A City Built to Music

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Liza and the group on 11 May 2015.



Liza,

Awesome.

I'm glad that made sense.

More notes, none of which can be full fledged at this point. I'm articulating a lot of these ideas inside Arthurian legend and theory right now.

This idea that Arthur is "The Once and Future King," suggests that he exists in the past and the future, but not the present; that there is a postscenium and a proscenium, but potentially no scenium, that is, no stage and/or nothing happening on stage. I can't remember what critic said it right now, but one idea hinted at in Tennyson's Idylls is that of Arthur's nonexistence.

This kind of existence (existing only in the past and in the future) is central to the idea of the turbulent reversals.

What happens in the Information Age is that these two entities begin to predominate. Nothing is new; everything is a reference, a remix, a a response, resound, a repost, a retweet, etc. Indeed, Will and I shaped this story by cobbling together other stories, explaining it in terms of ideas, people, stories, and situations that have already come and gone. Although that process has sometimes resulted in a clearer picture (okay, maybe not), that clarity is always clarity about the future, about how we will do this or will do that. Nothing materializes in the present--with the exception of one thing:

Music.

In his prose notes for the Idylls, Tennyson writes of Camelot as a "city built to music." Notice how the city itself is a waking dream:

And the day was one of driving showers: & as they drew near to Camelot sometimes the city gleam'd out at top while the rest of it was hidden, sometimes only the middle of it was seen, sometimes only the great gate of Arthur at the bottom & sometimes it disappeared altogether.

And the two that were with Gareth were amazed & said to him Lo now my lord let us go no further for we have heard that this is a city of enchanters & was built by Fairy Kings and Queens.

And the other said There is no such city: it is a vision.

But Gareth brought them to the great Gate: & there was no gate like it under heaven: for the deeds of Arthur were sculptured there in strange types & old & new was mingled together so that it made a man dizzy to look at it.

And there came a blast of music from the town & the three started back & now they have been frightened with this music nor care to go in.

They are greeted by Merlin, who states

...for truly O son this city was built by a fairy king & many fairy Queens & they came from out of the cleft of a mountain toward the sunrise; & they built it to the sound of their harps & as thou sayst it is enchanted & nothing in it is what it seems, saving the King & many hold the city is real & the King is unreal; & take thou of him for if thou pass under this gateway thou wilt become subject to this enchantment...for the city is built to music, & therefore not built at all, & therefore built for ever

...which, I think, is the basis for the Starship song.