A Story of Music, Beans, and Monastic Intrigue

” . . . And it’s as easy as that!”

The Sacred Harp looked at me inquisitively. “I fail to see how drinking coffee at a different coffee shop every Friday night gets you any closer to world domination.” He stated matter of factly.

I continued to explain the dynamics of Mandatory Coffee Night, “In small ways you must bend the will and minds of men. By taking my group to different shops every week and popping up unexpectedly on a given Friday, our presence will become noticed. Then all it takes is a few well placed fliers to makes the various Coffee shop managerial structures believe that these group appearances are some institution beyond them. Once they believe it’s true it is true. Then the power comes, for people fear institutions.” I smoothed my lab coat and straightened my oversized satfty-glasses, peering through the plastic at The Sacred Harp.

Since My Lackey had fled town in complete mystery, I assumed that when I got new help he would hear of it. When my new help showed, we exchanged pleasantries as one does with any new work partner. He had told me how as a hobby he sang sacred harp music, which he assumed I had heard of, being from Alabama. He was correct that I had heard of it, but only because NPR had done a piece on the music a few days before. I played as though I had been clued in to it for a while, but upon further conversation it became clear that I knew very little. I hadn’t even paid that close of attention to the story on the news. I then used my skill for BS acquired through my exhaustive study of the Liberal Arts to convince him that this type of music was more traditional in Northern Alabama and I, being a coastal alabamian, knew only little of it. He seemed to buy it.

Often we would discuss music, though I in truth know little of it. Then one day it was my turn to clue him in. Using the power of mystery and fear, attained through the abrupt and unaccounted for disappearance of My Lackey, to give me an air of authority, I began to tell him why radio was so repetitive when it came to playing songs on any given station.

“So Clear Channel wants to go out of business? I don’t understand?”

“No”, I said patiently, “They want you to change the dial.Ó I paused for effect. ÒIn the old days, DJ’s had far greater control over the music played during their shift. Now Clear channel comes along and buys large majorities of the market and controls the FM dial. DJs can pick maybe 2 songs a shift. They are there to read the weather and introduce the next song, hand picked from The Central Authority. Even if they happen to miss that, there are prerecorded commercials that take over from corporate. The DJs are there to give the illusion of local control. And The Central Authority plays the same fives songs all day long to drive any long-term listener off the FM dial. If you listen for any length of time you get sick.”

“But why? WouldnÕt that run them out of business.” The Sacred Harp stated, as if he grasped the depths of the plan.

“TV pays the bills fool!” I snapped. “Radio is not to make money. When youÕre at work like us your trapped and board. Radio is what people turn too. Then they are forced to give a quit to the FM because it in turn is boring.”

“That’s my point they turn off the radio.”

“They turn off the FM!” I corrected. “Your still board and trapped with the radio. You turn to AM talk, and there, if you are not strong of will, you begin to believe rightwing the false gods set up there.”

“Those gods being?” He said.

“There names are well known”, I said with a sweeping gesture of the hand. ” . . .Economy, Progress, Individuality. These are the standards of judgment they use.” I reached a fever pitch and took on my “prophet of old” stance picturing myself with flaming eyes like those of Jeremiah, or John the Baptist. Then I had to straighten my oversize safety-glasses and was put in my place realizing I probably didn’t look near as cool as I thought, at least not cool enough to be in a movie scene. In the end, however I got my point across.

. . .

“Institutions . . .” I said, explaining the long-term plan I had been working on. “The point is when they see Mandatory Coffee Night as an institution, theyÕll want in on any money involved. They will want us to meet at their coffee shop, so as to have the regular business. Then when they are hooked and fat, we can threaten to leave unless discounts are given to appease us. Then they get no money, and we ride cheaper than ever before.”

“And world domination?”

“Step by step my friend, step by step. You need to learn from me. Don’t grasp quickly or you will be put down faster than you can ever imagine.Ó I paused to reflect. ÒActually don’t learn from me. Who needs another adversary?”

“And what if they simply don’t notice your Mandatory Coffee Night?”

