[IMAGE] web music

…click to listen:

…about the music

Slowly, searching for the right note.

Music makers and spiders each deal with webs. I spin endless pages of mine, five lines wide, designed to catch little black specks of sound-inspiring instructions to be interpreted by others. My notes fly onto the page, get stuck in those lines, and are summarily digested.

The other day the specks hanging from the web on my monitor screen must have looked so enticing, that they attracted the little spider you see above. With a vengeance, she glombed on to the downbeat of a bar I was fleshing out in a computer notation program. In fact, I think she was trying to edit me. I’d written a D-flat there. But she defiantly tapped on the pitches above, taunting me for my poor choice and doing her best to save me from composerly embarrassment. The D-flat remained. She glared at me.

As you can see in a subsequent pic, by bar 71, beat 3, she was in such a tizzy about my note choices that she’d given up entirely on me, and slammed her little body against the volume control icon, desperately hoping to silence the madness. She was unsuccessful. I finished the piece. But perhaps she rallied the ghosts of her family to continue to harass me.

Later that evening, I was sitting very still. I was working at my desk on things related to my somewhat expansive internet presence: updating my website, posting on my Facebook page, looking at my ReverbNation and YouTube pages, checking my tweets, and of course, responding to emails. I am, after all Web Grrl: Version: eComposer.

The corner of my eye kept catching something odd. Something moving. Falling. On me.

I looked sideways, and saw nothing. I returned my focus to my work. Again, something almost indiscernible drifted within close range.

This time, I gazed up to the heavens from which each elusive UFO descended: the top beam of the high, cathedral cedar ceiling here in the living room. At first I saw nothing, but as my eyes adjusted, I began to notice old remnants of grey cobweb lace, laden with the lint of time. As I watched, small, occasional, dusty pieces gently made their slow motion plunge toward my shoulder. The light glanced each floating traveler as it passed through the air between me and its imminent resting place. It almost looked as though it was snowing lightly inside my home. It was oddly beautiful.

But what was causing this? Why was I suddenly being bombarded, albeit quite gracefully, with the detritus of spiders past? I’ve always made a deal with the creatures who pay no rent but squat in my abodes: you stay where you are, and I’ll stay where I am. Suddenly I was presented with evidence of a formerly magnificent, now fallen empire, crumbling to pieces around me. Very slowly. Almost imperceptibly.

[IMAGE] web music
Notice how the spider is squatting on the volume button. Is this a hint?

Perplexed but lacking a solution for changing this indoor weather pattern, I resumed my work. A minute later, I became aware of the loud, persistent buzzing of a bumble bee that had slipped past my velvet rope and gained entrance to this exclusive club during any of the numerous times I’ve opened the door wide to capture the smell of summer. The sound was coming from directly above me.

I looked up, and smiled. I witnessed a house cleaning service far more affordable and effortless than any I could have mustered: the bee was buzzing a path parallel to the top beam. As he made a…uh, bee line, from one end to the other, he cut directly through the old dangling pieces of web, thus setting them free to waft downward, finally released from their role as a prop for my depressing Miss Havisham moments.

Busy as a bee was he, reaching spots nearly 30 feet high that eluded my merely human-length arms. Wings are such an advantage. I note this daily as the gulls and eagles soar past me, reminding me of my earthbound limitations without the help of Boeing.

Later that evening, the house had grown silent. The buzzing and its accompanying weather system of lintfall had ceased. Before getting into my bed, located under the beam at the highest indoor elevation, I actually thought to check for a small fuzzy corpse.

The next morning as I reached down for my shoe, there he was. Still. My industrious worker bee had died in the line of duty. I picked him up and admired the soft fur, the transparent wings, and nature’s intricate design of jagged hooks and pollen-collecting mechanisms lining each little leg. I thanked him for his labor, and apologized for not having been able to return him to the outdoors, as I have so many of his within-reach brethren who’ve entered my living spaces. And I placed him for a while on a very special piece of quartz, where he was watched over and blessed by my favorite plastic Buddha. Everyone needs a little plastic Buddha for life’s transitions.

[IMAGE] bee and buddha /><br /> <span style=

So, all my mysteries of the day and night were solved. And, were I more entrepreneurial, a new business was formed: renting out large bees to people with cobwebs that need clearing! Surely there’s a market for this!
I’ll advertise on the web.