WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.000 Ten minute drive from the ferry landing out to the 2 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:09.599 old utter Orpheus Hotel was a slow climb through fog, 3 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:12.480 winding up a classide. The sea b LinkedIn and out 4 00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:14.119 of view through a haze, but the air up here 5 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:16.519 tasted faintly mineral tinged with disan rain and the ghost 6 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.160 of an old bonfire. Even though it was only late morning. 7 00:00:19.719 --> 00:00:21.679 I kept my case of tuning Tols at my side 8 00:00:21.719 --> 00:00:26.000 on the passenger seat, habit mostly after a decade of 9 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.719 adjusting and listening pianos, harmoniums, even the occasional project clockwork. 10 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:31.640 I didn't feel right without the weight there, Though I 11 00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:35.280 promised myself this month would be different, just a creative retreat, 12 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:38.560 nothing to fix for once, or so I told myself. 13 00:00:39.159 --> 00:00:41.560 When I parked under the looming line of wind carve pines, 14 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:44.320 the hotel's gleaming white windows looked like hundred watchful eyes. 15 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.280 Something about the place already pressed a subtle pulse against 16 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:49.679 my skulpty gentle for a headache more insistent than a 17 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:52.200 song stuck in your head. I dismissed it as the 18 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:55.479 buzz of anticipation or nerves, which it may have been. 19 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:59.479 For all I knew then the check in was anticlimactic. Elsa, 20 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:01.960 the retreat manager greeted me with a kind of cheerful, 21 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:06.000 sincere briskness, flowing scarf reading glasses perched so high on 22 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.480 her head they looked ready to fall at any second. 23 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:12.319 She barely even blinked at my occupation. Musicians are always 24 00:01:12.359 --> 00:01:15.560 welcome here, she said, with a quick handshake. You'll find 25 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:18.280 plenty of inspiration. Don't mind the artists their harmness. If 26 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:20.640 you have any questions, ask if you see John, ask 27 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:24.400 him nothing. There was a quick flash of smile, almost conspiratorial, 28 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:26.680 before she led me Apostecius, which he had so warped 29 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:29.280 you At the tread a todaagonal like ascending a chromatic scale, 30 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:32.959 both familiar and slightly roum We passed the communal lange. 31 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.319 I'd expected the cheerful clatter of conversation on the funereal 32 00:01:36.359 --> 00:01:39.640 silence of writers working, instead the air hum of the sharp, 33 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:42.959 syncopated snap of typewriters. There must have been a dozen 34 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.959 scattered across mismatched tables, powdered blue olivettis, scarred under woods 35 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:49.760 of white royal portables. At least two smith coroners with 36 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:52.599 sticks peeling off the sides. The room was bright with 37 00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:56.040 sun from wild salt street windows, flickers of dusmo swirling. 38 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:59.120 In this scene of light and clack. Nearly every person 39 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:02.519 was typing, fast, steady, absorbed, but not in a messy, 40 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:05.760 concurrent way you'd expect from a group of writers, something 41 00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:08.680 more precise. Their fingers fell almost in unison, like keys 42 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:11.080 of a pinola, as if somewhere a wordless march played, 43 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:14.840 and they were each invisibly keeping tembo. A froze case 44 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:17.639 hanging at my side, just inside the door. The sound 45 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:21.080 had a rising and falling pulse, almost well musical, a 46 00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:23.719 rhythm too tight to be random, too low key for performance. 47 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:26.240 It tickled something in my memory, the sense of a 48 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:28.680 son half remembered, or a netted practice. So many times 49 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:30.520 its shapes lived in your hands, even if the notes 50 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.479 were lost to your mind. No one seemed surprised, yourself 51 00:02:33.479 --> 00:02:36.560 conscious about it. A tall man near the window, wearing 52 00:02:36.599 --> 00:02:39.599 headrons and blinking alicely with each fraze, tapped out a 53 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:43.319 brisk series of staccatto keystrucks, then rested his hands, candied silently, 54 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:45.080 and resumed in perfect time with a woman at the 55 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:47.960 next table. A rhythmic really crossed from them. An older 56 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.319 woman with short, fraying hair worked her machine with her 57 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:52.840 eyes closed, lips moving faintly, her type in soft shoot 58 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:56.000 and almost elegant. As I stood, Elsa