I was taken aback by this astute observation by The Sacred Harp, but did not lose my resolve. “How could they not.” I said “Besides, I got more in the works that this. You must work on several fronts and above all have patience.”
. . .

Often at night riding on my bike I creek through the deserted streets past The Monastery of St. Claire. The Poor ClaireÕs inside are up late into the night doing the work of intercessory prayer the souls of New Orleans and the greater world community. The prayers rise from behind the factory like red brick walls, into the air with positive pollution for the atmosphere. Many of these prayers descend back immediately having been aimed at the pollution from the smokestacks so close by. I cruise by and often ring the bell on my bike in chorus with these prayers. If I’m feeling good about the world, or if I’m a few sheets to the wind and feeling inadequate, I simply yell, “get a job,” loudly into the night as I glide past the high solid walls.

The monastery has the closest church to my house, but they don’t have an evening mass open to the public, and my desire to sleep late trumps my desire to travel less distance. My parents were in town the other weekend, however, and being visitors, they like to see a variety of churches. So I told them we could go to this one and see how they spin the intricate web that is the liturgy.

When we arrived it struck me how small this church was compared to The Church of the Most located across Audubon Park, which I attend. The nuns filed in after their recitation of Lauds, morning prayers in the liturgy of the hours, and the mass began promptly. That however was about the only thing that happened promptly. The presiding priest, a certain Father Louie, and the other religious in attendance seemed for some strange reason to be in no particular hurry to end the mass. All gestures and responses were delivered at about two-thirds the speed necessary to be conformable for the worldly in attendance such as ourselves.

The mass started and the nuns struck up a chorus loud, high pitched and warbling. They sang in the style that, when you hear it, you know the singer is either a nun, if you havenÕt figured it out by the knee length skirt and Birkenstocks, or were taught to sing by one as a little girl, if she is wearing no such garb. It is quite distinct and beautiful in it’s own way. It struck me as it began, and I was filled with a sense of community and purpose in life. Then it happened. The second verse ended and a small contingent of nuns began to sing a third, while the nun at the organ along with a few cohorts stopped the music. There was an odd few bars, then they all picked up and the song continued ending on the third verse. Father Louie delivered his slowly pentametered and deliberate homily, and the slow pentametered and deliberate mass came to an end. But all the while I had a nagging feeling something was wrong.

After the mass I turned to Rebecca. “What did you think of the homily?” And the weekly critique began. We agreed the message was good, appropriate and well organized. But we differed on delivery. It was my contention that the use of Father LouieÕs little nice explaining the meaning of the Christmas season as ÒloveÓ was correct but hackneyed and clichŽ, the message could have been better delivered in my opinion. As we all walked out of the walls and turned off Henry Clay onto Magazine I looked up and across the park I saw the enormous bell tower of The Church of the Most looming over the tree line of Audubon Park. I gathered my courage and piped up, “there was another thing that bothered me.”

“What was that?” Rebecca asked.

“Did you notice that whacked out power play that renegade group of nuns put on in the middle of mass.”

“What in the world are you talking about.” My mother said.

“Well obviously it was agreed by most that the opening hymn should end on the second verse. But that small group persisted on with the third verse totally gaining control of the situation by sheer will. Obviously there was some sort of contention between the two groups before hand, you know how these old women bicker. We had a rare glimpse into the true politics of monastic life.” I was excited by this turn of events in our otherwise tame Sunday worship.
My dad belly laughed and seemed on the verge of believing I knew what I was talking about.

Then my mom brought sense to the discussion. “You didn’t see the hymn list on the board by the altar. They were supposed to sing three verses.”

“The organist just made a mistake.” Rebecca put in, “you didnÕt see her pop her head over the organ to check it?”
“There was a play list?”

