MOG

The singer for a recently-formed rock band in San Francisco, with whom I have developed a relationship of mutual friendliness and respect over the last several months, sent me an electronic verbal message of some sort - on AOL they used to be called "instant messages"; I don't know if facebook uses the same terminology - a few weeks ago, asking if I could suggest a good band name. I let fly five or six possibilities off the top of my head, but I realized that the last one was the clear winner the moment it popped into my mind. It was a phrase I'd crafted in a paper on Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge," and how it showed up in my neocortex as if summoned - a fragment of a single sentence from a paper I wrote almost a quarter century ago, and to which I gave not another thought - I am glad not to understand. Unwisely, I used it as the title of this post, depriving it of the star's entrance I believe it merits. david hyman (by the way - do I understand correctly that he is the creator of this website? If so, I must buy him dinner some time) has been hipped to it already in a haughty and dismissive comment I made about The Grateful Dead in response to one of the recent, characteristically self-effacing and disarming posts on his zarpex-Endorsed™ MOG (a word which I have lately taken to capitalizing in its entirety, perhaps correctly, if such a concept even applies to one so newly minted, and which I might add contributes less pollution to the English language than it seems to at first glance). She too recognized its beauty immediately, and a band was Christened. I felt like a proud father, and a proud father with a flair for off-the-cuff creativity at that.

My fatherly pride did not extend to listening to their music, which, like all artistic efforts, in the harsh light of statistics, is likelier to be wearisome than otherwise. Greatness will announce itself; it should never be sought out. Besides, I felt (and still feel) that I'd done the band a considerable service without having any notion what they sounded like; why tamper with a successful formula? As I told david hyman, "if the band flops, it won't be because their name sucked."

Of course, if you do someone a favor - especially without pay or credit - they will usually return for more, and I more often than not provide it cheerfully. A sense of accomplishment cannot be exchanged for goods or services (to cite the inspired, wrenching lyrics to Bob Mould's "Brasilia Crossed with Trenton," They don't take these things down at the bank/ They just take money), but bear in mind that it's an asset whose value is usually greater before you're compelled to put a price on it.

Sure enough, I was approached again to provide a short band biography to accompany their first release. My first instinct was to follow Keats' injunction - which I will leave to you to recall; I'm sure you've heard it - and craft a story whose value - like all things, really - lay in its beauty, of which its truthfulness would be a consequence, not a constraint, and create a biography of less than two pages, abounding in rich detail, captivating stories, and colorful history, bearing only as much relevance to reality as suited my intention to lighten the crushing load of facts under which humanity labors too hard already.

Still having heard nothing at all by the band, I stayed up late last night fulfilling their wishes, and I adhered to Keats' Law more faithfully than I even meant to, although it bore no trace of biography (biographies are boring, anyway). I confess that I drew considerable satisfaction from the form it took, which was not what I foresaw when I imagined it. But that's as it should be; all creativity is unforeseeable and profoundly spontaneous by nature - when you start a sentence, realize that you haven't the slightest idea how it will end. And if you do know, you're acting and probably unconvincingly. In fact, while I'm issuing weird, quasi-philosophical pronouncements on the nature of creativity, I'd like to add that nothing should ever require a second draft. Not a single thing I've ever written in my life required more than proofreading; second drafts are for hacks. If kings and angels didn't assemble around its cradle, your art is unworthy, and should be left to fatten the wolves.

In the meantime, this is what I sent them:

There are many well-documented historical cases of mass hysteria sweeping very sizable communities. In August of 1944 one single woman in Appleford, Michigan –- population 5,812 at the time -– reported a curious chemical odor, and before two days had elapsed, almost everyone in the town was convinced they smelled it, too. This quickly became a virtually universal belief that they had been attacked – some believed by a madman possessed of great expertise in chemistry, others resolutely certain it was the Axis powers America was then at war with – by means of poison gas. Hundreds of people staggered through the streets vomiting; the town’s two small hospitals were overwhelmed with men and women who told baffled doctors that they had, only moments after smelling the gas, gone blind (which tests confirmed was in fact the case, every time, without a single exception), or who were bleeding profusely from their mouths and noses. Eleven people, among them a family with four young children, went to such desperate lengths to shield themselves from the peril that they suffocated in their own homes. The local police force was swept up as well; in the confusion and horror that prevailed, they issued contradictory orders to the citizenry, almost on top of one another: the instructions to evacuate were quickly followed by the command to stay indoors. There was no evidence of looting or riots, but in their panic, the police fired on a small crowd in Appleford’s commercial district, killing three. It was a full week before the town regained its senses, by which time its population had become 5,744. Most of the fatalities were among people who appear to have been so wholly persuaded that they had been poisoned that their systems shut down of their own accord. Of the several hundred that reported blindness, 41 never recovered their sight. The illusion had become too firmly ingrained, even after it was explained to them. The only people in Appleford who remained unaffected, smelled nothing, couldn’t figure out what everyone was so upset about -- were all among the town’s small subset of people who spoke no English. This was a contagion of the mind, and it spread through language. The bubonic plague in the 1300’s infected about half of Europe; hysteria infected over 99% of Appleford.

The suggestibility of human beings, and the unpredictable force of language and ideas, makes True Love in a Large Room, in my careful consideration, a very great danger. I have personally seen people so fascinated by the unlikely juxtaposition of aesthetics this band imposes on them that their powers of reason become appreciably diminished. I have seen people – not many, but then, not many have yet been exposed – who succumbed to the illusion that they too could wield the band’s volcanic ferocity, and came to ends I will only describe as unhappy. Young people especially seem susceptible to the allure of their lyrics, in which they often claim to perceive fragments of prophecy, and their pursuit of a clearer understanding has driven at least four I know of – two of them very closely; both of them teenagers who held great promise – to insanity.

I have been chosen to write a few words about True Love in a Large Room, and it is taken for granted that I will write something that casts them in an appealing light and makes them seem like a force for some kind of good or other. I will instead subvert them.

Ours will be looked back on as the Age of Litigation, and I hope to avoid any culpability in the release of what I am thoroughly convinced is an ideological and cultural virus that will ruin the lives of – perhaps kill – many, many thousands of people, striking the young disproportionately. If you are considering buying this, I urge you not to. If you already have, heed my advice and burn it – outdoors, if possible, or in a well-ventilated area free of nearby combustible material. Be careful in doing so not to draw the sort of attention to this band, their music, or the ideas they hope to spread that might arouse curiosity or interest.

One could describe True Love in a Large Room as a piece of H.P. Lovecraft that broke off and fell into reality. Its attraction is narcotic; the strangely pleasant uncertainty, and the false sense of power that it quickly instills, end in misfortune for all but the very lucky few.

I refuse to go down in history as a propagandist for chaos.