Omicron Blue Chapter# 2

2

It was Friday. There was school in the morning for Omicron… However, his mind was focused on the afternoon when he would be with Aura. Steve, Sylvia… and Rex and Dorothea Meadowlark would be meeting with Philemon and Candace Jasmine of Jupiter Nation University Tribe…to discuss progress of the report Love Song Band was preparing for the President. Philemon was an I-type…a professor at the University in sociology, specializing in the theory of institutions. Candace was an A-type… a biologist, conducting research for the University concerning the behavior of rats.

The clothes the Jasmines wore contrasted sharply with the robes and tunics worn by Golden Sun Band. In the history of the Western world, rapid rise from the darkness of the early Middle Ages was due to the application of two phases of intellectual forces…First, there was the introduction of ideas from the past in a rapid fashion during the Renaissance…The powerful first steps which the Greeks had made in every area of scholarship had been eclipsed and then lost by Roman preoccupation with conquest and engineering…and then by the almost complete fall of Western civilization itself…For one thousand years, roughly from 400 A.D. to the year 1400…humankind was shattered into fiefs and castles in the care of local strongmen who fought off thugs of every type that flooded in from the east and north to capitalize on the appearance of a sudden vacuum in power….In the 1400s…the Renaissance recovered these powerful ideas from the past …to vitalize an emerging middle class of merchants and then scholars who formed the first universities…This influx of knowledge which in concrete form was actually the formation of libraries filled with manuscripts which were copies of originals…that were suddenly available from the care of Islamic monasteries… led directly to the Enlightenment which began roughly around the year 1600…a period which took the powerful ideas from the Greeks and transformed them into intellectual tools which would ultimately lead to economic revolution in England around 1760…an industrial explosion which would create an entirely new, mechanized society of metropolises… The founders and leaders of the Change strove to emulate the creative energy of these two successive periods in history… all in one swoop…The leaders encouraged tribes and bands to assume different personalities and ways of life…based on verities from the past..and in some cases from the deep past…Perhaps in the future the best of the ideas that were entertained might be winnowed from the rest and become the complexion of an entire world culture…In a way this strategy was far too successful, as some bands were found to be pursuing several experiments at once… For example …there were the University bands, which were around fifty in number… each representing a discipline or area of scholastic specialization…based upon the realization that scholars in a discipline…could make far faster and efficient progress working together…instead of living separated…sometimes at great distances… as they had been in the past…

How the universities were organized now spoke to decisions that had to be made in this New Age….There were the concerns of the mind…and there were the concerns of the body…..those of Will…those of Love….concerns of scholarship, the furtherance of the creation of tools….and concerns of community and the joy and happiness that comes from living significant portions of one’s life within the same band…within what would ultimately become an intentional extended family…

The majority of bands in the country were involved in creative work…

and each band generally focused upon making breakthroughs in one particular discipline…In this new era Golden Sun Tribe was experimenting with a new approach…they were conducting a mode of research…in which the Science of Everything was supreme..an approach in which almost all creative work was now interdisciplinary … Each band in the tribe had taken a problems approach to conducting research…Instead of studying a field in depth…which was necessary for scholarship to progress in general…the focus of a band’s research could change over time as challenges such as cancer were overcome and new problems would rear their ugly heads to be solved….In attacking these problems, the bands would start from several different disciplines at once…increasing the speed and accuracy of determining the cause of problems which in turn would lead more quickly to cures….

Individuals in the country would decide which bands they would live in… if they would change residence at all…at the time of marriage…Of course, in the couple, one would probably have to give up cherished closeness with family and friends and live in a new band….and then there was the power of I and A interactions…marriages could be based on this interaction of the different sides of the brain…Still one person in a couple might work well with a person from another couple….and a life-long pairing might result in an outpouring of creativity….It was once thought that difficulties in this new life might be ameliorated by virtual interaction by means of Cerebrum…However, as was the case the Beatles in yesteryear and many other famous couplings…it was obvious that being together in the same room…that live contact was desirable in all creative interactions…

The universities were still in transition…research in the university bands, as was said, was specialized more clearly and completely in one discipline than was normally the case in band work…Members of university bands would take turns giving lectures in university classes….research was primary the concern of the university bands, not lecturing….as students could receive most of the knowledge they required from Cerebrum…as was the case throughout all of their matriculation…Students would live in student bands where they would study uninterrupted, were tested regularly, promoted when such progress was earned…finally, the revelation and development of mental strengths and intellectual proclivities would allow them to be ancillary members of the professors’ bands…Living and working with professionals in a field acquainted students quickly with the skills and tools they would require to operate successfully in that field…Upon graduation, students would select the research bands among the various tribes…in which they would perform their life’s work.

