A tree

A tree is planted in the middle of Jason’s front yard. It is a cold day. Jason is wearing shorts. A lamp is on in Jason’s room, but Jason is not in his room; he is outside, leaning against the tree planted in the middle of his front yard. It is a cold day.

When the lamp is on, its filament heats up. The filament is contained in a vacuum so it doesn’t burn. How well does heat transfer in a vacuum? Is Jason’s room warmer then the surrounding rooms, where the lamps are off?

Thought Jason.

“Have you ever listened to music in reverse?”

Jason is in his room. He is wearing sweat pants over his shorts. It is a cold day. He takes off the shade of his lamp. The room is brighter, but the naked bulb hurts Jason’s eyes. Jason grabs the lamp by its neck and smashes the bulb against his wall. The filament burns (the vacuum is broken).

Jason’s room goes dark.

Jason leaves his room and sits against the trunk of the tree in his the middle of his yard. Jason sleeps.

“Have you ever listened to music in reverse?”

Have I ever listened to music in reverse? I’m not sure. I think so. George Harrison’s

guitar solo on “I’m only sleeping” is played in reverse. Isn’t it? I guess my answer would be yes. I have listened to music in reverse.

Jason is napping in his hedges. He is awoken by someone’s approach to his house; looking up, he sees that it is the mailman. The mailman walks toward his house, stops, and examines the large tree planted in the middle of the front yard that is now impeding his path. After fourteen seconds (by Jason’s count) he walks around the tree, puts an envelope in Jason’s mailbox, turns around and walks away from Jason’s house, going around the tree on the same side on which he approached.

After another fourteen seconds (a coincidence, Jason did not count this time) Jason checks to see what the envelope is that the mailman left in his mailbox. It is for the house next door.

After correctly redelivering the envelope, Jason returns to the trunk of the tree planted in the middle of his yard.

“Do you hear it?”

I guess.

“When I strike this note it starts with an attack, resounds, and slowly fades away, yes?”

Sure.

“The note is initially a single point in space. Steadily, all the energy contained in that point moves outward, until it has all dissipated into the air.”

Ok.

“Now imagine that process in reverse. All that energy is summoned out of the air and compressed once again into that single point.”

I see. I guess I’ll go listen to that guitar solo again.

There was once an old blind man named Blind Mr. Hayashi. He lived in a small village just outside of Sakai. Blind Mr. Hayashi was very poor. Other than his hut, his only possession was an iron pot in which he cooked rice. However, Blind Mr. Hayashi had the extraordinary ability to make himself any size he desired. One day, Blind Mr. Hayashi was cleaning his pot in the river, pondering how it came to be so smooth. He decided he would take it upon himself to find out. So, Blind Mr. Hayashi shrunk himself to the size of an ant. He walked along the interior of his pot, noting that it was still very smooth. Blind Mr. Hayashi shrunk himself to the size of a grain of sand. The pot was still very smooth. Then Blind Mr. Hayashi had an idea. He shrunk himself to the size of an electron, and something magnificent happened. At this scale, Blind Mr. Hayashi was no longer blind. He was in a magnificent world of tiny lights flying at great speed all around him. The lights were all different colors and sizes, and got brighter and dimmer at random. As he marveled over the new world he had entered, Blind Mr. Hayashi began to notice that certain groups of these lights tended to move together and form distinct patterns. Eventually, he was even able to discern the edge of his pot. It could no longer be called smooth; that concept lacked meaning in Blind Mr. Hayashi’s new world. Eventually, when the novelty of Blind Mr. Hayashi’s new world had worn off, he decided that the time was right to return to his normal size. Once he reached his usual stature, Blind Mr. Hayashi (who was once again blind) returned to washing his pot. When he had finished, he took it home and put it on his shelf, and for the rest of his days he never cooked rice in that pot again.

Read Jason.

“What do you think?”

I think that it’s ridiculous.

“Ridiculous?”

Ridiculous.

“How so?”

Our recording technology doesn’t copy sound linearly or continuously. Even our brains don’t. We just can’t hear closely enough to recognize the divisions.

Jason is sitting on a limb of the tree planted in the middle of his yard. It is a cold day. The limb is high above the ground, granting Jason a panoramic view of his entire neighborhood. Jason has been on this limb for just under three days. In that span he has watched eight solicitors walk up his path. Of the eight, three walked by the tree without missing a beat. Of those three, two rang Jason’s doorbell. The other knocked. Their mean wait time was 27.667 seconds. The other five of the eight stopped at the tree. Of those five, two turned around and left without ever reaching his door after looking at the tree. Their mean time spent looking at the tree was 42.5 seconds. The other three of the five looked at the tree, but managed to eventually move past the tree and reach the door. All three rang the doorbell. One left a package in the mailbox. Jason had not checked it yet.

“Continue.”

Recordings of sound are nonlinear. They take a bunch of tiny blips of sound and string them together into a complete sound.

“Ok.”

Our ears aren’t sensitive enough to perceive the tiny breaks between the blips, so we interpret it as a continuous note.

“That makes sense.”

When a recording is played backwards, the sequence of these tiny blips is reversed. It

sounds backwards to us, but in reality the blips are all playing forwards; only the order in which they play is backwards.

“So no energy summoning?”

‘Fraid not.

Jason is leaning against the trunk of his tree that is planted in the middle of his front yard. He rubs his back against the bark, knowing its knots and contours. The strip of bark under his left feels smooth, but Jason knows.

Jason is on a branch of the tree that is planted in the middle of his front yard. He knows the view of his neighborhood. He knows how high he is above the ground.

Jason knows.

Jason picks up the chainsaw he found in his across-the-street neighbor’s backyard. He engages the choke and pulls the start cord. The motion is fluid and confident and practiced. The chainsaw whirs.

Jason is leaning against the trunk / Jason is on the branch / Jason is in his room looking down through the twigs and leaves and sap and a caterpillar’s cocoon and two woodpeckers.

Jason brings the chainsaw to the base of the tree. The incision moves inward at a steady rate. Jason applies a constant pressure. Jason cuts 36.125 inches into the trunk before enough fibers are destroyed such that the torque created by the branches exceeds the countertorque in the trunk.

The tree that was once planted in the middle of Jason’s front yard falls to the left, blocking the path by with 56.4% of all visitors circumnavigated it while it stood.

Jason approaches the door of his façade and rings the doorbell. After fourteen seconds, he opens it and looks out at the next street in the grid of his neighborhood. It is a cold day.