#27 – You’ve been Swifted, here, put on this cute cardigan
“Where are we?” Kymmie asked.
“Ummm, it looks a lot like the London Underground tube system.” Carl replied.
“Maybe we’re inside Emma Watson’s mind.” She countered.
“This isn’t ‘Being John Malkovich,’ you can’t go inside someone’s mind.” Scott said in a tone that oddly enough resembled how John Malkovich would speak.
“Yeah, well cats can’t talk either!” Kymmie replied back. “But there’s a talking cat leading the way!”
The cat abruptly stopped walking. “Ah this is our stop.”
“Stop? What stop. We’re just walking through these underground tubes!” Scott replied, his voice still John Malkovich-esk. He tried to reach out and touch what looked like a projection of the London Underground on the wall.
“Please keep all hands and feet inside the carriage until it has come to a complete stop! Thank you.” The cat cried out.
“Seriously?” Scott Borchetta narrowed his eyes at the cat. “What carriage! We’re just walking in a group. This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. We’re playing pretend with a cat.”
“Well, I’ve never been in the London Underground! Oooo, I’m going to pretend I really AM in the London Underground. This is fun!” Kymmie said clapping her hands with excitement.
“No. It’s not.” Scott argued back sourly.
Justin Bieber shifted his stance to stand in line with Kymmie pretending like he was waiting for the doors of the carriage to open. “Excuse me, Mr. conductor cat, do you know if this train is running on time?”
“Train is running on time.” The cat said with a big grin delighted at their willingness to suspend their own reality in favor of his.
Scott rolled his eyes.
Everyone else joined in the make believe ride.
Scott rolled his eyes again. “This is ridiculous. Why is everyone playing along!”
“Because it’s fun!” Kymmie answered.
Scott groaned.
Just then a loud ‘door opening’ sound played and the overhead pre-recorded voice from the London Underground could be heard.
Unexpectedly before their very eyes the set from Taylor Swift’s ‘The Man’ video appeared in front of them with the ‘no scooters’ sign hanging on the wall next to Taylor’s lost albums.
“Ah, here we are.” Thomas Whittington Swift said in his British cat voice. “This way!”
“What IS this? Is this a movie set?!” Kymmie asked inquisitively. “It looks like a movie set. But, also, it looks like a subway station. It just looks so real.” Her eyes were wide with curiosity. She was buying into Taylor’s big adventure, all aboard the Swiftie train… Soon enough their suspension of disbelief would become irreversible, is this the real life, or is this just fantasy? You tell me. Put on your favorite song, close your eyes and notice what happens to your mind… watch favorite movie, read your favorite book, and notice what happens to the time.
“Where are we going?” Scott asked as he eyed the ‘13TH Street Station’ sign, the station didn’t look like any subway station he’d been in, either in the London Underground or anywhere else in the world.
“You’ll see!” The cat replied.
They followed the cat as he ran through the seemingly fictitious movie set station. Above them they could hear crowds stirring, idle pre-show chatter, noise, the show was about to start, everyone was taking their seats. Finally, they entered a large open space that resembled an upscale ‘reservations only’ restaurant dining room but on a Broadway theater stage. On the stage, a large table was ready and waiting, silverware placed, candles lit. A moon projected on the backdrop.
“Ah oui oui!” A waiter called out. “Monsieur le chat!”
A hand painted sign read ‘The London’.
“Everyone, I present to you the finest seat in the house!” The cat said with a smile.
“If this is the finest seat, where’s the stage?” Carl asked the cat. “It sounds to me like the stage is above us.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is an illusion. Like the Ames Window.”
“The what?” Kymmie asked.
“A trapezoid shaped window that spins around in a circle but it appears to instead move back and forth because your mind sees what it wants to see and doesn’t see what is actually there.”
“Whoa.” Justin and Kymmie whispered simultaneously.
“So it’s an optical illusion?” Kymmie asked the cat.
“Yes.” The cat bobbed its head up and down. Though, the cat was not actually moving its head, the lights from the stage were moving, making it appear as though the cat’s head were moving up and down.
“If there’s optical illusions, do you think there’s audial illusions?” Kymmie pondered.
“I think you mean auditory illusion.” Oak Felder replied. “Yes, there is such a thing—”
“The stage IS above us! And he knows it!” Scott was in full argument with the cat. Scott and the cat sat in a staring match for a moment.
“Do you want to know more about auditory illusions?” Oak asked Kymmie and Justin.
“Nah. We’re watching this video of a guy losing an argument to a cat.” Kymmie and Justin replied.
“It’s not a video, it’s real life.” Oak declared.
“Oh yeah. Wow.” Kymmie scratched her head. “For a moment, I thought I was watching a video. Weird. Maybe I just miss having a phone that actually works so much that my mind wants me to think I’m watching something on my phone. I miss my phone.”
The cat sat back and pointed up with a paw towards the stage, taunting them. “Ah, but isn’t the show infinite if you see it with your mind? If you use your imagination and let it run wild and free, there’s no limit to what you could hear or see!”
“Alright, I’ll give you that, cat.” Scott acquiesced, defiantly. I lost an argument to a cat, he thought. Believing anything, be it a show on a stage, or perhaps, a bit of folklore, means allowing suspension of disbelief… and once that happens, there’s no going back. Suspension of disbelief, if you’ve never heard the phrase, means, even though you know something isn’t real, you know it’s made up; you know it’s folklore, but you let your mind step into the world of make-believe and allow yourself to play pretend—to believe it—knowing, eventually you’ll return safely back to reality.
“Dinner is served.” The cat pointed to a table with oversized candles.
“Dinner?” Scott asked. “We’re not hungry.” He crossed his arms.
“I am a little.” Kymmie said, holding her hand up.
“The rest of us are not.” Scott argued.
“Actually.” Justin held a hand up too.
“Okay FINE, some of us are hungry.” Scott grumbled to the cat.
Kymmie turned to the cat. “Cat, I have a question, where’s the bathroom.”
“Right over there.” The cat said lifting and pointing a paw at a door with a sign that said ‘Gender Inclusive Water Closet’. A small sign below that read, ‘DNA judgment free zone, transgendered women are women, and transgendered men are men, all are welcome. And even if you don’t have DNA and you’re a fictional character, you’re still welcome.’
“Thank you!”
“Really? You’re gonna go to the bathroom, right now? We’re in the middle of an action sequence!” Scott threw his hands up in frustration.
“I wouldn’t really call it an action sequence.” Kymmie replied. “I feel like something is about to happen. But right now? Well, it’s not too crazy yet. I do get the feeling it’s about to get COMPLETELY out of control, so I just figured I would use the bathroom NOW before things get totally out hand.”
They waited as she walked over to use the bathroom.
“I call next!” Justin ran to get in line.
The rest of them formed a bathroom line, like you would see at a music venue with only one bathroom. Why is there only one bathroom?
Whoever is in there is taking forever!
Is someone in there?
Well knock again; maybe it’s just locked?
I don't think there’s anyone in there.
No I saw them go in. Is there another bathroom or is this the only one?
There has to be, like, a staff bathroom, can we use that one?
Go get someone who works here to see if it’s locked or we can use the staff bathroom, oh wait never mind the door just opened!
I just wanted to warn you that there are no paper towels and the toilet paper is running low.
Exasperated sigh and a groan.
“Oh my gosh. Well, let’s hope Billie and Finneas are having some success.” Scott shook his head standing in line for the bathroom.
Everyone eventually finished using the bathroom, luckily there was no shortage of toilet paper in THIS bathroom, a few rolls were found under the sink cabinet, no paper towels though, so everyone had to air-dry their hands. The show had begun above them. They stood shaking their hands in the air trying to get them dry. Put the left hand up, and the right hand up, and you turn it all around and you shake them all about… and that’s what it’s all about.
“So we’re under the stage?” Kymmie asked.
“I think we’re directly under the stage.” Pop replied. Oak nodded.
Kanye put his finally dry hands down, “Shhhh, do you hear that?”
Kymmie nodded at him. “Yeah. It’s… What IS that? That sound…”
“What?” Justin asked, confused, he turned to look at Scott Borchetta still moving his hands around in big circles in the air trying to get them dry. “I don’t hear anything?” When his hands were finally dry he took his earworm canceling headphones off but quickly put them back on. “I just hear this worm of a song when I take the headphones off.”