Of course one of the major tasks of the professors in the university bands was presiding over and guiding the creative work that was done in the bands spread across the geography of the tribe….

None of the ‘mind versus body’ questions…that is living in a band in which research in a given field could be conducted…versus living with family and friends that might yield a more satisfying and even more creative life… none of these problems were easily addressed or solved…These problems were part of the conversation that the group gathering under the guidance of Steve and Rex would be considering today…

So it was that the university band that the Jasmines belonged to was a sociologically oriented one…although Candice spent much of her time conferring with a colleague in a biologically oriented band…Yet in spite of the intense specialization among university bands… the bands still desired an overarching feeling of unity among the bands…Thus it was decided that each band would select costumes from history…celebrating different periods in the past… The Jasmines’ band wore clothing of French peasants around the time of the French Revolution. Philemon usually wore rough trousers and a cotton shirt which slipped over his head without buttons, Candace would probably be in a beautiful peasant dress today with an apron trimmed with flowers.

However, as was the wont of people who were being stirred creatively too much… many of these university bands…as well as many other bands throughout the country…ended up looking in too many directions at once for allegiance, yet independence…and were confused anyway by the fact that marriage always seemed to mix disciplines or areas of expertise in a band… For instance…the band that Philemon and Candace were a part…sought an identity that they could call more uniquely their own….consequently, the name of their band was the Chimp Savvy Band…more anthropologist in flavor than that of sociologists who generally concentrate on modern human configurations…yet the band felt that humans’ true nature resided with the Great Apes and in particular with chimpanzees with whom humans shared around ninety-nine percent of their DNA…sociological experiments could be made in this artificial group creation…simultaneously along with their other research…thus utilizing truths from their primal physiology…So it was that this fine couple…who were dressed as peasants before the world…actually lived in a tree sort of architectural assemblage….And as if all of these contrary forces to occupy one’s attention were not enough…Candice in addition had devoted long periods to devising a theology for females in the Tribe generally…one based on truths gleaned from a shamanic past…the wisdom of female Cosmic Priestesses …Women throughout the tribe…had pounced upon Jasmine’s great work…and had added these ideas to the mix of ideas that were permeating each band….

Sam Wolf, the leader of Golden Sun Tribe, would constantly counsel and try to calm band members…advising that they should focus, focus, focus more…in order to maintain intellectual progress in one direction at least…instead of in their enthusiastic thrusting into a new creative age…attempting to try many new things at once…

Steve and Rex usually were in a purple and a yellow robe, respectively, when they were in the process of presiding over the creativity of the band. Sylvia and Dorothea wore simple tunics with flowers in their hair.

Because of some of the problems that bands were encountering, that have been addressed above…it was Philemon’s task, as a representative of the University, to work with a band of his choice…This task force was to look at some of these problems…as they were affecting the progress of all scientifically oriented tribes since the Change in terms of papers published…and in terms of their progress in general working with the universities… The group today were to specifically enumerate difficulties that were being experienced in the tribe…such as that of spouses possessing specialties which were often different from what was require for the band they resided in… how they fit in, whom they worked with. Finally, the report was to list improvements that might be made to ameliorate the situation …and provide a list of activities that should be studied in depth. Golden Sun Tribe was uniquely qualified to work on this report as they specialized in the strategies associated with the Science of Everything,…how one could work in every field at once… in a contemplative, philosophical manner… Philemon had selected Steve’s band to work with…as the band had impressed him when they had taken as a focus of study…the practical use of The Science of Everything itself…in the creative work of the day…he had been impressed with how successful it had been in addressing various problems…and how the band conceived of and selected strategies which were most efficient and powerful. Steve had secured prominent scholars and imminent scientists in many fields to live and work in Love Song Band… thus it was staffed to investigate band creative work generally, in a comprehensive way.