Apparently my sense of observation was not a keen as it could have been. Did the Sacred Harp sing true? Was it simply my own lust for power that made me see that lust in others, whether correctly or no? I placed my forehead in the meaty part of my hand between the index finger and thumb as I stumbled a bit on the sidewalk. My thoughts continued. Could radio producers just be morons? My head spun a bit as my quest for worldly power now seemed so foolish, when confronted with what could be the simple life of the monastery. Then I came to my senses. I cleared my throat. “So why was the organist confused? Of course someone had to put the play list on the board, of which of the two factions was that devoted ascetic? And who is this Father Louie anyway? With a name like that heÕs bound to arouse suspicion.” As I continued to babble on something in the back of my mind made me think that maybe I should have paid less attention to the delivery of Father LouieÕs Homily.

Phillip G.

Exorcising Possessions by Exercising Restraint

Rebecca and I drove past the white sand beaches of Boloxi Mississippi on a jaunt from the humdrum life that one needs to escape from sometimes. ÒWhy do you think they do that?Ó She asked me.

I scanned my eyes over and looked at the well-combed beach. It was combed in the traditional sense, that is well picked over by those seeking to either possess a memento of their visit to this beach, or exploit the bounty of nature for profit in a beachfront knick knack shop. But it was also combed in a less than conventional way. ÒItÕs the Red-Neck Riviera.Ó I said, looking over the miles of beach sand trucked in and raked out with a tractor to evenly spread it out. The deep marks of the plowing were still left in the sand, in straight rows as if the teeth of a giant comb had, indeed, been pulled across the beach. Underneath lay sand that was good enough for nature, but not white, and therefore not good enough for those owning beachfront property. ÒThey gotta get the tourist dollars, and tourist dollars donÕt come for dark sand. If they didnÕt do it, people would go to Gulfshores instead and Alabama would get that money.Ó

ÒJohn Chrysostom was right,Ó I thought. ÒMark the wise dispensation of God.Ó He said. Ò . . . He has made certain things common, as the sun, air, earth and water, the sky, sea, the light, the stars, whose benefits are dispensed equally to all as brethren . . . and mark, that concerning all things that remain common there is no contention but all is peaceable. But when one attempts to possess himself of anything, to make it his own, then contention is introduced.Ó It seems so petty to try to capitalize or perfect all the things that the horizon just to the right of us signified to most who gaze on it. I guessed in my mind that people are malcontent. When we feel we own something, we get the itch, feel we want more and desire to take what is not our own. When we try to possess things in this way, the things generally end up possessing us. The horizon where sky meets water as far as the eye can see is vast, symbolizing such openness as to rivet itself in the subconscious of the very strongest of minds. To try to perfect this horizon by adding sand that was a bit whiter seemed almost as stupid as trying to build a tower to siege the heavens. When God got wind of that plan, it must be remembered, so high was the glory of the divine that far down did God need to travel to see what men were up to with this tower of Babel.

We pulled into the Beaux Rivage Casino towering high over head and parked. The casinos are a relatively new event on the gulf coast, and the eyes of Nevada have been nervously bent southeast ever since. The original idea was that it would be nice to go on an old time paddleboat cruise and be able to drop a few coins in the one armed bandit, and reminisce in the glory days of the antebellum south. The laws were changed to accommodate such a situation stating that ÒgamblingÓ was still illegal, but ÒgamingÓ was acceptable as long as it was preformed on a sea worthy vessel. The original idea soon went out the door, and all along the Mississippi river and the Mississippi gulf coast high-rise hotels mounted on boats sprung up, with casinos full of every sort of ÒgamingÓ imaginable in them. As long as they could pull away from the dock and float, they were legitimate. In Mobile the colloquial way of expressing going gambling, or gaming if you will, in Mississippi is still Ògoing to the boatsÓ even though to any one who did not know, they do not appear to be boats in the least.

