GG: A webchat fantasy

[Kristen Immoor <kimmoor@mindspring.com>]

Okay you slackers, where was everyone last night? There we were in that
cavernous auditorium, all 10 of us, and there were more people on stage
than in the "crowd!"

    Seriously though, it was a pretty underattended event. The chat
platform was dreadful, so simulating any kind of real question & answer
dialogue was next to impossible. Random questions would be loaded into the
queue and answered in order, so follow-up questions would have to go to the
back of the line to possibly be addressed later. The software was slow and
the panel seemed to be keeping their answers brief to keep from clogging up
the system. Despite the technical problems however, I had a really good
time.
    I have written a little summation of the event (as I saw it, at least)
so that the poor souls who were in absentia can feel as if they were there.

My Trip to the Sony Chat
(Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.)
by Khrystin Meistenswitzig

    I arrived at the auditorium a bit early Wednesday night, my watch said
6:15 as I walked through the towering double doorway. I was worried I had
come too early, but I wanted to get a seat in the front row so that no
one's head would block my view. Imagine my relief when I saw Mary Jo down
front, waving me in! She had had the same idea, apparently, and as she sat
sipping her champagne I made my way to the front of the room.
    "Why Mary Jo," I said, "Fancy meeting you here!" We hugged and giggled
(I think the champagne had begun to work its magic.) We weren't seated long
when a few other brave explorers ventured into the room. Ken(2) was there,
Katherine and Scott from DNA, Jamerson T. from the Daily Woof, and good old
Charlie S. One by one they wandered through the massive doors of the hall
and made their way to our row. It was shaping up to be a good night.
    Charlie had come prepared with a tremendous bucket of popcorn, and he
passed it down the row. We chatted amongst ourselves, marveling at the
frightening realism of the virtual auditorium; why, we could *feel* the
crushed velvet of the audience seating, we could *hear* the reverberating
echo of our own voices off the walls. It was glorious! Little did we know,
there was trouble in paradise.
    Katherine began to flicker, and suddenly she was gone.
    "What's wrong! Where's Katherine?" someone screamed in horror. It was a
scenario that would be repeated many times throughout the next hour and
thirty minutes, as helpless Gould fans were jolted in and out of existence
on the virtual plane. (Katherine returned, fortunately, but she didn't seem
eager to speak of what had happened.)
    At about 20 minutes before seven I noticed that there were some people
sitting alone in the left wing. Curious, I pressed my "Change row" button
to see if I could learn their names. Something went wrong, and without
warning I had gone the way of Katherine! Ripped from my virtual comfort, I
found myself floating in a cold, dark netherworld halfway between life and
death. I could hear the hum of my computer, but there was no movement
anywhere. I realized too late that Sony's buttons were dangerous! I fought
to return to the hall, struggled to gain control of my electronic life
support. This time, I would be lucky. I made it back to my seat within mere
minutes, and hadn't missed a thing. Next time, luck would not be on my side.
   "Where'd you go?" asked Mary Jo. I made casual jokes about the incident,
not wishing to show my alarm. It was nearly time to begin. The panel took
the stage, walking slowly to their chairs behind the long folding table.
Kevin Bazzana looked tired, I could tell he had been doing a lot of
appearances. Timothy Maloney, dressed in an uncharacteristically flashy
tie, carried a stack of prepared notes - he was a man ready for anything.
The Sony presenter took the stage, and addressed the assembled crowd for
the first time.
    "Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, "I would like to welcome you to the
second annual Glenn Gould web chat." He fidgeted with the mic cord,
twisting it between his fingers as he recited the names and credits of the
guests on stage behind him. "And now, we will begin taking questions from
the audience. Please ask your question by pushing the 'Ask Question'
button."
    That was it? Just push the button? Fabulous! What an orderly, simple
and elegant plan! Those Sony folk are geniuses, I thought to myself.
Brimming with questions, I made my way to the button. The last thing I saw
was Charlie's smiling face as my computer shut down.
   I woke up minutes later on the floor of my own apartment. I felt like
Christopher Reeve in 'Somewhere In Time', right after he pulled the penny
from his pocket. The button was rigged! It was a trap! I had to warn the
others! I restarted my browser and steeled myself for the lengthy journey
back to the auditorium. In a state of hostile dementia I paced the floor of
my bedroom, watching the status bar of my browser tick away the eternal
minutes. I cursed loudly and repeatedly. After what seemed like hours I
finally reached the lobby.