“Well then don’t do that?” Kymmie said snarkily.
He made a face at her and she made a face back at him. “Hey, I’m an Arianator, not a Belieber, so technically, that makes us team rivals. Like The Montreal Canadiens vs. The Toronto Maple Leafs.”
“Maple Leafs all the way! You know, I’d sing to you and make you a belieber if I didn’t have an earworm in my head.”
“Awww, that’s so sad.” Kymmie feigned a frown.
“Oh wait, I’m getting a call on my phone, oh, it’s for Kymmie? Here, let me transfer it to her phone… Oh, wait, her phone is broken. And I have, let’s see… twelve. Also, Ariana Grande and I have an alliance. So, technically, that makes you part of my team through association. But also, Maple Leafs all the way.”
“Whatever.” Kymmie made another face. “I don't even watch hockey.”
“Look, we’re all on the same side. At least, right now we are, let’s just put the rivalry away for the time being.” Carl declared with authority, shifting from corporate lawyer to judge mode for a moment.
“Shhhhh… Everyone, listen?” Scott blurted out. Pointing to the mics and speakers. “You know what this is? We’re in an echo chamber.”
Ambient crowd noise being picked up by microphones above echoed below through speakers inside the echo chamber. It was relaxing… Like the crowd noises you hear in baseball... if you ever watch a baseball game on TV without the crowd noise added; it’s just not the same. You need the crowd noise. It’s just noise, and one would think the noise would be a nuisance an annoying obstacle, a gumption trap meant to distract you from the purity of enjoying the game. But in fact, without it, the game is nearly unwatchable. It’s the crowded ballpark that adds that magic spark to watching a baseball game on TV. Of course, just like old laugh tracks, you can always add the sound. A primetime sitcom without laugh tracks just isn’t the same, but you have to wonder, why is that? Why do we like it? Why do we like music in the first place? Why do we like the sounds within music, or TV shows, or movies, broadcast to our brains… And why do we need the click clack of horses walking on a road when there are horses in the movie scene. We know the sounds are fake, we know Foley artists worked hard to stomp coconuts together to recreate those horse hoof sounds, but without it, something is missing. We need the background noise. We need it so much that when it’s not there we add it in, a synthetic substitute for the real thing, if it ain’t got that swing, it don’t mean a thing. Just like we add effects to music, because a dry room just doesn’t keep the attention of our ears… but put that sound through an old school echo chamber and there’s something magical that happens. Most of today’s music is run through computer-generated effects. But a raw, pure, true, echo chamber just can’t be simulated. They still exist, hidden, secret rooms, in studios around the world, so I’m told.
Oak Felder stepped to the center of the room. He looked around, “He’s right, it’s an echo chamber. It looks like a reproduction of Phil Spector’s original echo chambers. It’s just like the ones he used in the 1960s right here in LA to record in. Like the one in Gold Star Studios. It’s larger than the originals, and more complicated with more speakers and mics, but, that’s what this is…“
“Whoa!” Kymmie shouted. “What’s an echo chamber?”
“Oh kid… You have so much to learn.”
“I mean, I’m a teenager. So… Duh. But, I know a lot for my age. You’d be surprised!” She said in a sassy tone.
“I’m sure you do.” Carl Lyle Lawyer said back to her.
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.
“Do you think Taylor is using this in her performance?” She asked. “This Regina Spektor echo chamber?”
“It’s a Phil Spector echo chamber.” Scott shook his head.
“Yeah well I have no idea who that is, so I’m going to call it a Regina Spektor echo chamber because I like Regina Spektor.”
“If it makes you happy, you can call it whatever you like.” Carl said to her ending the argument.
“Good. Then I’ll call it that.” She said with a triumphant smile.
Kanye and Bieber caught a stare with Scott and then with the rest of them. They stood in wonder, and awe… and fear. There were thousands of mics and speakers lining the walls and hanging from the ceiling.
“What is Taylor planning? Some soft of modification on the wall of sound?” Oak asked.
“Or maybe a tidal wave of sound.” Scott said back. “Or an avalanche of sound.”
“What’s the wall of sound?” Kymmie asked.
Oak gave another one of his famous Ted Talks on the famed Wall of Sound and how it was created by the music producer Phil Spector.
“Wow. They did weird stuff back in the olden days.”
“The olden days?” Justin asked Kymmie.
“That’s what I call anything that happened before my time.”
“But you’re like, 15, everything was before your time!”
“Whatever.” She made another face. “Can I still call it the Regina Spektor wall of—“
“Yes!” They responded collectively to Kymmie.
“We have to do something!” Kanye said, fearlessly.
“I’m calling my captains, we need backup, we need the Captain and Lieutenants of my Beliebers. They’re up there keeping an eye on Billie, but we need them down here!”
“Okay, I’m calling Sunday Service.” Kanye pulled out his Sunday Service device that broadcast a secret Sunday Service signal.
“I’m calling my Defenders in case we need them too.” Oak added.
“And I’m calling mom.” Kymmie said pulling out her phone, forgetting it was still frozen.
“No, honey, don’t call your mother. Scott and I will handle this.” Carl said to Kymmie.
“Wait, HE’S your dad?!?!” Justin asked.
“Yeah.” Kymmie said, her face flushed with embracement.
“What the?” Everyone shouted collectively. “HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN YOUR DAD FOR?”
“Umm…My whole life?” She shrugged. Carl laughed.
“That’s crazy, Yo! Well, at least she wasn’t running around town without parental supervision, you know?” Justin offered.
Kanye nodded in agreement with The Biebs.
“Wait… So your name is Kymmie Lawyer… Does that mean you’re going to be a lawyer when you grow up?” Justin inquired.
“No.” She replied, annoyed. “I get asked that all the time. A last name isn’t a destiny. Kanye’s last name is West, it’s not like he moved from his birthplace to the West coast… Okay, never mind, that’s not a good example. Your last name is Bieber are you going to become a Bieber? What is a Bieber anyway?”
The Biebs shrugged. “I’ll have to look that up. But you should really consider law school, you’re really good at debating.”
Carl laughed, “I’ve been telling her that for years.”
“Well, I’ve already decided, I’m destined for the red carpet. I’m going to be a star!”
“I’m just saying think about it, Kymmie Lawyer, teen lawyer.” Justin added as an afterthought. “It’d be like Teen Wolf but instead of a wolf, you’d be a lawyer.”
“Justin, by the time I finished law school I wouldn’t be a teen anymore. Think about it.”
“Alright, you win.”
And with that, the debate with Kymmie Lawyer, tenacious teenage daughter of Carl Lyle Lawyer, was over.
“I just wanted to point out that if you were a Teen Wolf and you did go to law school, then by the time you finished law school you’d be a wolf lawyer. Which could also be cool. And that would make me a wolf dad.”
“DAAAAAAAD!”
“Sorry, daughter, I couldn’t help it.” Carl Lyle Lawyer apologized for the wolf dad joke.
“Well, I don’t have my own thing to call, I’m just with Oak.” Pop shrugged. “I mean, okay, I do have my own thing, but I think we’ve already got enough reinforcements with the Beliebers and Sunday Service and Stacy’s mom.”
“Kymmie. My name’s Kymmie.” She corrected Pop.
“That’s what I meant.”
“What about you, Thomas Whittington Swift?” Kymmie asked the cat.
“I’m calling The Itty Bitty Pretty Kitty Committee! Wait, no, everyone’s already here.” The other cats snickered.
“AH HAH! You ARE Taylor Swift’s cats!” Scott said accusingly.
“And you, are Taylor Swift’s rats. And you’re right where she wants you. Under the stage in a rat pack rat trap.”
“Damn this cat is good.” Scott said in a smooth Humphrey Bogart-esk voice.
“I thought you said you could handle it!” Justin shouted at Scott pointing to the cat.
“Well I seem to have underestimated The Itty Bitty Pretty Kitty Committee—“ Scott pointed to Bieber, “Justin, just call your captain! And tell him to bring wine.” He pointed to Kanye, “Kanye, Call Sunday Service! And tell them to bring…”
“Jesus!” Kanye shouted.
“No… More wine. I just need a drink right about now.”
“Already on it.” Justin and Kanye said in unison.
“Kymmie…” Scott turned to look at her.
She looked at her dad.
“Fine. Call your mother. I’m never going to hear the end of it. But we don’t have a choice at this point. I think we’re out Swifted.”
