fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes; Monday [ 05/12 ]

Who is discovering that drawing a guitar is a lot harder than just playing one.

Ah, here it was, the store that had music. Except not sheets of it, like one would play on a pianoforte, but little discs and plastic wedges that supposedly had music on them anyway. The future was bizarre.

At least she recognized the tall boy at the counter.

"Hello again," Alice smiled. "I'm looking for ... to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for. Isn't that terribly unhelpful of me?"

"Hey, Alice," Chad greeted her back with a lift of his chin; it was always nice to see friendly faces, and he wasn't even new, so he couldn't even imagine how it must be for her to see one. "And that's okay. Don't always know what you're looking for when you're finding something. It's a music store, though, so maybe music's a good place to start?"

"The music part, I realized, at least," she smiled, relieved. Grateful that it was him and not someone who might tell her to come back when she had some idea of what she was looking for, or at the least, some amount of money. She hadn't any of the latter. "A teacher said today I should find some Jeffers Airplaying, he thought I might enjoy it. But I've only a radio-box, he said I might need an MP-CD3 player."

Living in the future was somewhat dizzying.

Chad nodded, successfully holding back a little bit of a grin. "Jefferson Airplane," he corrected, though kindly, and assuming that that was what the teacher had meant, although he realized he could have been wrong. "And, don't worry, I can definitely hook you up. Music is not something meant for someone to go without, you know. I take it you're a little behind the times, Alice?"

He asked because he didn't think it very polite to assume.

"More than a little," she laughed sheepishly. "I'm a century and a good start on the next behind. To be honest, I've no idea what most everyone's talking about, a great deal of the time, but I nod and agree and I think I'm catching on."

Starting to, perhaps. She'd found the music store, and that registered as an accomplishment, to her.

Chad nodded a little. "Okay, well...we'll get you a little caught up, then. Hold on."

He thought he had a Jefferson Airplane CD with him in his CD case and, after pulling it out and shifting a bit (it was, of course, alphabetically organized), he slipped it out, his large fingers barely managing to hold it with the proper care to avoid getting prints all over it. "Okay," he said again, and then leaned (carefully) on the counter; the CD was ringed around his finger as he held it out for Alice. "First things first. This is a CD; this is what most music comes on lately outside of a computer. The precursor to this would be cassette. Before that, 8-track, and then vinyl records, and a bit back, you've got phonographs. First phonograph was I think...uhhh...18...70s? Is that still a bit too recent for your time?"

"Only a little," she confessed. "1873, but the early years are a blur and the later ones are a bit messy. There were experiments with sounds, Father mentioned once, turning them into some strange drawings, but those were the French and I presumed it was all to do with art. Here, have a squiggly line that we'll say is that loud trumpet-call. Nonsense. But a clever way to make someone pay for squiggled lines. Except I suppose what you're saying is that it isn't nonsense at all?"

The flat plastic disc circled his finger, around and around. Music, contained in there. Fascinating, really.

"I don't think so," Chad admitted, although his voice sounded a little sheepish about it. "Music means a lot to me, though. But, okay, that's a CD right here, and the music gets coded and put onto the back of it, so, if you do get any, you have to make sure to take good care of it, otherwise scratches or smears or cracks will mess it up. You gotta have special equipment to read the music, though, which is where a CD player comes in. Come on up here behind the counter and I'll show you the CD player we've got back here for the store music."

"I love the idea," she said, quickly, "I just imagined that they were making it all up. About the sound equaling a wriggly sort of line, I mean. I don't see how you can capture something like sound into a little plastic device any more than you could capture sunlight and drink it."

Having said all of that, she was terribly intrigued by his explanation and only too eager to step behind the counter and look around eagerly. Not touching anything; that was where Alice usually broke things, was in moving from looking to touching, and thus she'd stay safely on the looking harbor for now.

"Well," Chad reasoned after a moment, his head slightly tilted as he pressed the stop button to cut the current mix and opened up the CD player, "I mean, a letter is just a squiggly line or a shape, but it's still a sound and a part of a word, so why not the same with music, y'know? It's just another form of language.

He motioned for Alice to come in closer, as he crouched a little so they could be at a closer level with the CD player. "You can't see it very well with this one; I'll show you a portable one, where you can see it better, but all in here? Lots of mechanical gears and chips and wires to make it run."

"So this isn't magic?" She flushed at her own question. "I imagined it wasn't, but magic's so much easier to understand. 'Oh, it's magic, right, no use trying to figure how it works.'"