I have a very particular method of ÒgamingÓ. I never go to the tables where the high priced card games are played. I wander instead over to the quarter slots, take my place among the rest of the karrows and put a ten-dollar bill in the feeder. I immediately cash-out and then from my pocket I take out a very small cigar and light it. I meticulously line the quarters up into ten piles. One at a time I take each quarter as an individual and place it in the slot. I grasp the lever feeling it in my hand and draw the top downward, spinning the gears inside to play out the round. After completion of each game I inspect the pay-line and calculate any wins or close wins. If I win, I cash out immediately and slowly line up the quarters in piles of four, puffing a fog of grey smoke on the metal trey as I do it. I make my ten dollars last as long as humanly possible, thus receiving maximum enjoyment from each little round disk of pressed metal, I worry not about winning or losing on the whole, I go to lose ten dollars, and have a good time. I only focus on each individual game.

As meticulously as I play this game the casino plays another. In this game they seek to take from you every last bit of money that they are able, as quickly and efficiently as they are able. This is no secret, but I was really struck here in New Orleans, when I realized that I never got a straight dollar amount back at my frequent haunt HarrahÕs Casino. The first time I went to a casino I was shocked to realize that you needed to put your quarters in a novelty jackpot bucket to get bills for it, even if it was only two dollars. After I learned the rule I never thought much of it till I really codified my slot machine method. Because my quarters were laid out in little piles of four in the payout bin I knew how much money I had in my seemingly uncountable bucket of jumbled quarters. Going up with twenty dollars one time I was noticed that I only got back nineteen seventy-five. I would have sworn that I counted out exactly twenty dollars, but at first I left room in my mind for doubt of my stacking ability. On the way to the door that evening I passing the rows and rows of slot machines and realized that almost involuntarily I was reaching in my pockets to put those three lose quarters in the machines on the way out. I became indignant. I Immediately formed a theory that they had in fact stolen a quarter from me and knew that three more would follow as if voluntarily from my hand. These loose quarters were in fact stolen as well, though not by force, but by the devious means of psychology. After all, who can resist taking the chance on that last loose quarter or two? I tested my theory many times there after by putting only straight dollar amounts in my bucket and taking it to the money desk and each time a portion of loose change was delivered back to me. Never did any of that change get redeposit in the slots, and I started purposefully putting inexact dollar amounts in the bucket so that I wouldnÕt loose that one quarter to straight theft either.

I sat down to the machine at the Beaux Rivage and put in my ten-spot. I hit the cash-out button and was shocked at the electronic sound of prerecorded quarters falling onto a metal pay trey. I looked up and a ticket popped out of the machine with a bar code to be scanned at the desk for the retrieval of money, or put back in the slot machine. I was infuriated at not being able to slow the pace of my loosings by practicing my methodology, as I desired. I put the ticket back in the slot machine and started playing, but my money went much faster when all I did was press a button. All the while I was fashioning in my head the reasoning for such a scam. I knew that much of it had to do with taking money as quickly and efficiently as possible, but there seemed to be more involved. After my experience with the inexact dollar amount heist at HarrahÕs, I knew that the casinos had no problem employing psychological tactics to get what they desire. I began to expound to Rebecca. ÒThey want to shame you into playing out any small dollar amount.Ó I said. I knew that if I had six dollars in my bucket I could walk to the counter guilt free, seemingly not knowing how much was in there to be paid to me. I take my six dollars, or five seventy-five as the case may be, and go home with a lone finskey in my pocket. With this sheet you know the exact amount for which, you are wasting the time of the bureaucrat behind the counter. A measly single digit sum would send most cringing back to the machines to spend the rest in order not to have to meet the scowl of the teller, and the others waiting in line.

I cashed out to the sound of a prerecorded jackpot, and asked the cocktail girl passing by if all the machines paid out like this. She informed me that, no, not all the machines were converted yet. ÒThank God for the sin of slothÓ I thought, and made my way to the counter with my three-dollar ticket. I couldnÕt believe the other seven had already vaporized at the touch of the high-speed slots.