“Ya think?” Biebs added.
“Umm, my phone’s still in this weird locked down mode, can I borrow yours?” Kymmie asked innocently.
Carl Lyle smiled. “Sure thing sweet pea.”
“Oh, umm, also, can we go buy a new phone tomorrow because I broke mine. See, what had happened was, I was trying to…” She started to explain to her dad how her phone broke since she was used to explaining to him why she needed money or a new this or that. Force of habit, you know.
“Why are you telling me this? I was there. Remember?” Her dad replied, like a dad, because he is her dad.
“Oh yeah.” Her facial expression absentminded-teenager-like for a moment.
“Sure, when this is over, we’ll go buy you a new phone.”
“Thanks dad! You’re the best.”
“Well, maybe you should tell Taylor Swift that, because right now she isn’t too pleased with me and my company.”
“I mean, villains can still be cool dads.” She gave her dad a thumbs up and a wink.
“I’m not a villain! Whose side are you on? You keep this up and I’m not buying you a new phone.”
“Daaaaaaaad.” Kymmie complained.
“You’re lucky I love you.” He said with a smile.
“Thanks dad!”
“Wait, it’s a Sunday. Did you do your homework for tomorrow?”
“Eh, I’ll do it later. The world’s probably gonna end or something anyway so—”
“No,” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out his business tablet/laptop. “You’ll do it now.”
“But, I’ll miss the show! Or, umm, whatever is about to happen.”
“You can’t see the stage anyway, daughter! We’re not going anywhere, might as well work on that paper.”
“You ARE a villain!” She pouted.
“A minute ago I was the worlds best dad, now I’m a villain!”
“Father.” She narrowed her eyes and stared in annoyed anger.
“Daughter.” He narrowed his and stared back.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Villain dads. I like that, coming this fall, a sitcom staring the world’s favorite villains as they navigate parent hood with teenagers.
WRITER: NO.
“Did anyone else just see that?” Kymmie asked changing the topic.
“What?” Scott asked, very interested.
“I swear I saw a peacock, over there… Where we came in.”
“A peacock? Are you sure?” He diverted his attention to the entrance.
“Yes. It’s gone now. But yes. No one else saw that? Like, it was a huge peacock! The tail was like a rainbow! And it was wearing a sweater, or maybe it was a cardigan, I’m not sure.”
“No. No, little girl, no one else saw your folklore.” Justin said and laughed slightly.
Kymmie put up her fists ready to fight, “Who you calling little girl! Maple leaf.”
“Honey, easy, he’s infected with an earworm, don’t want to kick a guy when he’s already down…”
“Dad! I can handle my own.” She looked away from her father. “I hate you.” She said under her breath.
“Alright, well, I hate to break up your little father daughter moment, here, but, as you can hear, The 2019 American Music Awards have started…” Oak pointed to the ceiling then he pulled out a headphone case and clicked the button unlocking the sophisticated Swiftie Sound silencers. “Everyone, this is it… Headphones on. “ He waited as they pulled out put their specially modified noise canceling headphones, they held the headphones in front of them and collectively powered them on. The earpieces glowed in a pulsing pattern, Illuminated with LED lights as they cycled through a boot up process. There’s a lot of fancy high tech circuitry inside of these headphones. Finally the boot process completed and the glowing LED lights were bright and steady. “We don’t know if Billie was successful up there or not, since she never called, but there’s not much we can do now. We’ll just ride it out in this Phil Spector echo chamber…”
“I can’t believe she never called me.” Just lowered his head and sulked.
“Get over it Justin.” Kymmie said in a kick a guy when he’s down voice.
“Justin, on your headphones you’re gonna have to switch off the earworm block and switch on phase cancelation from the outside. I’m afraid you can’t have both at the same time. Just hang in there, it will be over soon… You just have to ride the earworm out until the show is over. Either you keep the Selena earworm turned off and risk a Swiftie infection, or you let the earworm take over your brain to stop the Swifitie sound. Letting the new sound in while you have an existing earworm means you could have your mind wiped.”
Justin nodded at Oak with fear in his eyes. “Well, here goes nothing.” He switched the headphone switch, the LED glow changed from green to blue. Justin began hum along with the Selena Gomez song as it took over his brain once again. Without the inverted frequencies to filter it out, the mute effect slowly lost potency and it was back in full force like a pain relief pill wearing off. The only way to keep an earworm manageable without special headphones is to let it win. Just sing along with the song if you want to get through it. If you fight it the earworm will win, it will drive you mad. Just sing along, let the song lead and just tag along.
“That warning goes for all of us, replacing one earworm with another can have disastrous consequences. If any of you have a song in your head, clear it now. Practice some Mindfulness meditation; forget about everything but your breath, there is no sound, no music, nothing… If your headphones let the secret Swiftie sound through and you’ve already got a song in your brain, I don’t care if it’s a nursery rhyme, or a marketing jingle, or the hokey pokey… They could collide. And colliding earworms are not something you want inside your head, especially if there’s melodic recombination and the two earworms mutate to create a new even more potent earworm. Got it?”
“Got it.” They replied to Oak Felder in a chorus like a class replying to a teacher.
Everyone sat down in a circle, closed their eyes, began to breath in long slow breaths and meditate.
Overhead speaking could be heard as the awards began, cameras were rolling… An announcer mentioned something about magic is in the track to keep it on repeat, all year long…
Scott opened his eyes and shouted to the room, “SEE! SHE JUST SAID IT! SHE JUST ADMITTED THAT THERE’S MAGIC IN THE MUSIC! SHE SAID IT ON LIVE TELEVISION TO THE WORLD! THERE’S MAGIC IN THE SONGS! WHY IS NO ONE TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY?!?!?!”
But no one could hear him, a hum in the echo chamber—the Phil Spector special, the replica from Gold Star Studios—a hum interacted with the headphones and muted Scott’s voice. With their eyes closed, and headphones on, he was now invisible, like so many silenced voices in not just the music business but all of the entertainment business. If a music industry voice talks in an echo chamber and everyone is wearing noise-canceling headphones that cancel out his voice, does anyone hear him?
Taylor’s newest toy… A device to mute the voices of the boys in her life that stand in her way.
You’re all Swifties now. Soon everyone in the world will be… Soon…
Cardigans for everyone.
It’s Taylor’s world now, we just live in it.
It’s Taylor’s world now, we just listen in it.
It’s Taylor’s world now, we just love in it.
It’s Taylor’s world now, here, put on this cute cardigan!
“Do you guys see that?” Scott called out as everyone else sat meditating motionless with their eyes closed. No one could see him, or hear him, his words echoed, saturated in reverb and echo, delayed, do you you guys guys guys see see see see that-that-that-that-that-that doyouguysseethatyouguseseethatguysseethatseethatthat…
The room began to shift, and distort. Time shuffled, like a streaming playlist at a party when someone hit the shuffle button, no longer in the original playlist order, space shifted, the quantum universe touching reality… He stood up and tried to walk around but the floor felt like it was moving under him.
A figure of a woman walked through the room. He stopped trying to walk and stood still as the room moved around him, she walked towards him staring at Scott Borchetta. She came closer and closer. Then halted her step inches in front of him.
She tried to say something, but had no voice. Her voice muted by Phil Spector’s echo long ago. He recognized her, teeth shattered from the gunshot.
“Lana Clarkson.” Scott mouthed the words, his own voice now inaudible. He tried to say them again, louder, he said her name over and over, “LANA CLARKSON.” Nothing. He yelled her name. Nothing. He tried to scream. Nothing. Like being in a dream. Nothing.
Suddenly she vanished before Scott’s very eyes. He reached out and caught air. A fading ghost.
With the fading ghost of Lana Clarkson, the show ended.
“Okay, what just happened?” Pop asked, standing up. “It was like… Looking through venetian blinds made of mirrors, some of the world visible but some of it reflected back, like seeing myself in the world but also being myself. And things were skipping around. All over the place. Like a shuffled playlist of songs.”