gently nudged me 59 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:58.680 to move on, then murmured, you'll get used to the racket, 60 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.000 or learn to love it. I would have been content 61 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:02.800 just to watch if not for the fact that the 62 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.080 sound of the rhythm kept teasing out, a wordless anticipation, 63 00:03:05.319 --> 00:03:07.919 like waiting for a cod to resolve, out of sync 64 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:11.080 with the silence behind my own ears. I lingered anyway 65 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.120 at the periphery, pretending to check the rooms decors. The 66 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:16.680 scent of machine oil and all paper mingled with sea air, 67 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:18.759 grounding the scene in the world of clocks and cables 68 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:21.919 rather than spirits. Yet the longer I listened, the clearer 69 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:25.400 it grew. This was order, not chaos. One of the residents, 70 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:28.039 a young woman with loose curls and large round glasses, 71 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:30.639 maybe twenty four to guesst, finished her sheet, pulled it 72 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:33.960 from the machine, and scanned her work with apparent satisfaction. 73 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:36.800 She announced, that's a good page, and offered the paper 74 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:40.000 to a passing resident. He barely glanced before nodding and 75 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:43.159 moving alarm. Maybe it was mutual politeness, but it struck 76 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:46.680 me as odd. She sat quietly, murmuring what she just hyped, 77 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:50.319 her lips following with genuine conviction. I couldn't help but look. 78 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.280 Her page seemed a thicket of dents, meandering lines, peppered 79 00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:57.080 with letter clusters that visually tripped the eye. Not nonsensical exactly, 80 00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:59.759 but words that hovered just outside English, with odd recurring 81 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.240 seats to something like a queye teeth and ertic as 82 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:05.439 if musical roofs on the keue waddy hommer. For a second, 83 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:08.800 I thought maybe it was code, a linguistic exercise, but 84 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:11.080 the sound of her voice, the confident way she alreaded 85 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:13.919 clashed with the half random stroll on the page. No 86 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:16.839 one remarked on it. The typing rose once more, a 87 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:20.120 new page began, the invisible march resumed. It was only 88 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:23.000 when Elsa caught me standing there, tools forgotten that she interjected, 89 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.759 bessel at the mark, you'll join them soon enough. She smiled, 90 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.279 but I caught a fragment of practiced amusement, as if 91 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:32.720 she seen newcomers puzzle over similar things before. I nodded 92 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:34.879 and followed her at the crooked stairs, the sound of 93 00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:37.079 the invisible march lingering in my chest like a question 94 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:40.120 I couldn't yet bring myself to articulate. My room was 95 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:42.519 on the second floor. Corner of view, there was a 96 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:46.279 faint but unmistakable aroma of antique pine and brine unpacking. 97 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.399 I kept glancing over at the ancient radiator in the 98 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:50.800 lumpy arm chair. The beds wild patch were quilt, as 99 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:52.920 if the idiosyncrasy off the room might explain the loungees 100 00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:55.879 coordinated tiding. None of it did, But I found myself 101 00:04:55.920 --> 00:04:57.959 tapping a little pattern on the desktop with a tuning 102 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:01.120 fork from my kit, purely by muscle memory. After a 103 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.879 moment I realized it matched the rhythm I'd notice downstairs, 104 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:08.079 all habits or new contagions, who could say. By mid afternoon, 105 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:10.920 the lounge noise drifted up through the floorboards and gentle waves, 106 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:14.160 sometimes rising to a loud, full body cannon, other times 107 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:17.160 seizing off into solo fragments, as if the building itself exhaled. 108 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:20.120 Lunch was served family style in the narrow dining room. 109 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:23.879 Plaster walls cracked like branching rivers, paintings from previous residents 110 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:26.720 hung in uneven rows. You could tell the regulars from 111 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.759 the newcomers. Some introduced themselves with apologetic smiles, others, more seasoned, 112 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:32.639 gave you space and a knowing glance. Thes Soon you'd 113 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.720 find your own tempo Elsa, having swapped a scarf for 114 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:38.079 a cardigan, plied us all with hot soup and fresh preyer. 