I was third in line at the pay-desk and was waiting for some retiree to get his just desserts from the little ticket stub in his hand. The teller was very automated in his handling of the situation. With a game show host like voice he announced, ÒthatÕs three hundred and fifty three dollars sir. Here you are.Ó The tellerÕs suit was brightly colored, perfectly clean and pressed. He looked like a jester in modern apparel, yet some how too neat, pressed, and colorfully pastelled for reality, looking more like some character you would see on TV. He counted out a stack of bills for the man and the old lady next in line stepped up. The man scanned her ticket, ÒThatÕs sixty four dollars ma’am.Ó He paid out her reward and I walked up to the counter. I placed the ticket on the smooth countertop with my palm over it, pressing it hard to the surface. I slid it slowly to the tellerÕs window and waited. He took it with all the precision of a machine and flipped it in front of the scanner. At this point his mechanized movements halted for a space of time only perceptible if you knew what was on the ticket and knew to watch his movement. Until this moment I could have written off my whole delusion that the Beaux Rivage was trying to cheat me out of my low winnings by issuing these tickets as another over analysis leading to a less than theoretically parsimonious conspiracy theory. But that pause clued me into what was coming next. The program had switched in this poor seeming soulÕs mind. His hand did not go to the cash drawer as it had so many times before.

ÒYou know you can put these tickets back in the machines like money!Ó he said rather cheerfully smiling.
I was now officially enraged and the shear audacity of this attempt to grasp at every dime that one has no right to. But I kept my cool. ÒYup . . .Ó I respond.

Ò . . . Like money.Ó He repeated no so gaily this time, quickly glancing at the line forming behind me, insinuating I was wasting these peopleÕs time with such trivial amounts.

ÒYesÓ, I said, ÒI can put it back in the machine, but I canÕt take it down the street and buy a burger with it.Ó

He handed me my big winnings and I stepped away from the counter feeling pretty good about myself. I had faced the enemy and had held my own. I twirled my cigar in my fingers scanning the isle for Rebecca and looking, I thought, somewhat debonair. The casino lights were blinking around me as I turned and saw her. Our eyes met and for a brief moment the experience of standing up to the man at the counter gave me the thrill of power. I felt like a spy in one of the old casinos in Europe, on an escapade and seeing my contact and mistress, now the adventure could begin. Rebecca let out a laugh and walked lightly and briskly too me leaning her head close in too my ear. ÒMy dear,Ó she whispered delicate, ÒYour fly wide open.Ó I looked down, revealing to my eyes no small amount of my white pinstriped boxers peering back at my through my barn door. So much for my power trip. Given that there are cameras everywhere in casinos I knew I was being recorded and if I acted too rashly I would end up on some sort of Ògreatest video surveillanceÓ show. I could in my mind clearly see the grainy black and white screen with the soft deep voice of an announcer saying, Ò . . .and now she tells him,Ó just before I hastily and ungracefully zip my fly. I decided to shove my hands in my pockets, hold them close together and walk for a ways before slowly doing the deed. I clasped the lower inseam on the corner of my coat in a variation on the napoleonic pose, and with my free index finger and thumb carefully tugged on the tab of metal between my legs.

I really did feel good when I had walked away from that counter. I guess I didnÕt need to embellish the mood with delusions of grander and fantasies of espionadic intrigue. The lesson of my open fly, I guess was that I need to content with the moment a bit more, and not to try to possess things that are beyond my reach, in this case my life as it is now. This is because, through such grasping IÕm not much better than the casino I was so angry with for grasping at what they already possessed so much of. It seemed illustrative of something innate in humanity that tries to grab everything it can, forcing people to become possessed by their possessions. I go back to John Chrysostom, ÒPossessions are so called that we may possess them, not that they may possess us.Ó He said, ÒWhy do you regard the master as the slave? Why do you invert the order?Ó What Chrysostom is getting at is the old maximum of Christian Liberty being, Òin the world, but not of the world,Ó not possessing your possessions, or them possessing you. The reason being that if you overly possess your possessions, most likely they already possess you. One must be able to reach a mood where neither your possessions possess you nor you possess your possessions. Look back on that great gift the gulf, where the sky meets the water as far as the eye can see. The people there tired to possess their possessions and by doing it made a mockery of something that, like life itself, is larger than not only possession, but also comprehension. If you grasp at something like that it most certainly will end up possessing you.

Phillip G.