“I don’t know. I think the show is over… For me, I experienced all of it at once but in no order, out of order, or any order, or every order…” Kymmie excitedly recalled the entirety of the 2019 American Music Awards show, the blips and images inside her mind were all there together as one singularity—a show without a timeline. But it was more than that, she felt like time had changed, it wasn’t ticking one second at a time anymore, it could go in all directions at once, complete 3D movement of time just like space. “Now I’m just hungry.” She got up and threw the tablet she’d been holding to her dad, homework completed thanks to the time warp. Next time she had homework she would just use the time warp. Let’s do the time warp again! She thought. She walked over the to the dinner table and ate some of the food. “Wow, this appetizer spread is really good. Oh my gosh, this is like, the best food I’ve ever had in my life. Oh my gosh… Wow!!!!! Everyone, this is so good. This is basically all my favorite food. If I were a bug being lured into a trap with bait, I’d be a goner.” She said back to the rest of them as she continued to snack on various bite size finger foods. She picked up a bottled water and cracked it open, she was super thirsty, she drank the water. “Seriously, come and try this food!”
“No, we’re okay.” One of them replied. “But I will have a water.”
She tossed a bottled water across the room.
“Let me get a water too!” Another asked. Then another. Kymmie threw bottled water to everyone. They drank the water and discarded the bottled water in a clearly placed recycling bin.
No one but Scott saw Lana Clarkson’s ghost. Perhaps she was real, or perhaps she was just a Spector of his imagination. It all happened so fast, too fast… Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Too fast to know what really happened that night. What happened to Lana Clarkson? They say when the police showed up at the scene of the murder music was playing throughout the house. Music. Just music. It was just music Right? What song was playing when Lana Clarkson was killed inside the walls of the Pyrenees Castle? When the wall of sound silenced her voice for the very last time. What song was the sound of silence?
Kymmie looked around, “Wait, where’d the cat go? And where’d that French restaurant host guy too? They were here before the show started, but now—“ She looked around the room, “They’re gone.”
“Justin!” Someone yelled.
Justin was motionless on the floor. He was whispering Lose You To Love Me over and over and over. Selena had taken over his mind once again.
“Justin!” Billie shouted again. She knelt down and lifted him up. “JUSTIN! Come back to us… Come back to us Justin… Think about Hailey. Think about your cats…” He opened his eyes and looked around, coming back from the earworm’s grip, like waking from a deep sleep.
“What are you doing here?” Scott asked, stunned out of thinking about Lana to suddenly see Billie Eilish standing before them. “Where did you come from?!?! You just suddenly appeared out of nowhere! What happened up there?”
“What are YOU doing here?” Lizzo questioned back. She also suddenly found herself shifted into the room during the space-time shuffle. The shuffle button forcing the expected playlist to shift randomly from one song to another in a nonsensical order. “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100 percent confused.”
Billie looked up from Justin, “Okay, what is going on here! Where are we?” Billie asked, now suspicious of Scott, the lawyer, and the others after her encounter with the Swiftian Alliance. “Did YOU do this?” She asked suspiciously from Justin’s side as she helped him up.
“No. We didn’t do anything! It’s the echo chamber!” Scott replied. “We’re under the stage in some kind of… Trap.”
“What?” Billie replied, confused. A moment ago she was finishing her set, ON the stage. “I was just ON the stage.” Or was she? That’s weird, she remembered stuff happening after her set, she recalled walking off the stage, and the rest of the show happening, but the last place she actually was… was on the stage.
“Well now you’re under it.” Scott replied. “That’s how this business works, one minute you’ve got the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, or Spotify, everyone sings along, the next minute, you’re falling, down, down, down… Until… no one even remembers your song lyrics…”
“Under the stagewalk…” Kymmie began to sing.
“It’s boardwalk. The lyric is boardwalk.” Scott replied.
“Ohhhhhhh. Yeah, that’s what I meant.” She replied and began to sing again. “Under the boardwalk…” She stopped. “We’re not actually under a boardwalk though, so I like my lyrics better.” She sang again, “Under the stagewalk…”
The bass line from ‘I Did Something Bad’ by Taylor Swift began to play, it sounded like several bass players had recorded it live, the bass tracks layered and compressed into one supersonic big giant bass sound, it was much different from the original track, the recording pumped into the echo chamber, reverberating off the walls like a giant church organ would, or like yelling into a large canyon, echo… echo… echo. Or in Garden State, that one scene when they yell from the edge of that old machine into the infinite abyss right before the awkward third wheel kiss, and Peter Sarsgaard just stood there, while Zach Braff and Natalie Portman TOTALLY made out right after the big shout into the quarry. Meanwhile, years later, somewhere in England, Florence Pugh, fishes an worn copy of Garden State on DVD from a thrift shop bin of super discounted used DVDs, she takes it home, watches the DVD and says during that scene, “One day… Those lips will belong to me! You back away from my man, Natalie Portman!” And then she pauses the DVD and stares at Zach Braff dreamily. Sorry, what was I writing about again? Oh yeah… The recording was just the way it would have been in the 1960s with Phil Spector at the mixing console, but a much bigger sound. Except, he wasn’t at the mixing console, Phil’s mixing console days are long gone, as he sits in jail for the murder of Lana Clarkson. She had every right to make it home that night, but she didn’t. And she’s not the only one who would never make it home. There are many, many others out there in the world who share a similar story. Lana Clarkson has a story, just like every silenced voice has a story, for her, she was looking for an opportunity in the music business, and it led to her demise. The dream took her through many twists and turns throughout her life until that night when she got into a limo and the limo drove to a castle, but this castle didn’t have a fairytale ending, no, this folklore isn’t the stuff dreams are made of… the trust she gave when she climbed into the horseless carriage was not reciprocated, it was taken away from her with the ending of her life. Dreams in our minds, in our hearts, always lead to fantastic outcomes, as they should. No one should have to worry about losing their life to follow a dream. Florence followed her dreams and it led to her snagging that man she dreamed of stealing away from Natalie Portman that day she watched Garden State on that used DVD she bought at the thrift store. But Lana? She was innocently following the music, the thing we use to feel good, music, to get through the bad times, music, to celebrate the good times, she was working at the House of Blues, and sadly, for Lana Clarkson, the music led to murder.
“Wait, shhhh, everyone, quiet. Is that the bass line for…” Scott listened. “It’s the bass line from I Did Something Bad, but it, it’s sooo different… and there’s a sound mixed in… It’s….” He paused and listened again… “It’s from Pet Sounds, I think. That distorted breathy bullfrog upright bass sound that comes from the left speaker on Sloop John B.” It was as if Taylor had directly collaborated to rerecord this song of hers with Brian Wilson himself. Scott wondered if maybe Taylor’s plan to rerecord her masters included finding the greatest musicians of all time to work with. To create a super group of her old recordings. It would be genius. No one would be able to put the albums down, it would be like experiencing an old sound in a new way. Like reliving rock and roll, Taylor Swift style, her entire catalog would become iconic, every song featuring collaboration with the greatest musicians from every decade of music.
How many sounds were really out there in recordings around the world? A flora and fauna of frequencies. For all we knew every viral video on every social media platform contained some sort of mind altering sound seeping into the ears of anyone who views it. Even something so innocent as a ticking clock. TikTok… TikTok. What’s really in the music? TikTok. TikTok. Maybe you’ve already been infected, maybe the incubation is already taking hold, that last viral video you watched… Maybe the earworm truth will soon be told. Or perhaps, it’s all just folklore.
“Wait, what’s a Sloop John B?” Kymmie asked.
“Oh, kid… Kid… You have SOO MUCH TO LEARN ABOUT MUSIC! Pet Sounds! Beach Boys! It inspired the Beatles to write Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!” Scott said, super animated. This is essential music history! He thought. How does she not know? How does she not know about this?
“Who’s Sargent Pepper and why would they start a lonely hearts club?” She replied.
“KID!!! You’re killing me. The BEATLES!”
“I don’t really like bugs. I mean, some bugs are okay, I guess. I liked A Bug’s Life though, that was a good movie.”
“KID!!!!!!! YOU’RE KILLING ME!”
The sound grew louder… The Pet Sounds mixed in with the low pass frequency filter of Taylor’s song.
