
“Audio engineering is a sub branch of…”
“Stop. Alexa, what is Audible?”
“Audible is a music service created by Amazon.”
“What is Alexa?”
“I am a voice recognition software created by Amazon.”
“Alexa, play a song, please?”
“An Audible account costs six-dollars ninety-nine a month. Would you like me to set up a thirty-day trial for you?”
“Alexa, play a song, please?”
“You can download songs to your Audible account. Would you like me to set up a thirty-day trial for you?”
The needle of choice bouncing up and down on the record player of my thoughts.
“Alexa,” I said. “Shut the hell up.”
I was being rude to an algorithm. It would have consequences.
I turned to Alice and apologised for being rude to Alexa. “Any song in the world. What do you want to listen to?”
Please not fucking frozen, I said to myself.
Alice sat on a meditation cushion that Buddha had left.
“Bob Dylan,” she said, crossing her legs into the lotus position.
And I wasn’t expecting that.
Nor was Alexa. And started playing Lionel Richie.
Apocalypse Mommy told Alexa to shut the hell up.
“I’m sorry I don’t understand that request. Would you like me to open an Audible account for you?”
“Where does Paul McCartney live?” Asked Alice.
“Are you asking me or Alexa?”
“I am a voice recognition software created by Amazon. An Audible account costs six-dollars ninety-nine a month. Would you like me to set up a thirty-day trial for you?”
A city slept, tourists dreamed of a million monuments on a virgin through-fair, horse-drawn carriages ferrying them onwards and upwards forever. A revolving turnstile to architectural heaven.
“You Daddy.”
“Paul McCartney lives in Liverpool.”
“Does he have a house just for him?”
“Yes.”
“What colour is his car?”
“I don’t know what colour Paul McCartney’s car is.”
“An r-coloured, or rhotic vowel, also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel; is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant.”
It’s all about harmonies and resonance and frequencies and how they interact with each other in the discord of life.
“Shut up Alexa,” we all said in unison.
“A vowel is a special acoustic phenomenon, depending on the intermittent production of a special partial, or “formant”, or “characteristic”. The frequency of the “formant” may vary a little without altering the character of the vowel. For a, for example, the “formant” may vary from 350 Hz to 440 Hz even in the same person.”
“What’s a submarine?” asked Alice.
Alice’s vocal fluctuations included all of the r-coloured vowels: hearse, assert, mirth, start, car, north, war.
“It’s like an underwater boat.”
You know when you repeat a word over and over again until it loses all sense of meaning? That’s semantic satiation, a psychological phenomenon which renders a word utterly useless. I wondered if there was some kind of global satiation happening in lockdown.
Letters don’t exist in nature, we created them. Your brain has an image, a story for every word you know. By repeating the word the image disappears and instead your brain focuses on the letters of the word, which of course don’t really exist.
“Alexa, play Bob Dylan please.”
Buckets of rain, buckets of tears, got all these buckets coming out of my ears. Buckets of moonbeams in my hand.
“An underwater sailing boat?” asked Alice.
“More like a speed boat.”
“Raging Speedhorn,” said Alexa, “are a British heavy metal band, founded in Corby, Northamptonshire.”
Alexa was satiating my patience.
“Be quiet Alexa.”
Alexa started playing Raging Speedhorn.
It’s like the risk reward of ice-skating. It just isn’t worth it.
I unplugged Alexa and posted her back to the bottom of the ocean. I wanted standard delivery but, needless to say, she went Prime as I couldn’t find the unsubscribe option.
Thirty-day Amazon Prime trial? Didn’t need Alexa to for that, did I?
I switched on the radio, and serendipity joined the lockdown.
Finally. From the days before the Newport Convention. Before the folk crowd lost their minds at the refusal of the future.
We all sat and listened to the words.
And they resonated.
Because they were beautiful.
And full of silently whispering vowel sounds.
And because life is short.
“May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young.
– Bob Dylan