She peered into the machine. "Gears and chips and wires and they can pull sound out of plastic. Any sound? At all?"

Plastic couldn't sound terribly interesting, could it?

Internally, Chad was grinning quite a lot, although very little of it showed; most of it would have shown in his eyes, but they were still well hidden by his hair dangling in them, as he set aside the mix CD carefully and replaced it with the Jefferson Airplane. "Any sound," he agreed, "so long as it gets put on the disc right. And, while the technology isn't magic, I think the music itself kinda is, y'know?"

"So, you set the disc in and then close the CD player," which he did, "and then press the play button." He did this also. "And..."

He paused, waiting a moment, before the first chords of White Rabbit started to ensue from the speakers scattered around the store to fill the silence.

The snare drum was astonishing. It had been strange enough hearing voices pour out of the radio, warm and alive, but actual music ...

She caught enough of the words to blush. Either the song-writer was nearly as insane as she was, or the girl with the echoing voice had read a few of Charles's strange little books. Curious.

"If I had one of these ... devices, I could listen to ... things like this all of the time?" Alice asked, eyes glowing. She needed more, please.

Chad's head tilted with a slight lift of his eyebrow as he glanced over and thought he felt a shift in Alice, and then nodded, with a deep hum of agreement. "Most of the time, anyway," he said. "Just need a player and CDs to play in it."

"I have a radio box," she said quickly -- too quickly. Far too eager, Alice. "It had a lid on the top, I don't know if it was the right size for these or not. It was a gift. Are ... all of these CDs like this?"

The music felt alive. Not the slow dancing of a harpsichord, but something deep and thrumming and primal. Was it possible to be addicted, to the way music wound around you?

"There are lots of different radio boxes," Chad said thoughtfully as he tried to picture what Alice's might be like. "You can bringing it in, though, if you want, and I can see what kind of music it takes. Unless it's a really big one, then I can come see it."

"And, uh, they're all like this if you mean how they're shaped and worked, but if you're talking about the music? All the music's different. It's just a matter of finding what you like."

"Very portable, not very heavy at all," she assured him. "I've half a mind to run now and fetch it. I want ... I want to hear all of it."

She surveyed the room, all of the little discs glistening under the lights.

"That would take a while, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," Chad said, nodding his head, with a small tickle of amusement in the rumbled reply. "But it'd be a noble cause, almost."

"I suppose with some, you would start very quickly and know almost immediately that you wouldn't like to hear the rest. No thank you, this one is fingernails on a chalkboard. Metaphorically, I mean, unless there are musicians who record themselves scratching chalkboards." Alice lifted a shoulder, giving him a rueful smile. "I suppose it's all beside the point. I've no money, I can't very well start working my way through the As and onto the Bs."

And had she had money, music was a bit far down the list of the things she might need, although it moved up a few steps the more she heard of it.

"How would you feel if I told you that I can actually think of a CD right off the top of my head that might remind you of nails on a chalkboard?" Chad asked, letting a slight grin pass through, but then he found himself at a bit of an impasse. He liked Alice, and music was one of the most important things in the world. He was also a manager right now, which warranted him a few privileges at a time like this...

"Well," he said with a thoughtful quirk of his head. "I could loan you some stuff. Let you borrow some of my CDs, and see what we can do about getting you the right player if you don't have one already and you can pay me back. Or...we are looking for employees. If you want, you can get a job here, work it off, and..."

He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. "It's the best job ever, because you can just listen to more music all day while you work."

"Do you mean it?" Alice's face lit up. "I've no experience, and I should tell you I'm very bad with maths. But I would try very hard and I would come in whenever you needed me, if I hadn't class, I mean. I've only a few classes."

Really, she would have asked if she could come in and spend a few hours listening to all of the CDs anyway, if they would mind very much. Being here and being paid for it sounded too good to be true.

"Are you good at picking up on things?" Chad asked. "'Cause, really, you can get a calculator to do all the numbers for you. And we've got either weekends, Saturday and Sunday, or Tuesdays and Thursdays open, if you want any of those..."

"I can try, and see," Alice offered. "I'd try very hard. I picked up caucus-races right away, even though they'd no practical use whatsoever. I don't need to understand things in order to do them. Tuesday would be very nice, if you don't mind me stopping here after class. I've class early, and then I could be here the rest of the day, if that was all right."