“Wait listen… do you hear that?” Everyone stood quietly taking in the rooms reverberations. Oak reached into his pocket and pulled out small portable sonic analysis device. He held the mic up and inspected the tiny display. “There’s definitely a low pass filter on this blocking out all frequencies above about 100hz, no, make that 110… 120hz and climbing, 130hz now, slowly going up… dB level is climbing too. If I had to guess, there’s something hidden in the upper frequencies. Wait, hang on, something’s wrong…” He clicked a few buttons on the device. Suddenly the device went dead. He looked up from the audio analysis gadget. “It just shut off.” The device began to rapidly heat up, Oak dropped it on the floor and it began to smoke and melt before bursting into flames. “What the heck! Okay, seriously, I REALLY think we need to get out of here, like, right now.” Oak Felder said in a slightly shaken voice. Everyone else nodded as they stood around the burning audio analysis device. “Whatever just happened to that device is going in our ears. And into our brains.” He said. Everyone looked at Oak Felder,
“Oh my god!” Kymmie exclaimed. She cupped her hands around the headphones on her ears.
“Everyone with headphones on, don’t take them off. DO NOT TAKE YOUR HEAPHONES OFF!” Oak warned them.
“I don’t have any headphones.” Billie replied from Justin’s side, holding him up, “and… I already switched Justin’s headphones to earworm cancelation.”
“Why did you do that?” Scott asked. “With an earworm already in his head, hearing whatever this sound is could do something to his mind.”
“It could wipe it.” Oak added.
“Because he was on the floor suffering!” She yelled back. “I didn’t know there was going to be a new sound! I was trying to help him, not hurt him.”
“He’s being exposed to it!” Kymmie cried out. “Whatever IT is! IT! THE THING! THE FIRE NOISE!!!!” She pointed at the burning bit of melted electronics on the floor. It popped like a campfire and sent smoke into the air, they jumped back.
“Well, so am I! So is Lizzo. And look, I’m fine. I feel fine.” Billie argued back. She was suspicious of them. Right now the only person she COMPLETELY trusted without a doubt was her brother, and he wasn’t here. The sound isn’t real, Taylor told her, and everything Halsey said about taking sides and having a voice made sense. But if it’s not real… She looked at the device on the burning device on the floor. What is real?
“Lets go! I don’t want THAT in my head!” Lizzo also pointed to the smoldering audio device on the floor, a tiny flame burned on as smoke flowed up to the ceiling of the room. Then she pointed at the smoke in the air… “Ummm… What is that?” They watched the smoke as it moved and shaped with the subsonic vibrations like sand on a Chladni plate.
“What the??? How is that possible? Oh my GOSH!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!” Kymmie shouted now in full teen freakout voice. Well, she was already in full teen freakout, but now it was totally over the top.
“Cymatic frequencies.” Oak said ominously.
And let’s just say, you let your imagination run wild for a minute… Let’s say you had a place where large speakers were setup, like, REALLY BIG speakers, and those large speakers could interact with water, the way that speakers were interacting with water in the Cymatic YouTube video “CYMATICS: Science Vs. Music - Nigel Stanford”… perhaps special water specifically formulated to enhance the effects of the sound waves hitting it. And you think, okay, where would that be? Well, let’s say you have a entire speaker system setup, from the ground stretching upwards into the air a hundred feet, like you might find beside the stage at a concert, or festival. Now let’s say you make it so that your concert or festival goers can’t bring their own water, let’s say you offer bottled water for them to drink. Or any sort of drink that is mostly made of water, with a few other chemicals added to it, add a little sugar, some carbonation, a few Mentos to give it that pop rocks fizz. And a concertgoer drinks that water from a bottle, or a water-like beverage goes into their blood stream… That water permeates every inch of their body, every bit of tissue, and then, the sound is turned on. Cymatic effects on water with sound are Cymatic effects in you, out there in the crowd, listening to the concert… and you dance as the music hits you. The liquid inside you combined with the music, the frequencies hit you, and take over your body and brain, and everyone in the crowd becomes one with the sound and the performance on stage.
“Cymatic what?” Carl Lyle Lawyer asked Oak Felder.
“It’s the effect of sound through matter. When you put sound through matter at certain frequencies it creates shapes, for example if you pour sand on a plate and put the plate over a speaker, the sand will rearrange into different shapes, they’re called Chladni patterns, but… I’ve never seen shapes like those before, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen smoke show Cymatic effects… What the heck? Those are unbelievable. Look at those!” The smoke danced in waves, shapes spiraled out and then pulled back in, giant tree limbs formed like hands reached around them then rose upwards into the center of the room, above their heads, then swooped below them. The smoke shapes mesmerizing, keeping them stuck in place. A forest scene appeared around them, welcome to the folklore forest.
“Oh my god… THIS IS REAL! YOU GUYS… I’m literally freaking out right now. Oh my god, lets go… PLEASE can we just go! PLEASE!” Kymmie screamed as she watched the smoke create ghastly Cymatic frequency shapes in the air that rush by her and the others. Like ghost creatures in a haunted house. The smoke controlled by bass frequencies bouncing off the walls around them. “Lizzo, Billie, Justin, THAT is what is going in your brain right now!” Kymmie pointed to a moving shape that looked like some sort of creature from an old tall tale. Her index finger followed it, like Hermione Granger holding a wand, magically moving something through the air. It whirled about, from one side of the room to the other, and then took aim at Billie’s head trying to go into her ear but she ducked as it rushed past her. “Whoa!” Kymmie stood with her eyes wide, like she’d seen a ghost. “What would have happened if that had gone in her head?”
“I think it’s trying to attack us.” Oak said aloud without taking his eyes off the twirling smoke going up to the highest point of the room and then turning around and pointing directly at them.
“EVERYONE, LET’S MOVE, NOW!!!!” Scott yelled out to the room.
“Wait. What about my brother?” Billie pleaded. “Where’s Finneas? What happened to Finneas!?”
“Billie… I don’t know, but we have to go, NOW! RIGHT NOW!!!” Scott argued back pointing at the hovering cymatic smoke stinger breaking apart into dozens of tiny twirling smoke streams. They looked like branches of a tree without any leaves. Branches of the folklore forest hovering above them. Ready to attack.
“Okay well you all can argue all you want, I’m headed for the exit!” Lizzo held her tiny purse to her side and began walked quickly towards the exit.
Everyone followed Lizzo as she headed towards the only visible exit away from the shifting sound, they moved quickly out of the echo chamber and into a very long hallway. The tree limbs had begun moving towards them, like darts headed for a dartboard.
Kymmie looked back just before they slammed the door to the echo chamber shut. She swore she saw the cat, Taylor Swift’s cat, Thomas Whittington Swift, within the Cymatic smoke shapes, sitting in the tree, smiling and waving, she also was almost positive the cat was wearing a cardigan…. A kitty cat sized cardigan. But maybe it was a trick her eyes wanted to believe, smoke and a mirrorball, nothing more than folklore. “So, is Taylor Swift, like, president now? Or what?” Kymmie asked.
“Ummm, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Just run. Okay?” Carl said to her grabbing her hand as the group made their way down the dimly lit hallway after leaving Taylor Swift’s Cymatic echo chamber. The hallway was much darker than the echo chamber. The echo chamber had been lit with bright stage lights. The hallway resembled a darkroom; a red light glowed from all directions.
“You know, I was thinking of running for president.” Kanye said to the group as they jogged down a long hallway trying to get away from the sound.
“Okay, Kanye.” Justin said as he stumbled on his feet. Billie and Kanye helped him along.
“Oh, I’m serious. 2020 vision.” He pointed to his sunglasses, up until this point in time it wasn’t noticeable but now, they definitely seemed futuristically out of place. Perhaps, Ye from the future gave them to Ye of the past.
“You have my vote.” Justin gave a thumbs up and Kanye smiled back.
“Well, you might have to run! We don’t know what Taylor may have just unleashed on the world!” Kymmie said dramatically, teenagerly, a hint of ‘on the verge of tears’ and subtle notes of ‘strain in the voice’ with a tiny bit of ‘almost a shout but not quite’.
“Kanye, you can worry about running for president later, right now, we’ve got to run for our lives. Focus on the task at hand.” Carl’s tone was the grown up teenager version of his daughter’s tone. Adults are just grown up teens, after all, taller children, and during times of chaos, sometimes… that exterior image can let your inner innocence show through. His usual calm and collected lawyer tone had a hint of himself as an awkward teenage boy complete with a cracking voice, he was pretending to be cool about the current situation but, behind the lawyer dad façade, he was freaking out. They all were. Well, Billie wasn’t. She was more interested in finding her brother and getting to the bottom of all this to figure out who the real bad guy was. And then after all of this was over, she just wanted to take some time to think about her future.
