Past the bright red brick exterior into a white tile interior reflecting a desirous outside gleam before fading to the dim soul-deadening hallway reaches, we're led to rows of menacingly tall doorways all isolated by closed thick, heavy wooden doors with rectangular peeping glass. There is an eeriness of canceled sound that lingers like a distant television on mute. A feeling of lost ghosts timid and confused, fearful of their own missing shadows impales the spinal core. As the door swings open upon a 1987 classroom, we find a swarm of hyperactive children all engaged in a game of Musical Chairs. I was one of these kindergarten children. We were fixed concretely in that moment by the forever of play.
From the very beginning, we recognized the daunting challenge before us--fewer seats than participants. This was to be a great lesson for the rest of our lives. We live fighting for seats--a seat at the big table; the head seat in the boardroom reserved for the chairman; the armchair expertise; the chair in the Oval Office; all the way to the rocking chair and hopefully our throne in the clouds. Every employee vies for the best swivel chair of all the cubicles. This is our lot in life ... too many sitters, not enough seats.
The music plays. The children round the chairs. Some children roll head over heels laughing, some are crying insanely for various reasons. Me, I was a born competitor and this was to be my moment. I did not laugh. This was not a game to me. I did not cry. No tears would accomplish the laurels for which I strived. Still, I would have to get by Adonis, the classroom bully. He was already 2 sizes larger than the rest of us and he used it towards seeming invincibility. We all took a back seat to his strength and athleticism. However, I was just young and foolish enough not to fear any obstacle such as he. That last chair was to be mine!
The music stopped. Few of us were seated. Adonis and I were two of them. The others left in competition did not matter. They stood no chance. The fallen and disgraced stepped aside, more chairs were taken away, and the music began again with all its' anxiety and urgency of the now or never. From the high chair to the electric chair, the grand punishment of life comes as swift as lightening to the losers.
Just like the 'less than' 'greater than' equation of our universal chair dynamic, so too does music abide Gods' thumb of mathematical law. Pythagoras was the Father of Numbers and, not coincidentally, gravitated towards music. Through his famous experiment using strings, he identified intervals between the consonants of sounds created when plucking strings of the same length and again through plucking two strings with one being half the length of the other. These two relationships of pleasing tone he defined as unison and the latter as an octave.
However, music, of course, did not begin with Pythagoras. Even he received most of his formal education in Egypt, having spent 22 years there and another 12 years in Babylon. One may assume that Pythagoras likely generated no original thoughts nor theorems, but simply dredged up ancient esoteric knowledge well understood by far older mystery schools. This would not be surprising in the musical aspect seeing as it is widely known that the sarcophagus in the Kings' Chamber is tuned to A, while the Great Pyramid of Giza, itself, is said to resonate somewhere on the frequency of F# and has been theorized by the likes of NASA acoustics engineer, Tom Danley, to have been used to alter brainwaves. Christopher Dunn, author of Giza Powerplant, suggested the possibility of the pyramid operating as an acoustical device responding in geometrical relationship to the earths' resonance.
We, as kindergarteners, however, were completely oblivious to such historical and cosmic complexities. All we focused upon was our teachers' extra-long, ornately painted fingernails hovering over the play button on her boom box. When that button depressed, the cassette tape rolled, the simplistic nursery rhyme-like tune rang out like a gun at the racetrack, and we, the nerve-rattled children, circled about the chairs like caged animals pacing madly in impatient wait.
I keep my steady pace, trying to maintain the perfect angle of attack to any given chair. There is Misty looking at me smiling. She's impressed that I've advanced this far. But I cannot get distracted. This is no time for girls. Doug is in the corner secretly picking his nose. I won't be eating lunch today. No, Josh, focus. No distractions!
The class is gathered round cheering. Most cheer for Adonis. They always cheer for the big dog. The underdog takes too much resilience to withstand the pangs of disappointment. They want a sure thing. This is a trait that will carry on for the rest of their lives. Yet, I don't care. My first crush is rooting for me. I must win for her!
Still, I cannot help but look to the teacher, Mrs. Keats. With her buzz-cut salt and pepper hair, eyelids spray painted purple, earrings the size of hula hoops, and those horrifying Freddy Kreuger fingernails, she appears as a campfire story told in all the Hollywood embellishments of fright. She seems to enjoy this game more than anyone as she sneers with lipstick-coated teeth and chuckles a sinister pleasure. She is the beast, after all, who has pierced many childrens' ears between her fingernails as she pinches and tugs the unruly student to his punishment in the corner.
Mrs. Keats is clearly not here for the music. She's in it for the end of music where the pause draws heartbreak upon the faces of two more seatless children. Their song is over. They now sit cross-legged on the floor as shameful spectators, shuddering to hear that dreadful melody start again.
The oldest instrument ever discovered is made of the bone from a vulture dated at approximately 40,000 years old, although evidence suggests that Neanderthals produced flutes over 53,000 years ago. Music seems to have followed the progression of mankind since inception. The Judeo-Christian Bible indicates King Davids' secret chord, which was the 4th, the 5th, the minor fall, and the major lift. It certainly pleased the Lord. Even God has his jam.
Of course, there is also the Devil in music. During the Renaissance, the Augmented 4th was a banned chord. This is also known as the Devils' Tritone, which seems to be what is playing in Mrs. Keats' head as the last few contestants circle about the chairs.
However, what emanates from Misty's smile is the tone of an angels' harp. Her eyes seem to speak. They communicate a most innocent flirtation, while Adonis' grin sings a high-pitched note of arrogance. He paces boastfully, gloating a known victory. The boom box chimes a message of imminent demise for all but one.