Love Song Band was comprised of a core community of fourteen families with a total of 52 members. There were many genetic dispositions accounted for in the band…For example, there were an African-American family, the Meadowlarks; an Oriental family, the Hyacinths; a Hispanic family, the Swallowtails; a Middle Eastern family, the Robins; an East Indian family, the Marigolds…and others. These nationality designations were approximate… as intermarriage was rife among every genetic origin…. ‘This is the major reason the United States was leading the rest of the world,’ Sylvia would always say. ‘We are heterogeneous… that is we have people from all over the world… with every ability… yet, we are homogeneous in a way also…We have everybody… and we are thoroughly mixed.’

There were also twenty-four ‘affiliate’ members, living in the band. These were spouses of core members of other bands who had petitioned Steve to work with the band in its creative work for short periods of time. There were five multiple-clusters where these affiliates could stay alone or with spouses if they were married. However, their first allegiance was to their spouses’ bands and their relationships with members of Love Song Band were more business than family in nature. The role of affiliates and problems with spouses of core members in general was another of the areas that the President had asked Steve and Love Song Band to address in its examination of the bands and to give recommendations for improvements.

In addition, there were satellite bands located throughout the tribal area that supplied laborers to any production and research bands that needed them. Many people lived in such bands. They chose and were chosen for residence in these bands on the basis of friendship and not because of the work they did. These bands were hired and terminated in the production research bands as needed, so it was good that most central in these groups were loving relationships that were continually present. The production and research bands were more like the groups of employees in bureaucracies in former years and members were not generally terminated and the bands’ memberships remained fairly constant over long periods of time. At the time of the Change, ten percent of the population was unemployed. It would seem that it would be to be difficult to find work for people whose jobs were now automated. The fact is…there were many things that only humans could do…creative things…research…the fine arts…artisan craft-oriented skills…So it was the case now…that most people could find work to do. If people were unemployed, they received a minimum income from their nation. All the nations now were very prosperous because of the gigantic revenues generated by the mechanized Cities they each possessed.

There were approximately 100 bands in a tribe and 200 tribes in a nation. There were 450 nations in the United States. Each research tribe specialized in a scientific area with each band working on a specific part. As has been said, Golden Sun Tribe conducted research with the Jupiter Nation University Tribe… concerning the Science of Everything…It had been found that rich treasure could be reaped from interdisciplinary work..attacking recalcitrant problems from many angles at once…thus this one tribe was devoted to everything…each band would take a discipline and attack it from many angles at once…Love Song Band investigated The Science of Everything…itself….

Research work conducted in the research bands was coordinated, assigned, monitored and paid for by each nation’s university. Students enrolled and lived at the universities for various periods of time to undertake intensive learning in the bands of the university away from the pressures of the bands they came from. Many became acquainted with disciplines different from their bands of origin, which qualified them for admission to other bands and tribes when they graduated. Such dislocation could be very disconcerting in an age wherein primal bands were closely and emotionally tied. Still people could choose new fields for research and keep close association with the bands their families were in. Universities were still required for teaching at the highest levels, for making certain that research in the bands proceeded in an orderly and productive manner, and then finally for making certain that progress in all disciplines was peer reviewed…and then recorded and published in a systematic and organized way and distributed by means of Cerebrum. Other tribes specialized in entertainment… creating stories, music and movies of all lengths and types for sale. The Cities manufactured most goods that were needed… the tribes did things that only humans could do…creativity…culture…but also other skills, practices, and services needed for tasks not undertaken by the Cities..such as medical, engineering, construction, and architecture. These tribes were located near the nations’ creative centers.

Rex Meadowlark was Steve’s right hand man in writing the report for the President. Rex possessed 17 years experience working in a governance band in Washington D.C., which worked with the Congress and the White House in helping to write drafts of proposed legislation in many fields. Steve had chosen him deliberately to help with the numerous Government projects his band had been asked to undertake. As was customary, in the new style of research work, the families of participants were involved as much as possible in the spirit of family, affinal relationships…of bands united in one blood, .. united with all of Nature…united with every particle in the universe…all of which possesses Light from the Source.