“Well we don’t know for sure any of this is Taylor, this could be The Whale’s doing…” Billie casually mentioned to the group. Scott and Carl looked back at her through the darkroom-esk red glowing light, incredulously. “I mean do we REALLY trust him? There was bottled water back there! And it was the same bottled water he had in his office! Did anyone else notice that, the bottled water was the exact same! I saw some sitting on that big table next to the food, and more of them tossed in the recycle bin.”
“Yeah, we drank those right before you and Lizzo showed up.” Kymmie added. “Oh my gosh, that food though, it was delicious… I want more.”
“Billie, I would be very careful not to connect things that may just be coincidence.” Carl replied to Billie in a Slugsworth tone. And of course, this was his employer he was talking about, his paycheck, those words could be a risk to his economic stability. And since he needed to buy Kymmie a new phone because her old one was currently possessed, economic stability was not something he was interested in giving up. When you’re vested in something, or have a teenage daughter who tends to break her phones, it changes things. That’s why Taylor prefers to be cardiganed instead of vested. Divest. Cardigan instead. Cardigans for all! Get it? It’s a play on the word vest because you can be vested like invested, but you can also be wearing a vest, but instead of wearing a vest… You wear a cardigan, but you’re also divesting from the other thing and investing in Taylor. So you’re cardiganed. It makes sense, just think about it. Just picture yourself wearing a cardigan while listening to Taylor’s new album, on repeat. Cardiganed.
“So… What exactly is going on again and why are we running? I mean, I get that we’re all running away from that smoke shape thing back there, whatever THAT was… But… WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?!” Lizzo asked, lost.
“Umm… It’s a long story, Lizzo, just… go with it. We’ll fill you in later.” Billie replied, but she wasn’t exactly really sure of the story anymore herself, though… What she did know might actually be full of missing pieces, a lot of missing pieces. The only thing she was certain of at this point was that she DEFINTIELY wanted to publish a vegan cookbook when all of this was over. She pulled out her phone and made a voice note related to the vegan cookbook.
As they ran, they turned and twisted their way around corners and through what seemed like a giant underground maze trying to find an exit, to get out of the basement echo room… Taylor’s music close behind them, always growing louder no matter how fast they moved, the low pass filter slowly rising upwards in frequency, like the build before a beat was about to drop on a hot new dance track at a club rave. And when the beat drops, that’s what the crowd loves, what the crowd craves. It was then Billie noticed subwoofers were lined in the walls… A literal wall of sound all around. Dark red walls with black speakers floor to ceiling. Each speaker glowed with red LED lights placed inside the speaker, the light seeping through—an eerie red glow. The red pulsed in sync with the beat of the music. “Ummm, you guys…” She pointed to the speakers in the wall. “The entire hallway is lined with them... They’re in the ceiling and…” She looked down, “They’re in the floor too! We’re surrounded… by sound.”
“THIS WAY!” Scott shouted pulling ahead of the group. “We need to run faster. It’s getting louder!”
“We can’t, Justin’s having trouble walking.” Billie shouted back.
The sound behind them growing, the frequency sweep lifting slightly revealing new dazzling subsonic frequencies, the sounds pulsing through the hallway 200hz, and climbing, the decibel level also on the same upward trajectory.
Scott stopped in his tracks.
“What is it?” Lizzo asked, walking beside Scott. He pointed ahead of them. “Look.”
A shadowy figure appeared ahead of them standing in the middle of Taylor’s surround sound hallway maze. Everyone else caught up to Scott and Lizzo. They watched the shadowy man as he stood perfectly still. The sound behind them closing in as one speaker along the wall after another turned. Each set of speakers triggering the next set, like a giant line of dominos, a slow volume increase, the rattle and hum the vibration of that yummy Swiftie sound trying to invade their eardrum. The low pass filter rolling upwards to release more low frequencies into the air filling the sound spectrum like a curtain on a stage slowly pulling back to reveal the whole stage 210hz… 220hz… 230hz… slowly climbing…. Like that THX Lucas Film sound that plays before movies. And you ask yourself, why that strange THX sound? That odd synthy sweep. It seems so random, but is it? What about the Columbia Pictures intro with the lady holding a torch? Or, how about the 20th Century Fox movie intro, I bet you can hear the accompanying music right now. The Jerry Bruckheimer Films desert road and lightning strike hitting a tree, can you hear it? The Paramount mountain peak surrounded by gold stars with the setting sun in the background, Spyglass Entertainment with the man on water holding a telescope device, Pixar’s bouncing desk lamp, a gold lettered ‘Universal’ wrapped around the earth, Marvel Studios, DreamWorks Entertainment and a child fishing from the moon, and of course, who could forget that iconic castle with fireworks behind it and that iconic melody we all know and love, and finally the Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion… Leo the Lion…. And the mask sitting below the lion in gold, or did you never notice the mask? How about the phrase above the lion that if you read says ‘Ars Gratia Artis’ meaning Art for Art’s Sake. Art for art’s sake… That we make art to serve a moral purpose, that art is valuable simply as art… Oh my, oh my, art simply for art’s sake! What a bohemian dream. Art is THE weapon on war, of control, a guise for power, perhaps?
Ars Gratia Artis. It's right there in front of your eyes, if you were looking... But you don't see it, because you're distracted by the lion... Leo the Lion is where your attention goes, so you miss the hidden thing in the golden ring. You miss the latin slogan used by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Ars Gratia Artis, Art for Art's sake, an English translation of l'art pour l'art that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, politic, or utilitarian function.
Very few really value art for art's sake... l'art pour l'art. Instead some works of art that are enormously valued, and there's a fight over the ownership of controlling that work of art, perhaps, long after the creator is no longer alive. Sometimes the value fades with time, sometimes it appreciates. And sometimes the creator can be trapped by the art they created, or it can be pulled out of their hands and used against them, a weapon of war. Or it can be bought/sold/traded/kept away in a vault or exploited for financial gain. When you sell art it can no longer be l'art pour l'art, it becomes something bigger, and sometimes that something is a Pandora’s box.
Art is the best Trojan horse anyone has ever created, you willingly let art in, you open the door wide and consume it, because you love it, you love books, movies, music, paintings, fine wine. Art is a gingerbread house that you willingly walk right into… and once under the influence if your favorite song, the earworm works its way along, inside your mind, hooking you and never letting go. Your favorite anything, becomes everything and it’s all you can think about, you can’t function without it. Your favorite movie, as soon as that iconic movie company intro ends, Leo the Lion and his roar, the master Foley artists takeover as they’ve done so many times before, the pleasing click clack of horse hooves that you know are not hooves at all, but they sound so relaxing when you watch that movie that takes place 200 or 300 years ago. Or that futuristic spaceship, the hum of the spaceship, which you know isn’t a spaceship at all, but probably hairdryers that have been pitched down a few octaves… The best art forgers of all time would be in awe of these modern day Foley artists, for they are art forgers who are finally accepted into the art world, forgery’s of the sonic palette, and they win awards for it too! Accepted art forgers, creating fantastic audio art forgeries, like candy for our ears. Two of the greatest art forgers of all time, Eric Hebborn would be rolling in his grave, and Lothar Malskat would give a standing ovation. But you can tell movie sounds are fakes, they are frequency forgeries. You can tell, because they sound better than the real thing. But it’s that very reason we can’t get enough. It’s why we get sucked in, our suspension of disbelief amplified beyond belief, it’s why if you display an MRI of our brains, the brainwaves go out of control when we hear that now familiar Netflix sound with the start of each new show. These sounds go on when we close our eyes, embedded into our minds… Dolby Digital surround sound… sound… sound… All these sounds we hear… and without a pair of Oak Felder’s fancy headphones, the sounds out there are free to flow into your ears, and into your brain. Of course, the headphones do no good if the sound is coming from the headphone itself and not outside the headphone. Have you ever wondered about those intro movie sounds… Or, the intro album sounds, about why they’re there, or maybe what they do? What happens when we hear these and they go into our brain like a Trojan horse, we happily hit play and take it in with joy and want more, the inviting intro, it resets your mind and primes you for what’s next. They do this same sort of thing in shopping malls, and casinos, you know, there’s a space between the outside world, and the inside world that resets you, you push play and hear this seemingly innocent introduction that appears to have nothing to do with anything. Then after the intro, the art jumps out and grabs you, like standing too close to a mirror looking in, and suddenly your reflection comes to life and pulls you into the mirror, and you break on through to the other side, tearing through the wall…
‘My Invisalign has finally... I have taken out my Invisalign… I have taken out my Invisalign, and this is the album ...’
