We just returned from an enjoyable evening listening to chamber music. The Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, in its fourth season this year, presents free public chamber music concerts at various venues in Trinity County. The music is always beautiful, and the performers are delightful.

Tonight’s performance featured three compositions by Brahms. Each was intricate and compelling, as well as thematically unique, but something that the leader of the festival said really caught my attention. He mentioned that one of the pieces, apparently Brahms’ favorite, was full of musical jokes.

Musical jokes?

Yes, music is a language, and one can tell jokes in that language. This got me thinking. I’ve always heard that a musical composition can tell a story, but I had always considered that to be metaphorical, insofar as my concept of a story includes features such as characters, plot lines, and so forth. Well, why can’t music tell a story too? What elements in a musical composition are analogous to characters, plot lines, or settings? Or are the elements of musical storytelling of a different nature altogether?

Thinking these thoughts turned me back to my own media, those of narrative prose and lyrical poetry. I know that some authors have experimented with using other elements of a story to convey its narrative, such as structural elements (word counts, rhyming, even the rhythm of paragraphs) and meta-narration (author’s notes that include an ongoing plot drawn from real life). I’ve even used something along these lines, in that the poems in “The Soul Thief” provide hints of Cassandra’s inner life and, ultimately, a powerful clue to assist Angela in healing her. But I think it would be very interesting to consider using word rhythm and phonology to convey story elements. The goal would be to trigger mood changes and increase subliminal tension, and if consciously chosen could provide endless ways to divert the reader.

More on this later?

I’m chugging away on the writer’s todo list, something that I enjoy, and one of the items that isn’t on that list, but probably should be, is this:

1. Study what my ancestors wrote. Study my family history.

My mother has told me about an illustrious line of storytellers whose blood runs in my veins. There’s the woman who started a newspaper and another who wrote a book of poetry in the 1890’s that is still available today. There are men who wrote, children who grew up writing, and all of this reminds me that being a writer isn’t something you necessarily choose. You get chosen by the art of writing.

The funny thing is, I have always loathed writing for its own sake. It wasn’t until recently that I learned why. If I can’t visualize an audience, I have no idea what to say. My brain is wired so that communication is a very personal thing. This is one reason why it took me a while to write a novel: I couldn’t think of a reason to do it. The breakthrough, interestingly enough, was when I learned to start with the dialog with the screenplay format. I can ‘hear’ the characters talking, and so I just transcribe that. I can see what they’re doing, and I can describe that in minimalist terms. What remains difficult is the narrative exposition portion of the novel. How can I describe a city scene if I don’t have someone right in front of me to describe it to? How can I tell someone about a flashback if I don’t know that they will find it interesting?

So what I want to do is read the writings of my ancestors. By doing this, I hope to become more connected with them. Then I can simply write to them, using them as my audience. I believe I will focus on the strong women, for whom my admiration is boundless. I can picture the woman who started the Sherman Democrat, sitting there on a chair in front of me. Of course, she will have been brought up to date on today’s mores and customs, as otherwise she would be scandalized. I will describe the settings for her, and see her nod in appreciation or shake her head in confusion (thus requiring more explanation). I will tell her what my characters are thinking, feeling, doing. Having such an imaginary audience would, I think, allow me to provide a point of view, one which I respect and one which, I hope, will prove to be intriguing and valuable for my real audience in the world today.

I’m studying memetics these days, and have found it to be a useful framework for understanding the way that culture and ideas shape our thought. One of the key notions in this framework is that memes are transmitted via all forms of communication. This includes indirect transmission; that is, the implication of a meme may transmitted without referring to its core tenets explicitly.

There’s something chilling about that idea. When I comment on someone’s Facebook post, for example, that person may very well become infected by my own meme ‘load’, whether or not I say anything that directly pertains to it. The reverse is true: I read a post by someone, and their hidden assumptions and biases are injected into my own meme receptors. Of course, memes resist change, so my meme immune response creates a critical barrier to incoming ideas, particularly those that challenge my inner status quo. There are ways around that response, though.

One way is through emotional appeals. My emotions respond nonverbally to my inputs. I feel a surge of indignation, or a clench of pity tightens my chest. The trigger, conditioned by the memeplex of its author, subverts my inner critic, who becomes convinced that this new information is important to me because of this powerful effect.

I have been receiving the storm of memes aroused by the news of the tragic mass murder of the women here in California the other day. My own responses to those thoughts, those feelings, are so kaleidoscopically intense that I can formulate no meaningful statement concerning them. At every turn I find myself confronted with a cultural introspective statement: feminist ideas, thoughts concerning mental illness, the ideological postures of so many of us. However, I can respond to the phenomenon of the memes responding to that event. I am convinced that the murderous intent of that young man has served to further polarize us along ideological lines.

Which brings me to the thesis of this post: Facebook is a steaming hothouse that breeds meme vectors at a dizzying rate. I have never seen such a stupendous blizzard of competing thoughts before, and when I consider that with the notion that FB is addictive, I conclude that it exerts a powerful memetic distortion field that only strengthens our meme load and makes it ever more resistant to change.

This is not good.

One potent antidote, for me, is to frame everything I read as a meme carrying bite of information. Objectifying the information that way helps me to maintain an immune response, even in the face of powerful emotional inducements. The tendency to become cynically introspective is powerful, of course, so I must counteract that with a strategem: emotional connections with my closest friends, both on and off the ‘Book. If I can maintain this odd balance, a dynamic balance that keeps my own train of thought lively, I may be able to keep my own perspective and offer something of value in response.

The last proofread (I believe) has been applied to “The Soul Thief.” I’m waiting on an initial galley proof to be certain of my font choices, as I designed the interior. I’m also waiting on my cover art. I’m going to plan a signing and book launch for both Hayfork and Weaverville. I think I’ll hold the former at Northern Delights, and I’ll contact Tammie’s for the latter.