115 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.199 I found myself at table with Henry, a slim, wiry 116 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:43.360 man in his fifties, with the posture of someone who'd 117 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:47.120 never stopped expecting bad news, marrable culls, wire rimmed glasses, 118 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:49.800 and the carryover confidence of someone raised on West Coast 119 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:53.279 workshops and else again, who radiated an easy authority. There 120 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:55.360 were others to her, painted with green flick nails, a 121 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:58.279 sculptor working and found plastic, a newcomber whose name I missed, 122 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:01.160 HM would later learn in passing exchanges over Bottom's coffee. 123 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:04.519 Conversation circled first around the mundane whove gotten lost in 124 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.519 the fog, which shops in the village were still open 125 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:09.120 for odd bits and bobs whose fond service had survived 126 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:12.319 the last storm. Inevitably, though, the conversation slid to the 127 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:15.959 nature of the retreat itself. Henry's a poet, Marrable explain, 128 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:18.639 nudging her bread basket his way, but don't ask him 129 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:23.000 about Brown's schemes before lunch. He grinned, sheepish, that's slander. 130 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.279 I gave up endrons years ago, strict iambics. Now sometimes 131 00:06:26.279 --> 00:06:29.759 I even type with a metronome. Keeps things honest, he spoke, 132 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:33.560 with a trace of a brogue. Welsh maybe Scottish, also laughed. Lately, 133 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.199 we have every kind here, she said. The novelists who 134 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:39.519 talk more than they write, poets who tap tap tap 135 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:42.240 in secret, a few visual types, and John who'll tell 136 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:44.680 you he's composing the music of silence, but really it's 137 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:47.279 just a lot of late night typing. Marrable rolled her 138 00:06:47.319 --> 00:06:50.480 as fondly. John will give you an existential crisis if 139 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:52.399 you let him. That least he doesn't mind during the 140 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:56.079 midnight piano. At that I looked up, there's a piano. 141 00:06:56.680 --> 00:07:00.360 There was Elsa corrected gently all player are printable room. 142 00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:02.199 But it developed a personality of its own a few 143 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:04.879 years backward plays own little motifs at odd intervals. Had 144 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:06.639 to sell it after it became more trouble than it 145 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:09.519 was worth. A strange pang of nostalgia went through me. 146 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.040 I tuned to play a piano for an old friend 147 00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:14.480 once not here, but it always defaulted to a patent 148 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:16.879 free notes out of scale, faster than the rest. No 149 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.160 matter what role you fed, it drove him mad. Maybe 150 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:23.240 it was the sea error. Henry suggested dead man or 151 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:26.480 some secret of the keys. Marrable sipped or soup and smirked. 152 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:29.800 Everything here ends up with a secret. Not for the 153 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:31.680 last time. I wondered what it meant to be in teen, 154 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:35.040 in a place like this. After lunch, as people dispersed 155 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.519 for classes and studio time, I woke the winding holes 156 00:07:37.639 --> 00:07:39.639 following the pub signs Elsa had stuck up to help 157 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.360 orient new arrivals, a handcoff treble cluff of the music studio, 158 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:45.519 a faint hype protestenzil for the lounge. I peeked into 159 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:47.800 art rooms, busy with sunlight and pigment, nodded to a 160 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:50.000 paint to mixing shades of salt green, and noted at 161 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:53.160 least two writers rotating between lounge and veranda, notebooks in 162 00:07:53.240 --> 00:07:56.639 hand chasing natural light. The hotel itself was a character 163 00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:00.319 creaky Berkrand, linear with care of staircases, covering. Unexpectedly, door 164 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:02.000 was painted in a smashed blues or reds, as if 165 00:08:02.040 --> 00:08:05.360 mapping old weather. Its history. Fluttering in bronze plaques and 166 00:08:05.399 --> 00:08:07.800 fading clippings by the front desk hinted at past Built 167 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:11.399 on eccentric philanthropy, constructed by siblings a mathematician and musician 168 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.920 team nearly a century ago, and continuously operated as a haven, 169 00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:18.639 fully inspired and afraid of experiment. Supposedly, the ballroom sat 170 00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:20.759 at the heart of it all, once hosting waltzes and 171 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:24.680 weekend concerts for seaside holidaymakers. A legend said the foundation 172 00:08:24.759 --> 00:08:27.120 of the