I didn’t manage to get a query of any kind into the mail box (e or snail) of any publisher, agent, or editor (reputable or otherwise).

Why? (How hard can it be, to write a query?)

Simple answer, conflict. I was conflicted about the topic I had in mind.

What topic was that, you didn’t ask?

The Astral Convertible Reconstruction. I had the idea that I could tell the tale, in a humorous essay, of how we took the old dance from 1989 by Trisha Brown and got it back on the stage with a major electronics update and scenic facelift. I thought I could describe the thinking and labors that led to utter disillusionment. I had the notion that, from my immersion, I could get above the surface of the process, seeing with omniscience the folly of my colleagues and myself as we collided in the the collaborative undertaking. I gradually got the idea that the original collaboration, between choreographer Brown, set designer (Bob) Rauschenberg, and (later on in the process, post premier) composer (John) Cage was also fraught with such collisions and contradictions. We knew going in that there had been technical problems. We had testimony from the theater grunts who had dealt with the realities of the original stagecraft. I began to wonder, out loud, if perhaps the original collaborators had not been completely forthright with each other. Perhaps they were not on an equal footing intellectually. Perhaps the original philosopher jesters of the arts had spoofed Ms. Brown. We’d been told (by Sean Murphy) that Trisha didn’t “tour with junk.” Sean meant, I think, that she used ‘works of art’ by ‘established artists’ as her sets. Certainly, Robert Rauschenberg was a major artist of the 20th century. He’s in all the books. But the sets he made for Brown…they look pretty junky in the video. If one considers the idea that the man’s work was all about turning junk into art, Sean’s remark suggests a disconnect between the intention of the set designer and the intention of the choreographer.

What is known of her intention? Well, I could ask her, I suppose. It’s just easier to pretend to know, to rely on second hand sources, and to more or less pretend she’s dead. But she came to see this reconstruction we made (and we did make it, we all saw it) and she gave it her blessing.

Then, too, there were layers of tangled thinking to be peeled back. Let’s start with mine. My task was to implement the electronics that would turn the digital information collected by the sensors on the dancer’s bodies and broadcast wirelessly by the laptops and desktops backstage via the xbees to the arduinos on the towers into sound and, as it turned out, light.

Whoa! What the hell are you talking about, I didn’t hear you exclaim! Towers? Arduinos? Xbees? Is this science fiction or maybe scientology? Is this going to cure my diabetes?

There were eight towers (as in the original sets by Bob). Any published version of this essay would need some pictures. A picture should be able to eliminate, what, at least a thousand words. In a nutshell of words, the system worked like this: The dancers wore sensors that detected their own position (x-y) and acceleration (accelerometers). The sensors on the dancers were connected by a wire bundle (too stiff! complained the costume designer) to a tiny radio transmitter called an X-Bee. The X-Bees transmitted data serially to and from the Arduino circuit boards that collected and distributed the data. The collected data were fed into computers programmed to analyze the data into algorithms that were repackaged and broadcast to the towers to, uh, light the lights and make the sounds. Yes, there were lights and speakers and amplifiers and batteries on six of the eight towers. The two littlest towers were bereft.

We were urged to “keep with the minimalist aesthetic”of the original. This edict came from Trisha, and it was often invoked. Conflict! Conflicted! Read the above description of the system and see if it seems like it has any sort of minimalist aesthetic. Well? And just what (had to try the italic in this blog ap!) is a minimalist aesthetic, exactly? Tangled thinking. Mine: I wanted to take the simplest approach to turning the data that appeared on the pins of the Arduino boards into sound (and light, as it turned out). I had met  Nicolas Collins (had to try a link, too) when he was at the University of Illinois a few years back. I bought his little book on circuit bending. It contained a chapter on (mis)using hex schmitt trigger chips to make oscillators, not to mention controlling volume (and panning) with miniature lamps dipped in plastic dip. My idea was that this was the essence of the spirit of minimalism. The resulting waveforms, enjoyed on an oscilloscope, were square. Nasty-sounding things, these Collins circuits.

But I was part of a team. What is it they say? A camel is a horse designed by committee? We were all of us, in our own minds, working out what ‘minimalism’ meant to us. In the end, we were thrown together like cats in a bag. Taken together, our minimalism was all encompassing. We assembled our small, limited, and simple ideas into a huge, complex environment that was, indeed, ‘astral,’ if not ‘convertible.’ We think the original dance was named for a New York mattress store. Everything was in this but the kitchen sink.

Another layer of the onion was the hierarchy of the collaborators and technicians. Conflict! Conflicted!
This layer resulted in the most hilarity. Data are not funny, but people, interacting, are.

But to compress all of this into a query?

In the end, if I won out, wrote and published the piece…

I’m not sure I could endure the personal and legal consequences. I dunno. Egg me on (or don’t) and maybe I’ll try it in this blog. Or not.