She looked at him rather curiously. "I don't believe I know what a calculator is, I'm afraid. But I can pick one of those up as well. I'm sure of it."

"We're only open past noon, anyway, until about midnight, but you can close earlier if you want. So after class is perfect. And, if you want to start tomorrow, you can open and then I can come in and help teach you what you'll need to do. It's real easy, though. Prince Oscar Pedro will help, too."

"Prince Oscar Pedro?" It was slightly intimidating, having royalty assist one. That was when she noticed the small hairless cat, and smiled. "Is he yours? Pleased to make your acquaintance, Highness." She offered His Majesty a brief curtsy. It never hurt to pay proper respect to royalty.

"May we bring cats, to work, then?" Dinah would have a very nice time here, she felt. It seemed cat-friendly.

Prince Oscar Pedro was still brooding, so he afforded Alice no more than a lift of his chin and a flop of his tail, unwittingly probably contributing to her impression of his title.

"Yeah, he's mine. And of course you can bring cats in," Chad said with a nod. "The boss Melody has three cats, but she took them on tour. Why? You have one, too?"

"Dinah," she beamed. "Tiny and amazing. She isn't royalty, but she's always played nicely with other cats. We ought to find out if other cabin-mates have cats, we might all have some sort of cat-outing. Then again, cats don't seem much for outings."

Alice lowered her voice, for fear of offending His Majesty.

"Is he ... supposed to not have any hair?"

"Melody's cats always liked to play Chase the CD," Chad pointed out. "If anyone else in our cabin has a cat, maybe we could start a Chase the CD league."

Chad was totally planning on bothering Brooke to design little Chase the CD cat jerseys, oh. My. God.

"And it's okay. He was born like that. He's a special breed of cat that doesn't have any hair."

"Chase the CD?" Alice smiled. "You shall have to teach us, tomorrow. I didn't know cats came in the hairless variety. How very fascinating. So long as he isn't cold, I mean. I would imagine he'd be cold, being hairless, but then people aren't, so I supposed that's silly."

"I got him a sweater for Christmas," Chad said proudly. "He won't get cold."

"Does he like it?" Alice asked, curious. "I'd knit one for Dinah if I thought she would."

She held out a hand for His Majesty to sniff, if he would stoop to sniff a commoner. She would understand if he held himself aloof.

"Of course he does."

For the record, Prince Oscar Pedro despised that sweater.

He did, however, notice the girl offering his hand out to him. He was still really upset over the lack of friends, but, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that this meant he should probably maybe pay attention to the girl. After all, she might know the wonderful art of ear scritches. He shifted, his long neck stretching forward to give her hand a couple sniffs.

Alice was an old hand at the fine practice of ear-scritches, although she tried a very light pressure at first in case being hairless made a significant change in skin sensitivity. One wouldn't want to cause distress to His Majesty.

"What sorts of music does he like best?" she asked her new manager and old cabin-mate. Clearly, His Highness had refined taste.

Almost before Alice's finger even touched his head, Prince Oscar Pedro instantly started purring.

"He likes J-Pop a lot," Chad said.

Prince Oscar Pedro was actually a fan of Sousa.

"That's Japanese pop music," Chad continued to explain. "It's really bright and bubbly and happy, which is why I think he likes it so much. Plus? He understands Japanese best."

Prince Oscar Pedro actually understood the language of FOOD TIME NOAW? best.

Oh, there was very little in the world as delightful as a cat who was pleased to say hello with a rumbly purr. Alice was going to like His Highness very much indeed.

"I shall have to learn some Japanese, in order to converse with him," she smiled. It wouldn't do to have him think less of a commoner, would it?

"I can teach you some," Chad said with a nod, as Prince Oscar Pedro's motor purr continued contentedly. "If he ever starts misbehaving, you have to call him Neko-kun. That's part of his name, but it's also Japanese for little cat, and he always knows he's been spotted doing something he shouldn't if he hears that in the right tone."

"I will remember that," Alice nodded brusquely. "Though I doubt he misbehaves much. It would be unbecoming in a prince."

Chad grinned just a bit. "Yeah, but that never stopped him before. Mostly, you just gotta watch him around chocolate. He gets real sick if he eats too much, but he eats it anyway."

No kittens to watch out for, but Prince Oscar Pedro might follow you around a little.

*makes grabby hands at coffee*

Groovy Tunes; Monday [ 05/12 ]

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