building rested on an old harmonium, disused but 173 00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:31.240 never removed. Some called it nonsense, others left offerings arose, 174 00:08:31.319 --> 00:08:33.159 a page of poetry, a match box toy at and 175 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:36.440 alcove by the old booring doors. At sunset, the lounge 176 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:40.120 filled again with that odd co ordinated energy. I listened carefully, 177 00:08:40.200 --> 00:08:42.320 tuning in not only to the clack of the typewriters, 178 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:44.000 but to the soft shuffling of feet the left, and 179 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:47.480 full of conversation. At some fundamental level, the chaos knit 180 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:50.639 itself into order whenever enough people gathered. I couldn't name 181 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:53.080 the feeling yet, whether it was admiration or discomforted, but 182 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:55.679 something about the regularity, the way each resident joined without 183 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:59.399 thinking held me. This wasn't just grouplink or routine. It 184 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:01.559 was as if that of creating here required yielding to 185 00:09:01.559 --> 00:09:04.480 an unspoken time signature. I drifted to the edge of 186 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:06.639 the circle case, still at my side, just as twilight 187 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:10.120 leaned across the appealing floors. The next morning, I came 188 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:11.960 down early to the lunge and sacked quietly at one 189 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.879 of the long communal tables, pretending to write, mostly observing 190 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:17.679 the others already at work. Some like crept through this 191 00:09:17.799 --> 00:09:21.240 merry glass, a thin cut of violet outlining dustmoutes, a 192 00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:23.639 kettle hiss in the kitchenette, but the dominant sound was 193 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:27.159 the now familiar march of keys. I fixated on the variations. 194 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:29.440 Two people claimed to be working on their memoirs, one 195 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:31.559 on love letters, another on a twisted foss about the 196 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:34.240 last remaining carrier pigeon. It should have sounded like a 197 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:36.919 small chestra playing at odds, but once again the clatter 198 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:40.279 organized itself, chunky bursts of pause, free quick notes, then 199 00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:43.399 a syncopated interlude, as if some invisible conductor waved their 200 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:46.600 button over the lot. I realized the outputs were visually 201 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:49.840 similar to each finished page. Where the memoir, letter or 202 00:09:49.879 --> 00:09:52.440 poem looked to my eye almost identical in terms of 203 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:56.240 block density and even line arrangement, there were recurring clusters, 204 00:09:56.320 --> 00:09:59.159 irregular margins, a pattern of short and long words dot 205 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:02.320 across the lines. My curiosity got the better of me. 206 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:05.039 I watched as Marrable, eyes alight, finished a page and 207 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:07.919 began carefully reading her work aloud, her cadence musical, each 208 00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:10.799 phrase clear in her mind. But when her page caught 209 00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:12.600 my eye, it was once again a dense weave of 210 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:15.559 words that seemed to warp and repeat phrases instead of sentences, 211 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:19.720 isolated sense touched between near gibberish. But Marrable's face was serene, 212 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:22.720 as if she read a flowing story. No uncertainly clouded 213 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.759 her performance. To the left, a new guest asera I 214 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:28.120 learned later from up north here for space to Think, 215 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:30.960 spoke with muted confusion to herself. It sounded so clear 216 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:32.480 when I wrote it, but I am not sure what 217 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:34.679 this is. She had typed a letter to her mother, 218 00:10:34.759 --> 00:10:37.399 so her intention was concrete, yet her printed she even 219 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:40.879 to her own eye, quickly dissolved into nonsensical chains. Yet 220 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:42.879 as she read the pages aloud, she seemed to hear 221 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:47.159 purpose composure, sliding back into her posture. Maybe it needs editing, 222 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:50.799 she half laughed, laying the paper aside. The pattern kept repeating. 