Steve loved to listen to Dorothea’s stories about her relatives, especially about her grandmother who was famous for her contributions to racial equality and to the development of systems and methods that were selected to be used in this new age. Dorothea’s gift was music. Symphonic music was not written any more as society now felt that music should be a vehicle for communicating ideas, not just for filling auditory space. Also a twelve-tone theory was advocated nowadays, although its development had just begun… which required a tempered scale which allowed one to compose in all keys at once…thus only keyboards were utilized that could simulate any sounds that were desired. Dorothea’s songs were placed in their own presentation place on Cerebrum. Following in her grandmother’s footsteps, she sang of provocative issues… being an African-American in a modern age, and being a woman in this new world of creativity. Also in her grandmother’s footsteps, she conducted research for the band concerning institutions and was a member of several committees in the world government concerned with institutional change. The report the band was writing for the President was related to her research strengths and thus, she was as important to the meetings with Steve, Philemon, and Jasmine, as her husband was.

‘Yes, Grandma Cicely, as we called her,’ Dorothea was saying, ‘was instrumental in making the existing band-university relationship possible. She was a professor at the University here in African-American studies. One of the professors was given the challenge by the Chancellor at that time to come up with an alternative to the bureaucratic organization that was rife and was constricting the work of the universities. This was around the year 2030. She sat in a meeting that the professor called to begin discussions on this topic. The other professors hummed and hawed, pretty much tried to discourage the lead professor’s pursuit of this investigation.

‘ Grandma Cicely, however, felt that events were occurring out on the edges of the metropolises that might be a key to a future world. She had fought all her life for a place for African-Americans, so her comments were always couched in provocative, ethnic language. She said, “As a woman of color, I would like to say that there is a phenomenon building out on the land that we must investigate and consider its possibilities. As a woman of color, I say that people are beginning to live in bands of families on the margins of the urban landscape. There are around a dozen of these living groups, north, south, and east of us. I would like to take you out there and show you what is happening. Many are growing their own food, some don’t eat meat, some live like chimpanzees as our DNA encourages. Some are attempting to eke out an existence making videos for Web sites. However, the members of most have to travel towards the urban core for employment every day. Many of these band members have had college training, the writings of many are on the Web…” that is, the Internet… which Cerebrum was called back then… “their writings are fascinating as far as the topics addressed and conclusions reached.

‘”Our universities are some of the best in the world,” she would say. “However, and I know it is almost scandalous to say this, their output has been paltry. Our universities are isolated from the world. The brightest minds in the country would rather speculate on Wall Street than be locked up in our ivory prisons; consequently, the average I.Q. of a Ph.D. is 120, not 180, as it should be. Groups of researchers are always the most efficient at making progress, researchers should be living together and working together… not commuting thousands of miles to each others’ schools. Our modern universities!… Yet when I walk down a hallway, it is like monks from the Middle Ages in their cells. When I go to a commencement, the professors are dressed like bats from an age long past. Our universities should be working with these new bands out on the land…in every discipline.

‘”O mean it all makes sense…and it seems that it is the direction things are going anyway,” she would say, “ Our cities are becoming automated, This is a trend to be encouraged, not discouraged. But where will our people be employed? The obvious solution is for them to be involved in creative, stimulating work. China has created Avenues of Innovation…where they can locate thousands of people to conduct research…Ther charge of these ‘Avenues’ is to generate ‘mass entrepreneurship’ and ‘mass innovation’…It is a major change that is altering the very texture of metropolitan areas and signaling a change in the development of the Internet. However, the real change that is happening right now, right here…is something different…the Internet is indeed moving from one phase to another…and I have always maintained…that the Internet will not be mature…until major changes are made on the ground….People should be starting to work in bands…and they are. The Internet now is moving from infrastructure…like Google and Facebook…to content…to entertainment, education, and research…to culture…not schlock…to real education, which I’ll address in a moment…to real breakthroughs in research every day…not just a big step here, one there…that everyone immediately copies or rides the obvious ramifications of in every direction.