Music and language are intimately connected. Regardless of dialect or culture, all music mimics the sequence, phrasing, intonation, and mathematics of speech. In the same way that we convey jubilation, morosity, or aggression through linguistics, so too do we communicate the same emotions through music in identical qualities of resonance. We speak through song and sing through speech. Both can be written and read. Both are a psychic exchange. The main difference seems to boil down to rates of audible speed and amplitude modulation. We do need to tell the difference between music and language for obvious reasons. So, like everything, both have their subconscious codes.
The music halts abruptly and the only two seats left hold Adonis and me. I try to pass a look of confidence and intimidation his way, but he pays no mind. To him, I'm a non-entity. He smells victory. It's a cooked meal on a silver platter. Now all he has to do is to pick up his fork and consume the glory.
I don't look to Misty. Her adorable cheeks begging a kiss isn't what is important now. Besides, she has cooties, as every boy this age understands. I don't look to Mrs. Keats. Her witchy ways will cast no spell upon me today. But I make the mistake of looking to Doug and ... Dang it! He's still picking his nose! Eww, he's raising his finger to his mouth.... No, Josh, focus! Focus!
These days, we take the chair for granted. However, prior to the 16th century, the average, ordinary, middling citizen sat on benches, chests, stools, or even stumps or stones, while chairs were reserved for those of high status. The earliest known chairs are, of course, from ancient Egypt. The shorter chairs were as low as 10 inches in height. The higher the chair, the higher the rank of sitter. God has his throne room a.k.a. the Divine Court. To this day, the entire court arises to their feet when the Judge enters and remains standing until he takes his seat--an exhibition of honor and authority. Even the Pope showcases his power by Cathedra Petri (the Chair of St. Peter). The chair is privilege. The chair is elitism. The lone chair is superiority. The lone sitter is royalty. All others are mere bench warmers.
The long red fingernail slowly presses play, the music ignites in a brilliant blaze of approaching finality. Adonis and I march around the last solitary, one and only chair. Although the seat is hard, uncushioned metal, it lingers in imagination as the most comforting sensation that cloud nine may offer. Adonis struts as the cock of the walk. He chuckles snidely, pointing to his friends, applauding himself. This is his victory lap in his mind. He doesn't even recognize me as competition.
I hear Misty cheer me on, but I completely ignore her. I block out everything but the thought of my buttocks upon that seat. Now is MY time! This is what it's all been for; all the blood, sweat, and tears of the kindergarten climb. The top is right in reach. The medal; the cup; the all or nothing hums like heavens' choir at the looming cessation of this damnable tune echoing throughout every hollow chamber of my body.
The origin of the Musical Chairs game is a mystery, lost to time, lost to tones of the forgotten rhythm. Yet, it is well known that the game was previously called Trip to Israel. It is theorized that said name originated during the Aliyah, which was a mass Jewish immigration to Israel from the diaspora. The ships transporting estranged Jews to the Holy Land notoriously contained very limited space, thereby leaving many behind just like those lacking a chair at the end of the musical process. These are the types of brutal, helpless lessons we pass on generationally to our youth through the subtleties of sport and good-natured fun.
Adonis and I felt we were against one another, separated entirely by the imminent rankings of first and second place. We were both right and simultaneously wrong, as all is divided by space. Even our cells, molecules, and atoms are comprised mainly of space. In this way, within and without, Adonis and I were of one energy at that moment; one with the chair and unto one another. One in space and time. We resonated the MI-528 Hz of that magical, mystical, miracle frequency of the meditative mind. We were in the zone.
All, in the beginning, was created from Brahmans' OM, Gods' word, Logos, a soundwave of the invisible vibrating strings. All matter in the universe is, in essence, sound. Physics instructor at Skidmore College, Jill Linz, created the Audible Periodic Table, demonstrating that every element can be identified by its' own unique audible fingerprint. Everything that composes the chair, its' metals, its' carbon, iron, manganese etc. is of sound. The chair, itself, is musical. It shakes and bakes our song, baby.
Adonis and I were of the music. We were a part of its' eternal flow. We embodied the waves of a cosmogonic heartbeat. I lived ... he lived ... we lived the primal pulse in that fleeting instant.
The music died to a sudden slumber. I threw myself ass-first to the seat. When the dust cleared, all were frozen in gasp. Misty couldn't believe her eyes.... I was the one sitting. The trophy of all trophies was mine. Bragging rights belonged to me and me alone forever and ever Amen!
Yet ... Adonis picked me up by the armpits as a disposable piece of crumpled paper and tossed me aside like yesterdays' rubbish. He took the chair and Mrs. Keats crowned him victor. No argument would sway her. No amount of testimony from my peers would deter her from raising his hand as the reigning champion. Sometimes it doesn't help to play by the rules.
Although I won fair and square, it was Adonis reaping the rewards. He was the one basking in the praise and glory. This was the 15 minutes of fame to the rest of his life. King for a day, though a lifetime of infamy by the preservation of my memory.
I would learn later, as an adult, that Adonis went on to join the military and was soon dishonorably discharged. He then became a police officer and was shortly fired from that job as well. What I was told was that these events led to his downward spiral out of which he never recovered. He became an angry, bitter, abusive alcoholic. He became, in lack of a better word, a loser. You see, he stole his seats wherever he went throughout childhood and when the chair was finally pulled out from under him, he didn't know how to respond.
Me, I've since suffered many failures, many shortcomings, much humiliation, and downfalls ... lo downfalls aplenty. Yet, I'm happy. I learned early on how to lose; how to have it all taken from me and to still find the legs to stand on and move forward. I'm still stepping proudly forward and ever onward throughout and past every loss.
No, I'm not some outstanding example of how to live your life. I am seated upon no pedestal. Quite the contrary. I'm just a man of the song looking for his chair.
