Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

I consider myself an optimist. In fact, I'm usually pretty happy if the glass has anything in it, even if it's primarily backwash sediment, but I do have to say that there are obviously some people out there that really exemplify optimism. Take the organizers of the John Cage Organ Project, for example.

Here's a group of folks that have an almost unbelievable hope in the future. They started playing a 639-year organ piece back on September 5, 2001. Yesterday, the second chord of the piece was sounded. The first chord began on February 2, 2003. I supposed I should mention that the first year and a half of the piece was a rest (no notes were played at all), so I suppose that it would be pretty easy to claim success on that portion. In fact, while I am writing this, I just decided to play that portion of the piece (but for not quite as long) and it sounded pretty good.

Now, here's why I say they're optimists. First, the organ is being built as the song progresses, so new pipes are added just in time to be sounded. What's optimistic about that is it implies a belief that in one hundred years there will still be someone around who cares enough to continue the project. It implies that the economics of the country in which it is being developed (Germany) will not have changed drastically that the project cannot be supported. And it implies that the human population won't have become so incredibly tall from consuming HeightMax that our overly large hands will still be able to play notes on a relatively tiny organ.

I'm still working on time travel and I hope to have it figured out soon so that I can also use it to travel to the year 2639 and see if the song is complete. I'm not sure what to expect, but suspect it will be one of the following two conversations:

Option One:

Me: Hello, I'm from the past, have you heard of the John Cage Organ Project.
Future Person: Using implanted Google lookup feature. I'm Googling it now ... ah, yes, that was dismantled not long after it was started as our societies realized that we had real issues to deal with and we redirected our financial and social resources to creating this Utopian world. Space ships land in the distance.
Me: Okay, good to know. Thanks!

Me: Hello, I'm from the past, have you heard of the John Cage Organ Project.
Future Person: Cutting his ear off. Yes, I'm in charge of it.
Me: How's it going?
Future Person: It's nearly finished. Those of us who still live in the old countries are very proud of what we have accomplished.
Me: Old countries?
Future Person: They used to call it The West, but basically it means the old capitalistic countries that dominated the world economy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But once those countries started battling to prove which was the most socially and culturally advanced, Asia, South America and Africa became the dominant technical and financial areas of the world. In 2514, they built a wall around the old countries and they send us aid and they let us continue to fight among ourselves. It works pretty good, though I've heard they have eradicated disease and poverty on their side of the wall.
Me: Yeah, see ya, I'm going to Beijing to check out their space ships and get some vaccinations.