“The relationship between China and Silicon Valley has always been imitation, competition, and catch-up. But now we must shift gears…and emphasis…We can solve problems…really big ones…like cancer…like making computer chips even faster…but how!?…The Chinese were right…for several reasons…we need armies of researchers…not just to copy and explicate obvious next-steps….we need an explosion…we need to get our hands dirty…we must get used to ;pushing research further and further…from ‘light’ first steps…to ‘heavy’ next steps…like Edison…he invented the light bulb…but he was not afraid to follow that bulb on to the electrification of the entire northeastern United States….this will increase progress…thousands of times… Yes…we have a world of problems….but as I say..people are already moving…moving on to the next step…Let us form bands…and change the world….solve problems…Move on to the next big step in the evolution, development, of man and woman and their tools…the next big step in the challenge of making the earth…a place where we can live…and prosper….

and in addition, put people to work… let us encourage a strategy…that is already underway… that will focus research in small, vital, innovative groups,…like animals,…living, loving, fighting like a family…for existence.

‘”Another thing is education,’ she would say, “As a woman of color, I am appalled at the way intelligence in this country is identified, developed, and then utilized in thought-related work. First, let us consider identification…When I was young, I thought I was stupid. Now I know I have a 200 I.Q. How can such a thing be? The answer is…right and left hemispheres of the brain. This notion is disparaged by those in control… by the left brain tyrants in our universities. Long ago, right brain children were encouraged with ‘Dick and Jane’ books in elementary school. Now there is nothing. Everything is deduction, analytical,…which is fine for the two-thirds of the population that are left brained. Right brain children are disparaged and consigned to second tier jobs… these are some of the brightest minds that our country routinely produces. Fortunately, by mistake almost, I was given the Wechsler-Bellevue Block Test. Oh, I know, if children are deprived, have few books to read, if their parents don’t speak correctly, they tend to do better on performance tests. No! The Wechsler-Bellevue test is the only one that is spatial… related to the right hemisphere of the brain… and you know my work, it is not the work of a deprived child! I took the Stanford-Binet test one time,” my grandma said. “You know, the I,Q. test everyone respects. I got a 120 I.Q. on it. I was fortunate to have a situation where I could question the outcome of the test and go over each answer with the person who had administered it…because I thought that I had answered all the questions correctly. Well, she told me that in each case, there were 3 circles with sprockets on them and the sprockets indicated a mathematical series – you know, like 1,3,6, and I was to pick the correct fourth circle with its sprockets from four choices. ‘Circles with sprockets? “ my grandma asked. “I see shapes. For some of the sequences, I can see what you are talking about. But for others I see a series of shapes … I would look at the first shape…then go the second, pick it up and turn it upside down, then this direction and then it would make sense with respect to the first shape…then I did the same thing with the third and the fourth until I had a sequence of four shapes that reflected a sequence in which the first shaped turned this way and that but remained the same shape….! Well, the lady said, “you aren’t supposed to pick anything up and turn it around.” “ Well,”’ my grandmother said, “there is nothing in the instructions that say that.’ ‘ Well,” said the lady, “most people wouldn’t think of doing what you did.’ However, given what my grandmother had done, it appeared to the lady that my grandmother had gotten all the answers right. This indicated a superior spatial ability, which she said, was confirmed by the Wechsler-Bellevue test my grandmother had taken. “The 200 I.Q. on the Wechsler-Bellevue test…what kind of I.Q. is that?” my grandmother asked. “I.Q. is I.Q.,” the lady replied. “However, if you can make sense out of all this… maybe there will be a breakthrough.” Subsequently, my grandma read about Roger Sperry at Cal Tech, who was looking at schizophrenic patients whose corpus callosums or connections between the two hemispheres of the brain had been severed in an experimental remedy for schizophrenic ‘storming.’ The Wechsler-Bellevue test was identified as the one test that could measure the abilities of the right hemisphere of the brain. A fellow named Paul Bahin at the University of Michigan found that people have different cognitive styles and these are related to two different alpha charges present in their brains, which were related to which hemisphere was dominant in their brains. That is, to state things clearly…a person cannot be dominant in both hemispheres at once…You are either one…or the other…The cognitive styles that Professor Bahan found… possessed characteristics that matched the abilities that Sperry had found for the two sides of the brain.