223 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:53.480 When I asked what they were working on, several shrugged, 224 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:56.039 a few responded vaguely that every one finds their groove here, 225 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.519 as though the product was somehow less important than the process, 226 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.399 echoing else's gentle warning from the day before when I 227 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.039 pressed also herself breezed into the lounge and set a 228 00:11:04.039 --> 00:11:07.039 tray of margs at the counter. Don't overthink it, she said, 229 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:10.159 glancing my way. This building pulls up what people need 230 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:12.480 to express. Sometimes the product is just the trail of 231 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:15.639 the trip, not the destination, she grinned. But I caught 232 00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:17.679 an edge of perhaps marked patience there, as though she 233 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:19.879 had answered this before and felt no desire to rehearse 234 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:22.519 the debate again. But I was hooked now a nature 235 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:24.639 in my mind's error. As I watched another resident reset 236 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.720 her margins, the machine snapping at the edge of each page. 237 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:29.879 Every time a hand lingered over the keys. It was 238 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:32.240 as if the typewriters themselves were waiting for a cue 239 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:36.000 downbeat with ah, I wonder machines for writing, or instruments 240 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:38.879 for something else entirely. I borrowed a bat of Smith 241 00:11:38.919 --> 00:11:41.360 Corona and set up at a corne desk facing the sea. 242 00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:43.720 The keys were stiffer than I liked, but the spring 243 00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:45.960 was good. Ray fingers, trained by years of gentle persuision, 244 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:48.720 quickly found the right weight. I typed a few lines 245 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.960 of a familiar musical phrase I had memorized long ago, 246 00:11:51.120 --> 00:11:53.720 the old Gilbert motif I sometimes used to settle my nerves. 247 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:56.120 But as soon as I tried to write the next line, 248 00:11:56.159 --> 00:11:59.519 simple functional English, the text began to drift. I watched, 249 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:02.759 fascinate and a little unsettled, as my hands executed perfect Homo, 250 00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:05.799 then subtly slipped into alted rhythm, thowls and consonants, dancing 251 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.440 out of sequence, whole word forming and breaking before I 252 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.799 was aware of my intent. It was as if the 253 00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:13.679 act of typing here a programmed by intention, rearranging my 254 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:17.200 sense of lineuage. Just behind my conscious watch, Marble wandered 255 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:20.320 over and caught me staring at my work, amused. Did 256 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:23.559 the meuse Gramble your syntax, she asked, voice light, you 257 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:26.679 could say that mine if I read yours, she shrugged. 258 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:30.000 Flattered with a theatrical flourish, she read aloud a few 259 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:32.600 lines from her chapter, The words delivered in a rolling cadence, 260 00:12:32.759 --> 00:12:35.000 full of narrative spark, as if lifted from a well 261 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:38.039 edited novel. But when I followed her finger to the page, 262 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:40.840 my eyes recoiled from the strange spellings, repeated roots, and 263 00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:43.840 slippage between sense and sound. I think I need to 264 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:47.960 just my glasses, I joked. She grinned. It's always clearer 265 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:50.120 when I say it out loud, Maybe to process matters 266 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:53.240 more than the result. Henry, overhearing us, as he padded 267 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:55.279 past with a mug of tea, waved the latest sheet 268 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.519 from his machine. Their poems, he said, But of an 269 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:00.440 ini motif. Each line is a rip. If I dea 270 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:03.279 not just words like a theme in variations in language, 271 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.399 I appeared at his page. At first it suggested structured verse, 272 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:10.919 short lines stacked neatly but close illok revealed repetitions, odd hominins, 273 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:13.960 whole psychical threads into whining and collapsing. It was more 274 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:17.159 patent than poem. Another artist, Carty, a visual arts to 275 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:20.159 type confidently in cyrillic, very much at home with her keyboard. 276 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:24.000 I asked a glance over her shoulder. She happily obliged. 277 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:28.679 To her the output was elegant, clear prose. To me again, 278 00:13:28.759 --> 00:13:32.639 the content was opaque, humble of shapes and recurring clusters. Puzzled, 279 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:35.120 I tried again to return to my own familiar passage, 280 00:13:35.279 --> 00:13:37.960 but almost instantly my fingers crashed into the same tangle. 281 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:40.759 I realized, with a cold little thrill, that even my 282 00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:43.720 perfectly rehearsed musical lines contorted into new shapes after a 283 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:46.679 page or so. It was as if intention only survived 284 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:49.679 for a few measures before surrendering to some deeper, local logic. 