Essay #20 for Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar


	The Essay
Show #20 He's Here!
	David Gunn

The room was small, cool, and dimly lit from guttering candles on the table. Griffins and unicorns ornately embroidered on a huge tapestry that covered one entire wall shimmered in the light. Strange hieroglyphs or runes were painted on the table, on top of which sat a crystal ball, both reflecting and absorbing light from the candles. Leo and Emma stood nervously in the room, their hands locked together. The door opened and a small woman in a dark robe entered and closed the door behind her. "I am Margaret," she said simply. "Please sit down, and do not be afraid." Leo and Emma sat down in the two hard, straight-backed chairs in front of the table. Margaret stood before them on the other side of the table and slowly placed her hands an inch above the crystall ball. She closed her eyes. The loud noises from outside suddenly abated, and Leo and Emma were aware only of the sound of their labored breathing. "I see ..." Margaret began, "white. All around you, white, bright white." Leo and Emma leaned forward, expectantly. "But a dark cloud is coming. Dark, menacing. I can't see from where, but it's coming, it's ..."

Suddenly, a sharp rapping emanated seemingly from the crystal ball in front of them. "He's here!" hissed Margaret. "Who?" Leo and Emma asked, "who?" But before Margaret could reply, the door abruptly burst open and a veritable frenzy of bright white light and deafening noise poured into the room ... along with something else. Leo and Emma shrieked and fell out of their chairs, and Margaret fainted. Moments later, the door swung shut, and all was again quiet, except for the rapping. Margaret sat up groggily. "You've just had an otherworld experience. That'll be two dollars, please."

Yes, it's Kalvos & Damian's New Music Sesquihour Expansive, today celebrating the 162nd anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest spiritualists of all time, Margaret Fox, who grew up in a haunted New York farmhouse and later toured with P.T. Barnum. She invented the seance and its modern corollary the nuance, and was the first sentient being to communicate to the spirit world via rappings. This, in turn, led to an early fascination with rap music, a musical idiom which Kalvos & Damian will pay tribute to today for the next ten seconds. (rap music) Rap music, new music not normally espoused on the New Music Sesquihour Expansive.

Today is Episode 20, for which we award ourselves a lovely silver anniversary tea set. Next week we'll have part four in the "Best of the Sesquihour" series, in which we present listenable snippets from episodes 16 through 20. A week later, October 21st, the playoffs will commence with snippets from 1 through 5 competing against 11 through 15, and 6 through 10 going head to head against episodes 16 through 20, and the winners of those matches will face each other the week thereafter, January 3rd, I believe, to determine the Sesquihour's first Best-Of Champion, and also win a lovely prize, which will be ascertained at a still later date, probably in June.

Today, October 7th, is also the Feast of the Rosary, or Le Flambeau Oriange, and here in the studio today we'll be sampling a box of chocolate rosaries, sent in by the Margaret Murray O'Hare Culinary Institute, thank you.

This part of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Sesquihour Expansive is brought to you in part by the unrecorded portion of last week's New Music Sesquihour Expansive, which will be rebroadcast at a later time due to extenuatingly technical difficulties well within our control but, until this very moment, not.

And now, to bring all of us up to date on current sporting events and how they relate to the big musical picture which we have hanging over the couch in the other room, I bring you Kolvas.