‘”Now the problem here, “ my grandmother continued…”is that scientists think all this hemispheric dominant stuff is pseudo-science…but the complicating factor here is…that the scientists making these assessments are left hemispheric dominant which biases their conclusions….the right side of the brain is excluded from most university entrance protocols….This must stop…now!…The U.S. is blessed with having people of both abilities and we must take advantage of this situation…to accelerate the pace of research…to accelerate progress in the world in general!

‘”Now, I’m not saying that African-American people are this or that,” Grandma would continue. “There are some anthropological theories that would back up a psychological theory like that a bit. Primates in Africa are right hemispheric dominant…thus, it is probable that the first primal man and woman were right hemispheric dominant also. As humans migrated from Africa, they went north into the Middle East, and then either west into Europe or way up into arttic Asia. The weather in much of Europe was similar to that in Africa so the evolutionary pressures upon the brain to change hemispheric dominance probably wasn’t great. However, as people migrated into Asia, they encountered circumstances where the invention of fire and other inventions were required for survival, which could have exerted pressure to favor a different hemispheric dominance. Thus, for a time, the world inhabited by humans may have been right hemispheric dominant to the west and left hemispheric dominance to the east. It is possible that civilization emerged in the Middle East because that is where the two hemispheric dominances overlapped. Also, Europe was subject to incursions from the east, so you were left with a back bone of right hemispheric dominance up from Italy to Germany to Holland to England. These countries are surrounded by countries that are more left hemispheric dominant, which would explain their inability to get along for quite a long time. This pattern also mirrors the economic development of Europe from Venice in Italy, the Hanseatic League in Germany, the windmills of Holland and finally, industrial revolution in England. Right hemispheric abilities or at least the mixture of both abilities in these countries may have been responsible for this.

‘”But I’m not saying that anything is anything,” my grandma continued. “What I am saying is that children should be tested with these two tests, abilities identified, then abilities should be developed in accordance with curricula specifically designed for the strengths of each and then these abilities should be utilized in creative work to capitalize on the explosion that apparently results from having people with different abilities work together.” ‘Yes, my grandma was a revolutionary. But not one in the streets. In time, her ideas were listened to and a whole new world arose.’

While the adults worked, their children were together. And there she was,… with Caesar Gemstone, her inseparable companion nowadays. Aura smiled politely at Omicron. She considered him to be a nice, brotherly type of male,…handsome, intelligent… however, she was irritated at his inability to exhibit to this point characteristics of being a producer… of being a leader as his father was. Her simple dress possessed a subtle, exquisite rainbow cast, falling prettily and demurely to just below the knee. Her hair was a long, flowing river of ashen blond, broken by brilliant rivers of gold. Her skin was the most exquisite blending of pale, delicate alabaster with golden warm tones of races from the west and east. Her parents were an I-A-type couple …and her intellect benefited from that breeding. Her body was slowly forming a figure similar to the beautiful fashion models in the Creative Center.

The children of the conferees… Omicron, Aura, Jason… along with Gemstone and Anthony Meadowlark, were left to occupy a couple of hours of time together. First, they visited the band’s creative center where the termites were being administered to by the ‘owls.’

‘Well, how are your charges, mister?’ Aura asked Omicron in a professional manner, looking at the white dots swarming over the plastic surface. ‘They were all alive and healthy the time I saw them last week. Caesar was here last time, too, remember?’

Like other ‘owls,’ Aura had slept during the morning after intense individual creative work from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. She was skipping the group work in her own band, the University Sociology Band, known as the Chimp Savvy Band, to be with her parents this afternoon. The separation and integration of biorhythmic type and hemispheric dominance would continue the rest of their lives. Omicron cringed at the mention of Caesar Gemstone, whose parents were in the University Economics Band. He had to admit that he was more than just a bit upset about her being with him so much. Of course, he had no right to object at all. However, Gemstone was effeminate… strong, wiry,…very intelligent, also, it was true… however, he was an A-type as Aura was. In a world where A-types outnumbered I-types by a ratio of 2 to 1, such couplings were not uncommon. Still the most exciting couplings, he felt, were between I-and A-types. And he had his secret dream…. Somehow he was able to quiet his jealousy and enjoy proximity to his ‘goddess’ during the time they were together.

‘Hey, you guys,’ said Omicron. ‘Why don’t we take a walk to the tribal recreation center?’