“What do we do?” Pop asked.
Oak looked back down the hallway, the sound creeping closer. He pointed at the speakers embedded in the surround sound wall of sound around them. “Eventually these speakers will overwhelm our headphones, the cancelation isn’t meant for this kind of power. We can’t go back.”
“Ummm hello…” Lizzo raised her hand. “Can I remind you that BILLIE AND I AREN’T EVEN WEARING HEADPHONES!”
“I think it’s low enough right now that you’re not getting infected with whatever it is. Or it’s a mild effect, at least. You may feel a slight buzz.”
“That’s comforting, Oak, thanks. So, we’re only getting a small exposure to the same sound that lit your audio frequency analyzer device ON FIRE!” Lizzo shouted to Oak.
He shrugged back. “People aren’t the same as machines. The interaction won’t be the same. In this very moment you should be okay. But with enough power…” He looked back down the hallway, the sound growing. “I don’t think it matters I don’t think it matters if you’re wires and circuitry or flesh and bone. The tone will affect everything it hits.”
Kymmie pointed ahead. “But, we don't know who that is.” The man ahead of them, unmoved, standing completely still. The red glow illuminated his silhouette. Shrouded in mystery.
The sound continued to grow louder, the all lows and no highs bass version of I Did Something Bad. All bass, no treble. The good vibrations working their way up the hallway. The sound turned into a feeling. The low frequencies now felt across their whole body. Their blood inside their bodies shape shifting the same as sand on a Chladni plate experiment would. The blood flowing around their heart, and inside their brains moving in fantastic micro-swirls pulsing and pushing, swishing and swifting. The bottled water they drank a short time ago from the echo chamber’s dinner table circulating around every inch of their bodies.
Oak pointed to the wall of speakers. “Subwoofers don’t need ears. You’re whole body can hear the sub frequency spectrum. No matter what, given enough amplification behind these speakers, it’s going to happen.” Oak stated, like a doctor giving bad news to a patient. “Our choices are find out who that is… or…” He motioned back down the hallway and then pointed to the speakers around them.
They all could feel the next level of rumble from the bass as the volume grew even louder like a thunderstorm on its way, each passing minute a little noisier than the minute before, crawling down the hallway, coming for them. A musical monstrosity headed their way with great ferocity.
“LISTEN, we don’t have a choice! We can’t go back and our headphones will eventually be useless! Lizzo and Billie aren’t even wearing any of these Phil Spector phase canceling phones, anyway, so let’s just go! It doesn’t matter who that is we just have to find out.” Kanye proclaimed.
“I agree, let’s go!” Lizzo shook her head yes. She was holding her hands over her ears, like it might help. Billie on the other hand was just letting the sound work its way around her cochlea, and anyway, she felt fine, or perhaps she just had too much on her mind to worry about ‘The Force’ in this Sound Wars story.
Scott nodded and they continued moving away from the SwiftFi sound.
As they approached the man they slowed, then stopped, again. They stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. He stood facing away, absolutely still with his back to them.
“Justin, are you okay to stand?” Billie whispered to Justin.
“I think so… Yeah.” Billie and Kanye let go of Justin. He wobbled slightly and they both reached out again. “I’m okay.” He said putting his hand out and then touching the speaker on the wall of sound to steady himself. Billie shared a concerned look with Kanye. He didn’t seem okay.
“So, should someone talk to him?” Billie asked the group pointing to the mystery man.
“Hello?” Kymmie blurted out in the man’s direction without hesitation at Billie’s suggestion.
The mysterious man turned around. He smiled.
“Who are you?” Kymmie asked.
“Who are you?” He asked back.
She looked to the others, then to her dad. He nodded giving his legal guardian approval. “My name is Kymmie. Kymmie Lawyer, although that’s just a last name. I’m not planning on becoming a lawyer when I grow up, even though my dad wants me to, but I told him I’d rather make it in Hollywood, or Broadway, or a social media influencer. I’m not sure yet, I mean, I am sure, it’s just a matter of what I can break into, you know? I figure if I can make it in one part of the business, I can make a lateral move into something else. Breaking into the entertainment business is really REALLY hard…”
“Honey, I don’t really think he needs to know all of that.” Carl said stopping his daughter.
“Well you never know. This might be my big break!”
“Riiiiiiight.” Her dad replied. “Just, use your best judgment when it comes to whom you tell things about yourself, okay? Not everyone in the world is out there to help you.”
“I know… But I’ve got a feeling this guy isn’t a bad guy.” She said sincerely, then turned back to The Man.
The man of mystery seem to consider what she said, or ponder it. The group waited nervously. The sound was growing. It was moving down the hallway behind them, the sub sound, like a car in the distance with a massive subwoofer sound system, slowly driving closer. The bass, distant, but audible, every few notes they could feel it, feel the sub bass line interweaved. The bass was warm, inviting, pleasing. The song beating in sync with their hearts, slowly weaving it’s way around then flooding into their bloodstream and crossing the blood brain barrier… into their minds. Cells contorting into Cymaticly Swiftie shapes.
The sound continued its approach, a gas filling the air, expanding into the long open hallway space at a leisurely pace. Their specially designed filter tone headphones would only hold back the noise for so long, if they were even working at all. The circuitry inside was probably fried at this point and the vibrations? There was no stopping the vibrations. Headphones or not. The beat would seep slowly into them and build, like a dose of poison building inside the body until it reaches a noticeable effect. The threshold of sound saturation, the LD50 of becoming a Swiftie, and once that happens, there’s no going back. Each row of speakers in the walls activating and boosting the beat more, the wall of Taylor Swift’s surround sound forward bound.
“Okay, sir, we’re kind of in a hurry here!” Kymmie announced when The Man didn’t answer.
“Oh?” He said casually.
“He’s toying with us.” Scott said sourly. He turned and stared into the abyss of the glowing red wall of sound hallway from which they had just walked along.
“Screw this, I’m going. We’re wasting time and the sound is getting closer. YOU may have noise canceling headphones but I don’t!” Lizzo left the group and walked around the man continuing along the hallway, but she stopped only a short distance away. She turned and looked back with fear in her eyes and shouted. “THIS IS A DEAD END! THERE’S NO WAY OUT!”
“What?! No! It can’t be!” Scott yelled back. Then he sighed and slumped. He leaned against the wall and placed a hand on the speaker, resigned to his fate.
Billie ran towards Lizzo to get a closer look, hoping for a door, or space in the wall. She and lizzo inspected the wall… nothing, no opening just floor to ceiling speakers. “It is! The hallway just ends!” She looked at Lizzo, fear in their eyes. It was a dead end in the Swiftie sound maze.
“Yeah, I’m done, let me out of this surround sound escape room. This is just too weird right now.” Lizzo said back.
“Lizzo, you can’t leave, none of us can. There’s nowhere to go!!! It’s a dead end!” Billie said, her voice shaking.
The subwoofer bass beat crept closer. A fog of frequencies, a mist of music crawling through the air, calling out to them…
“Look, Mr. Mystery Man.” Kymmie pleaded, “We need your help. Please. That sound you hear down the hallway, it’s bad, we don’t exactly know how it is, or what it does, but all we know is that it’s bad, it’s something bad, it does something bad… We need to get out of here. Can you help us? PLEASE!”
The man smiled his flashy smile and then spoke theatrically, mimicking Kymmie giving out his full legal name too. “The name’s William. William B. Way, at your service.” He flashed a full smile, grinning from ear to ear still ignoring the approaching sound. His demeanor cool and casual.
“William B. Way? Okay. Well, William, can you help us?” Kymmie asked, her voice cracking slightly with fear as she felt the vibrations tugging at her heart and moving out along her arteries, flowing to her hands and feet and into her brain, it was like she was outside of a Taylor Swift concert that had just started, wanting to go in, the concert inside inviting, but only the low frequency booming through her body, making it so she NEEDED to go in. She could feel the music changing her, it was becoming part of her cells, the teen Arianator shifting… They cells wanted to scream for joy from the audience as Taylor performed on stage, her magnetic stage presence the only thing they yearned for. Team Swiftie.
“Justin, where are you going?!” Kanye suddenly shouted. Noticing Justin was no longer by his side.