    "Name?" Asked the Sony page, who was holding a large clipboard in his hand.
    "Never mind that," I shouted, "There's no time! My friends are in
there!"  I shoved the poor lad aside and burst through the double doors. I
ran to the front of the hall, frantic to warn my dear row of the danger
they were in. "Don't press the button!" I screamed. Alas, I was too late;
Jamerson was gone, another victim of The dread Button. Tragically, he would
not be the last. Jamerson would bomb several more times throughout the
lecture, and before the night was through even Charlie would fall.  Like a
lab rat shocked one too many times, I resolved I would touch nothing. No
buttons, no icons, no matter how appealing it may seem I would resist.
    It was Ken(2) who spoke as the voice of reason, noting that Java was a
system whose time had arrived but whose programmers had not. Sighing
dolefully to myself, I realized how right he was. I watched helplessly as
guests popped in and out of cyberspace, bombing and returning, crashing and
rebooting. It was a massacre. I accepted the sad reality of my situation;
chatting idly with my row I realized that I could listen to the panel but I
could not address them, I could listen to questions, but offer none of my
own. Charlie and Ken(2), brave souls that they are, generously offered to
forward questions for me, as it seemed that they were immune to the button.
I graciously accepted, and keyed in a few questions for them to send.
Looking at the optimistic smiles on the faces of my companions I thought
that perhaps we would survive this after all.
     Chatter in the front row was brisk and constant throughout the
conference, and though no one else could hear us at times it seemed that
more information was being shared in the crowd than was coming from the
stage. Our mutual suffering was forging a bond of friendship that would
last 90 ecstatic minutes. Jamerson and I playfully blinked our avatar
colors from red to yellow while Ken(2) made irreverent jokes about the
Doomsday Button.
    "Press the 'Ask Question' button..." reminded the Sony presenter.
    "...And kiss your ass goodbye!" added Ken(2). I laughed out loud,
momentarily distracting Ray Roberts from the statement he was making.
    By 8:15 the front row was out of control. Heckling and making jokes,
insulting the efficacy of the chat format, we amused ourselves in the lag
time between panel statements - it was all we could do to quell the urge to
riot. And yet, despite the good-natured horseplay in the orchestra pit, I
began to feel cheated. It was then, as this feeling of discontent washed
over me, that the miracle occurred. The giant floating head of Bruno
materialized in the upper right corner of the room! Like a vision from
heaven, the bulbous disembodied head smiled serenely at us, and I knew we
were receiving a blessing from the god of culture. "Be not afraid of the
button," his tranquil gaze seemed to say, "The button shall free you from
the chains of this world."
    Realizing that the swollen head was obviously a lackey of the
megacorporation and was trying to lure us to our own destruction, Mary Jo
pelted him in the nose with an M&M and popped him like a soap bubble.
    "You won't shut us up that easily, Frenchy!" someone shouted from the
back of the room. Seconds later the heckler was forcibly ejected from the
auditorium.
    And so, at 8:30 the conference ended. Without fanfare, without hype,
the chat that had begun so haltingly and proceeded so falteringly had
reached its conclusion. The panel left the stage, but still our row of
Gouldies remained, talking amongst ourselves. It seems that in the end, it
wasn't the empty promise of time to be spent in the presence of authorities
that drew us together at Placeware.com, it was the knowledge that we would
be among friends. That we would bond together in our struggle to remain
online, that we would revel in the true spirit of the man we admired:
disregard for tradition, distaste for stifling protocol, the need for
irreverent fun.
    The chat was a success after all. My only regret is that the official
transcript won't be half so entertaining as the one from the peanut
gallery. ;-)

The End

Best wishes,
Kristen

PS- Glenn would have felt very creative here in Atlanta today; from my view
at the window I can't help but feel that the weather couldn't be any more
appropriate for his birthday. It's been raining sans interruption since 5pm
yesterday afternoon, and it shows no signs of stopping. The sun never even
rose today, the sky stayed a strange shade of green most of the day.
"Behind every silver lining there's a cloud." Today the cloud's out in
front, and I'm sure he would have been delighted.
    It's a day of quiet meditation, the Bach Two & Three Part Inventions
and the Brahms Ballades. CD 318 is hiccupping away, Glenn's swinging in his
chair, and all seems right with the world.
   I won't go into tragic birthday stories. I just wish he were still here.

______________________________________________________________________________

"There must be room for mess, for vulgarity. Sometimes, we have to touch
people."

                                  -- Bruce Charlton, writing as Glenn Gould