They consented and the five walked briskly to the center where spontaneous musical improvisation of some sort was often alive. The tribal center was located overlooking a lagoon to the north of Love Song Band that stretched far inland from the Bay… to valleys and hills wherein and whereon… much of Golden Sun Tribe was located. One valley was previously occupied by African-Americans who were descendants of laborers who had been utilized in ship-building activity during World War II. Now people of all races were mixed thoroughly among the tribes and bands, as all people now were valued because of their creative abilities, all of which were developed and utilized in collaborative work without a thought for the color of people’s skin. Another valley was once a prestigious suburb that had been populated by highly-paid professionals who worked in the City. Now bands lived upon and roamed the multitudinous hillsides that overlooked the ruins of a past age below.

Inside the tribal creative center, three girls and two boys were playing drums, piano, trumpet, saxophone, and bass. Omicron picked up a guitar from among the many resting against the wall. Jason walked over to the marimba and began to gently vibrate mellow tones with the mallets on the dark wooden slats. Anthony found some tabla which he played more in a modern popular manner than according to eastern Indian principles. Aura found a violin, an instrument she was highly proficient with. Gemstone started playing riffs on a saxophone. The ten of them worked into a wide-open jam.

After twenty minutes or so, Aura walked over to Omicron. She motioned for him to follow her into an adjoining room where the grand piano stood. She closed the door connecting the two clusters and motioned for him to sit at the piano.

‘So you are the great composer… and you have played nothing for me,’ she said. ‘I hear you run about the hills every day. What are you doing, you lazy thing you. Great arias aren’t inspired out running in the grass, you know. You need inspiration, and then work. And if you are short on inspiration then you need even more work,’ she teased.

Omicron turned red and was unable to articulate a response. He was not aware that she knew about his musical efforts. Also significant to his mind was the play on the words between “aria” and her name. Gemstone entered and came over to see if he could coax his charge back into the other room. Gemstone was dressed as was appropriate for his band… in Liederhosen of seventeenth century German peasantry.

‘Omicron Blue,.. Come blow your horn,’ he said.

Aura laughed… as Gemstones words spoke to more than one aspect of Omicron’s abilities and personality. Omicron was red-faced and arose to leave. Aura pushed him back down onto the seat.

‘Caesar, go back to your saxophone. I need to talk to Omicron for a while about pianos and composition.’

Gemstone reluctantly left and Aura sat on the bench next to Omicron. All of this surprised him greatly.

‘So what would you have me play?’ he asked.

‘I’ve heard your works,’ Aura replied. ‘They are available on Cerebrum… I want to talk to you about theoretical matters. I play the violin…I have perfect pitch. However, I took piano lessons for a while. I wasn’t that interested in the playing aspects of it. My father found me a teacher who is proficient in 12-scale harmonics. I was swept away by the scientific aspects of the music as I am with all scientific things.’

‘Scientific, theoretical,….The groups give me lyrics and I write music for them,’ Omicron responded. ‘I know the keys and chords in each key,…I know there is more, but no one has ever taught me those things. I guess when I get to the Academy, I’ll be taught things like that.’

‘No,’ said Aura. ‘The universities and academies are not strong on harmonics. They will teach you voice leading, like how melodies are woven together in Baroque music. That kind of stuff is of limited use in writing songs or any music, in general. Joseph Haydn developed seven-tone scale harmonics. My teacher said that few people realized that. He said that if you go through Haydn’s symphonies one by one, you will see how he started with lines of music overlapping like Baroque music. But quickly, he started writing some of the lines in thirds, which are formative triads. First, he experimented with melodies…which notes can follow the other in a particular scale. He found that you could use any sequence of notes in the key of C, for example, as long a you start with C and end on C or G. Then he experimented with the triads or chords and he found that triads could be played as chords in any order, as long as you start with C and end with a C or G chord. There is one exception, however. The seven-tone scale of C has three major chords, three minor chords, and one diminished chord. The diminished chord must always go to the tonic, that is, back to C. Then he began to overlap chords. Some lines of the score for a symphony would play a chord for several beats while the other lines played different triads, that is chords, on every beat. We will come back to overlapping later. He found that the diminished chord was special because if you added one more minor third, you added a black note and you are in C, which uses only the white keys on the piano. He could have jumped to twelve-tone scale right there. Once you have one note outside of the scale, one can theoretically start using chords in another key. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he used diminished chords to modulate, that is, go to other keys. And that was the state of seven-tone harmonics when Mozart and Beethoven came along.