Justin had started walking back down the hallway, slowly, evenly, drawing closer to the subsonic frequencies of Pet Sounds mixed in with I Did Something Bad a Phil Spector special wall of Swiftie sound mixed to perfection, like a magnet, pulling them in.
“NO! STOP! Justin, come back!” Billie shouted down the hallway.
“Something bad… something bad… It just feels sooo… Good. It’s just feels so… Good.” Justin didn’t look back, he just kept walking towards it… “Light me up… Light me up… Light me up… Sooo good, so good… hear it…. over and over and over and over again…” He mumbled the lyrics to I Did Something Bad. Justin was now infected simultaneously with two earworms. LD50 of becoming a Swiftie mixing with Selena’s song. Like mixing drinks. Liquor before beer, in the clear, beer before liquor, get drunk quicker, or is it never been sicker? Maybe it’s both… something similar applies to a playlist… Put the playlist in a very specific order and the earworm infection is amplified, but put them in the wrong order and… the consequences can be disastrous. Play a specific set of songs in a specific order and the LD50 of each earworm you hear tugs your emotions and reworks them, rebalancing those emotion centers of your mind… Every DJ knows this… The perfect playlist, the perfect concert set list… get it just right, and it reworks your brainwaves. It’s the difference between a packed club dance floor and everyone at a wedding never even leaving their seats. The perfect playlist is like prescribing pills in a specific order, get it wrong and it can be depressingly deadly, but songs arranged just right, can save a life.
“No, Justin!” Billie ran down the hallway in his direction.
“Billie!” Scott called after her. “You don’t have headphones on!”
Billie ignored Scott. She ran past everyone to go after Justin.
Kymmie turned back to Will. “PLEASE! Will! We need your help! Now!” Kymmie shouted on the verge of tears. “SAY SOMETHING!”
“Well…” He paused to ponder again. “I have this thing I like to say.” He paused again.
“WILL!!!” Kymmie yelled. “THERE’S NO TIME! There’s no way out, do you know a way out? PLEASE!!!” The vibrations had reached their section of the hallway, the frequency sweep lifting along with the decibel volume level. All the speakers activating. The red pulse, glowing, brighter, and brighter.
“Where there’s a Will,” he pointed to himself. “There’s a way.” He smiled a big smile then pulled a set of rainbow keys from his pocket. The keys shaped like the feathers of a peacock, rainbow feathers. He placed a key into one of the speakers and turned the key, and then he opened a hidden door in the wall of sound.
Kymmie stood in front of the open door gazing through—into the wall of sound. “Wow.” Her eyes locked on what she saw through the open doorway. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Man… He just opened a doorway to…” Scott trailed off without finishing his sentence. He walked slowly over to stand beside Kymmie. “I… I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years in the music industry.” He stared through the open doorway.
“Yeah, you don’t see that every day.” Oak said to Pop. He nodded back.
“Says the guy who has a secret passageway in his music studio that leads to the worlds largest headphone collection and shoe closet!” Kymmie replied snarkily without looking away from the open doorway.
“Well… That’s fair.” Oak laughed slightly then looked at Carl, “She’s a smart young lady.”
Carl nodded. “Oh, don’t I know it.”
“Of course I’m smart I got my dad’s brains.” Kymmie Lawyer’s lips curled upwards into a smile as she kept her eyes fixed on the interior of the wall of sound still not looking at her dad. “And my mom’s good looks.” She joked completely transfixed on the doorway, like Jodie Foster when she first discovered the alien radio signal in the movie Contact.
“HEY! That’s not very nice. Eh, can’t have it all.” Carl then shrugged turning back to Oak. “Teenagers.”
Oak shrugged back. “The things kids say to their parents.”
Kymmie walked a little closer to it and reached a hand out. Will slid between her and door blocking her from going through and breaking her gaze through the wall of sound. She shook her head and blinked her eyes coming out of the dazed state.
“Something’s wrong!” Billie shouted back to the others. “I’ve got Justin, but…
Scott turned away from the doorway in the wall of sound and yelled down the hallway. “What?! What is it!?!?”
Kymmie also turned to look down the hallway.
“I don’t know, I feel weird, like I want to walk towards the sound too. Something bad… but… Soo good… It just, feels, so… good… Light me up, light me up, light me up… ”
“Carol Anne… DO NOT GO INTO THE LIGHT! Sorry, I mean, BILLIE, LISTEN TO ME! Stop where you are, don’t even listen to it, DO NOT GO INTO THE SOUND!” Scott Borchetta shouted to Billie Eilish and Justin Bieber as they continued to walk, one small footstep at a time towards the Swiftie special wall of Spector sound…
“She’s not wearing any headphones! She’s getting a direct exposure! Justin’s headphones are turned to earworm, he’s getting direct exposure too without any mitigation!” Oak spoke loudly. “Quick, someone go to her, and pull her back this way with Justin, umm, I have an idea, we’re going to have to make a human link.” Oak formed a plan, “I think this will work.”
“Justin’s always had my back. Don’t worry Billie and Justin! I got you!” Kanye rushed down the hallway towards them and reached out. “Billie give me your hand!” He nodded empathetically at her and she nodded back giving him her hand, Carl Lyle Lawyer and Lizzo ran to add another link to the human chain along with Pop Wansel and Oak Felder.
“We need more people!” Oak shouted up the hallway.
Justin tried to walk further down the hallway putting stress on the link. He stared ahead dazed and swiftfused “Light me up… light me up... So bad… so good.” He said in a dreamy voice.
“Yeah…” Billie echoed, slightly less dazed and swiftfused than Justin, but feeling something taking over. “Light me up… Over… and… over… and… over… and… over… again…”
“DON’T LISTEN TO IT! DON’T LISTEN TO TAYLOR’S MUSIC!!!!” Scott screamed out, pleading with her, with Justin.
“But I… I can’t stop… I need it… I want it… I want more… I love it…” Billie said in a dreamy voice letting Justin and the music pull her. “I want it… I want to hear it so bad… It’s so good, so good… Light me up, light me up… over and over and over again… so bad, so good…” She tugged at Kanye’s arm and he strained to keep a grip on her hand.
“IT FEELS LIKE THERE’S SOME UNSEEN FORCE PULLING AT THEM! Like there’s another person tugging, like Taylor’s tugging at them on the other side!” Kanye shouted back, Billie’s hand slipped slightly as they were now at a full arm’s length, Justin and Billie also at a full arm’s length, Justin tugging Billie into the sound. “I got you. Billie. I’ll save you. I promise I won’t let go. Billie, look at me!” Ye stared her in the eyes and for a second through his 2020 vision sunglasses. She suddenly felt some of the sound fog lift from her mind and she shook her head blinking her eyes, like she had just woken up from being asleep, she tightened her grip on Kanye’s hand. She tugged at Justin pulling him back slightly fighting off the urge to listen to the sublimely subsonic subliminal sound.
“HOLD ON! EVERYONE JUST HOLD ON TO WHAT WE GOT!” Oak shouted.
“It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not, we’ve got each other and that’s a lot.” Carl completed the lyrics.
“Okay dad. The whole point of this to make it out, so it does kind of make a difference if we make it.”
“Okay, daughter, you’re right.”
“Father, of course I’m right. You’ve had your fair share of being right my whole life… It’s my turn now.”
“Teenagers.” Carl said to Scott under his breath. “They grow up so fast.” Scott nodded then reached out and linked with Carl. Then he reached his hand to Kymmie.
“You think you can hold all of us?” Scott asked hesitantly.
“Hey, I’m a lot stronger than you think. I can save all of you.” She replied. Then she pulled on them reaching towards the door. William B. Way stood between Kymmie and the door.
“We need one more person!” Scott shouted out, as Justin tugged at Billie, and Billie went half willingly towards the Swiftie Spector sound machine. Half of her holding on to Kanye’s 2020 vision, the other half reaching LD50 of becoming a Swifitie, a cardigan awaits on the other side.
Kymmie turned to look at William standing by the open door, with his help they could reach. “Look, I don’t know you, and this is crazy, but here’s my hand, so save us maybe?” She reached out her arm and William grabbed it. He nodded with a smile and with seemingly super human strength heaved the human chain forward as Kymmie and Mr. Mystery Will B. carried them through the mystery door and into the wall of sound.
@taylorswift