285 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:53.679 After a while, I began to watch people's bodies, their hands, legs, 286 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:56.480 even nods as they typed. I heard, or thought I 287 00:13:56.559 --> 00:13:58.399 heard a feigned echo of a musical motif in the 288 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:00.919 cadence of their movements. It was not just in the 289 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:03.320 click of plastic against metal, but in the rhythm of breeding, 290 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:06.200 the tilt of the head. For pause to think. Curious now, 291 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:08.480 I fished out the note Bekhere I kept technical sketches 292 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:11.200 and musical ideas lined up on page, and that my 293 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:13.279 mind was the march without melodied. I'd remember from the 294 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:15.399 play a Piano years before, A tap tap paused hat, 295 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.360 a broken pattern that insinuated itself into every trial run. 296 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:22.080 Regardless of my intention, I started comparing the texts. Asked 297 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:24.120 Marrable first to read a section while I followed her 298 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:27.279 type page, then did the same for Henry. Side by sight, 299 00:14:27.399 --> 00:14:30.240 the spoken and the written diverged, but not in random places. 300 00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:33.240 Every odd shift was mirrored later in speech, but returned 301 00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:35.840 to scents as his sound and paper traveled slightly different 302 00:14:35.879 --> 00:14:39.120 routes along as shew path. There was an underlying order here, 303 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.600 a patent slipping through the cracks, more than simple error, 304 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:45.080 more than a quirk. Confronting elsa oppressed Is there something 305 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:47.720 special about the typewriters or the lounge? Why do all 306 00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:49.840 these outputs, no matter the language or the author, end 307 00:14:49.919 --> 00:14:53.519 up so aligned? She gave a practice neighborly shrug. This 308 00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:56.039 building's always had its own rhythm. Some say it helps, 309 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:59.399 others just enjoy the process. Her unswer satisfied neither my 310 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.440 logic nor my intution. That night, unable to sleep, I 311 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.159 crept down to the lounge. The moon glimmered off the 312 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:08.240 sea silver lines through the old gas. But the lounge 313 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:10.840 was he really quite no typis only the faint was provole? 314 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:14.559 Would settling still? I imagined, or perhaps actually heard a 315 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:17.039 low repeated motif, as if the rhythm now absent in 316 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:19.200 people had found a way to hum itself quietly through 317 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:21.840 the floorboards. I sat on a stool and let the 318 00:15:21.879 --> 00:15:24.399 silence and then the phantom pulse, pressing until the feeling 319 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:27.159 became a gentle ache. The anomaly was not just a 320 00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:29.120 trick of the mind of the hands, or a simple 321 00:15:29.159 --> 00:15:32.080 feedback gloop of group behavior. It was rude, a deep 322 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:34.559 somewhere inside the architecture, at the habits of the place, 323 00:15:34.759 --> 00:15:38.399 and maybe beyond. The following afternoon, I decided to test 324 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:41.639 the limits of this pattern. Instead of using the clattering keys, 325 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:43.600 I sat by a wide window with a notebook and 326 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:47.320 penbluing classic script. I began in my typical measured curse 327 00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:50.279 of carefully writing down a passage had copied many times before, 328 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:52.720 the opening bars of a favorite some rendered in words. 329 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:56.120 The lines flowed neatly, but after two sentences I found 330 00:15:56.159 --> 00:16:00.559 my scrip wandering, looping phrasings, unusual repetitions, My hand unbidden 331 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:03.159 began to glide through a cycle shapes that neither reflected 332 00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:07.360 intention nor mere sloppiness, not true spelling errors, not motor mistakes, 333 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:10.360 but a gradual slide. It was as if my fingers, 334 00:16:10.519 --> 00:16:13.799 conditioned by habit and place, bent towards the unnamable motif. However, 335 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.799 I resisted. I tried writing nonsense deliberately as a control, 336 00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:20.679 but the pattern one grew more stubborn, slipping into nessive phrases, 337 00:16:20.759 --> 00:16:22.519 echoes of the same odd spacing had seen in the 338 00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:25.559 typwrit in pages later, I watched John at work, as 339 00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:28.600 silhouette against the orange ish dusk, hunched over his favorite underwood, 340 00:16:28.639 --> 00:16:31.159 which oulder was rising and falling in sync with the rhythm. 341 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:34.679 His burst of typing stopped, started, then stopped again, soccatoin sharp. 