‘Mozart cleaned things up,…he put the melody in one hand on the piano and chords that stayed the same for measures at a time in the left hand. Mozart and Beethoven were popular because they were using a new, revolutionary harmonics. With music it is difficult to write A’s. You know, like A,B,C,D and F in school. Mozart and Beethoven had only three A’s each. John Sebastian Bach had twenty A’s, Tchaikovsky, twenty A’s, the Beatles, thirty A’s. Did you know that every Beatle song except two are in sonata form, the form Mozart developed.

‘Now twelve- tone scale. My teacher said that if one followed the system that Haydn used to develop seven-tone scale, he or she could develop twelve-tone scale harmonics. My teacher tried to make some progress. The Beatles made progress in this. They didn’t really realize what they were doing. Now when I say twelve-tone harmonics, I know there are twelve-tone composers like Schoenberg. What I talking about is writing twelve-tone music that is not horrible to listen to, but is consistent with the physiology of our ears. That is what Haydn was doing. He would keep playing things until his ear said, “O.K.” No one thinks of twelve-tone harmonics when they listen to the Beatles music as we still do today. That is because they wrote 12-tone chord sequences that are acceptable to our ears. My teacher felt that harmonic breakthroughs were the reason for their success. He feels that an I-type must develop this new music. That is why I am talking to you.

‘A real help, my teacher feels, would be to study the music of Fats Waller. Waller shows you some sequences chords can be played in and one can play all twelve chords between the C’s on the piano keyboard. Since the piano has a tempered scale, each note on the keyboard is really a compromise between two notes separated by a small distance. I can hear that distance, because I have perfect pitch. Therefore, Fats Waller’s key of C, utilizing all the black notes, doesn’t have seven chords, it has 12 x 2 = 24 chords. Plus he overlapped chords like Haydn did. He would play a C chord in the left hand and then play 24 chords in the right hand. Each one of those 24 overlapped chords were new chords. He could play a D chord in the left hand and play 24 chords and he would have 22 new chords, and so on. Theoretically, you can overlap chords three, maybe four deep and obtain a million chords in one key instead of the original seven.

‘Witness, sir, what I am saying,…this means that each key has the same chords, although you have to play them in a different order. This makes it extremely easy to modulate to a new key. It seems to me that it would be a joy to try all this out and discover this new world. A first step might be to play in the key of C and overlap a C chord with a B flat chord. I have tried this and it makes beautiful music.

‘So mister, I have heard your music,…it all sounds so much like stuff we’ve heard before. Perhaps if you added some new harmonics, it would spice things up.’

‘To me,…and I am an I-type… music is magic,’ said Omicron… ‘ It rises from my brain, I know not how. I am reluctant to think theoretically about it.’ ‘Another thing,’ Aura said. ‘My teacher said that the evidence is that an I-type can develop the ability to create a new melody every time he or she hums. Tchaikovsky was an I-type. He probably did this. Johann Strauss whistled. The Beatles whistled back and forth to each other. Try this, as you are wasting your time in the hills,… hum and then attempt to write down what you hum when you return home. You may be surprised.

‘And about mixing science with art. For me life is theory, theory, theory. I envy those who can appreciate beauty outside of theory. I wish I could bring passion to what I do. Maybe someday.

‘I want you to experiment… Haydn was able to write with passion and still create an entire science of harmonics. Perhaps you can, too. Millions of chords,…it would give you a tremendous palette of colors to paint your musical paintings.’

Soon it was time for the Jasmines to leave… however, before they left he received a look from Aura which he had received from her before. It was a look as if she were puzzled by her own interest in a person she rationally had eliminated from serious romantic consideration. Later that night, Omicron looked out the window of his bedroom. The moon was sinking below the mountain, which was silhouetted dimly by an ominous red glow. Before him was a vision of Aura, with that look, that facial expression of warmth and interest that she was able only with difficulty to finally turn to more substantial matters at hand.