342 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:37.279 I paid attention now not just to the sound, but 343 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:40.440 to the intervals, each phrase map almost directly on to 344 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:42.600 the theme I first encountered in the play Piano, A 345 00:16:42.639 --> 00:16:46.320 few notes, pause, a jagged return. I wondered, aloud, privately, 346 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:48.399 half mad, in my journal, whether the anomaly was in 347 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:50.360 the air, or in the building itself, or part of 348 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:52.639 the collective expectation of those who came here to create. 349 00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:55.960 Did it matter if the intention was musical, verbal spatial. 350 00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.000 For the next two days I tracked people's movements as 351 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:01.399 much as their outputs. Who walk the halls, who occupied 352 00:17:01.399 --> 00:17:04.319 which rooms, who oscillated between lounge and studio, and when 353 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.160 in time I noticed that some corners of the building 354 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:10.119 seemed more infected than others. The former ballroom, now divided 355 00:17:10.119 --> 00:17:13.160 into small studios, had a subtle vibration and undertow to 356 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:15.119 its air a residence that seemed to seep through the 357 00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:18.160 soles of your shoes. One evening, after supper, I stopped 358 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:21.200 by Elsa's small paper strewn office, half reception, half antique 359 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:24.400 storage area. There, under a pile of stray folders, I 360 00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:26.400 caught sight of a brown paper roped parcel tied with 361 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.880 faded twine. Something about its careworn nature piqued my interest, 362 00:17:30.599 --> 00:17:34.480 may i, I asked, gesturing with a glance. She raised 363 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:39.079 an eyebrow, then shrugged. Old guest book, She said, mostly dust, 364 00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:42.119 but if you're bored, help yourself. The parcel was heavier 365 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:44.759 than I expected, to reddish lade benton with gold leafs 366 00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:47.079 so worn it might have once spelt something more elaborate. 367 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.039 The pages inside ranged from foxed and brittle to bright 368 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:53.960 generations of signatures, comments, toodles, entire paragraphs penned, and everything 369 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.680 from fountain pent to ballpoint in varied hands and ins. 370 00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.880 Yet as I leafed through, I saw something instantly arrest 371 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.839 Every few years, stretching back decades, a cluster of signatures appeared, 372 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:06.000 not as names at all, but as clusters of letters. 373 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.480 Some the skies as plausible names keyword and a license 374 00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:11.720 eyu TETs, others as entire phrases, and still others as 375 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:14.519 what seemed at first to be random non words. But 376 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:16.599 visually they matched the patterns I'd seen in the type 377 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.000 of to output, and even in some cases the recurring 378 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:22.160 motifs in my own experiments. I checked the columns of 379 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:25.720 dates the letters of reference for context. Some of these 380 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:28.279 could not possibly be signatures. One entry was a musical 381 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:30.519 staff with notes rendered in a coda, recognized as the 382 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:34.200 basic keywordy keyboard layer at map Specially, others carry brief 383 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:37.599 phrases that describe visitors who, by other contemporary records could 384 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.960 never have been present, contradicting both local law and historical logs. Intrigued, 385 00:18:42.039 --> 00:18:44.400 I jacked down all blueprints and photographs of the original 386 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:47.880 ballwomen's floors, crawling misaic of colored tiles, now half obscured 387 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:51.119 by walls, and temporary petitions. With a pencil a sketch 388 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:53.559 the misake from the images of repeated pattern abstract but 389 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:57.440 spatially coherent. At first it looked like classic called deco geometry, 390 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.279 but from a certain angle, the overlap's matt almost perfect. 391 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:03.440 Staggered rows of a hyperty keyboard. Custers of tiles corresponded 392 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:05.519 to the rose, and the densest sections to the most 393 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.400 used keys. I matched some of the Gaesspex costos to 394 00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:11.400 segments of this form mistake, laying tracing paper over the maps. 395 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:14.920 The recursion was almost chilling. The same sequences appeared in 396 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:17.400 signatures and random notes about the weather in their random 397 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.599 jeedles left by former guests. The further I looked the 398 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.480 clear of the resents. These were not mere accidents. The 399 00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:27.839 recurrens wasn't just seen, but live, replayed, refreshed. Returning to 400 00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:30.279 the lounge before bed, I watched as the evening's creative 401 00:19:30.359 --> 00:19:33.480