William Gaddis - J R

— In this way, she led him, raising the folds of a many-colored sari to pick her way over the maze of cables, into — an intimate medium, it really is, because when you look into the camera you’re looking each child right in the eye, she said flashing him a blacked sweep of hers over a shoulder. — When I’m on camera, I just keep repeating to myself I am speaking to a single child. I am speaking to a single child, over and over. That’s what makes it intimate… She stopped abruptly in the shadow of a stage flat so that he ran up against her and discreetly lowered his eyes from the caste mark that had begun to run on her forehead, past the distinct lashes, nose shadowed retroussé and white teeth, to come up short on a gape in the sari where her brassiere strap hung errant and anomalous. — I do my own makeup but these are my own eyelashes, I’m naturally dark, she said, taking his attempt to withdraw his hand as provocation to hold it in both of hers. — You see, I am a talented woman, Mister Bast, who has never been allowed to do anything… Somewhere a bell rang but she held him in an instant longer, with peristaltic reluctance let him slip away — in there, we’ll look in there first. It’s where the director monitors the programs.

On the screen was Smokey Bear.

— pledge as an American to save and faithfully to defend from waste, the natural resources of my country, its soil and minerals, its forests, waters, and wildlife.

— The youngsters find it reassuring, said Hyde looking up from Smokey Bear. — Like seeing a commercial.

— Yes, in terms of implementing the study material, Whiteback continued as his guests came to rest on the small sofa under their litter of cameras, coats, pamphlets, brochures and notepaper, — into a meaningful learning experience…

— a series of collapsible pipes, called the intestines…

— Thirty-seven thousand five hundred, came Pecci’s voice from the inner office, — for legislative services rendered in conjunction with proposition thirteen on the referendum on pay subscription televis, you’d better call me back on this…

— of America, the free enterprise system, and man’s modern industrial knowhow, have forged a two edged sword which at one fell swoop has severed the barrier between…

— What’s that?

— The American flag, said Mister Pecci joining them, glittering at the cuff.

— Oh, the film. It’s on film, a resource film on ahm, natural resources, Mister Hyde’s company was kind enough to provide…

— What America is all about, said Hyde standing away from the set with a proprietary air. — What we have to…

— To use, or rather utilize…

— like the iceberg, rising to a glittering peak above the surface. For like the iceberg, we see only a small fraction of modern industry. Hidden from our eyes is the vast…

— Gibbs? Is that you? Come in, come in.

— No, don’t let me disturb you…

— Yes come in, we have some people here from the Foundation, Whiteback insisted. — Their Program Specialist Mister Ford… An arm rose from the clutter of cameras, — and Mister Gall here. Mister Gall here is a writer. Mister Gibbs here is the what you might call chief cook and bottle washer on our science program and… doing a fine job, yes. Mister Gall here is getting material together on the Foundation’s whole in-school television support program, Gibbs. They’re going to publish it in book form.

— Bitten off quite an assignment, Mister Gall. I imagine you need all the information you can get, said Hyde abruptly threatening him with a thick brochure from above. — I just happened to have this research report with me. It’s a pretty good rundown of long-term operating cost estimates on closed-circuit cable setups, compared to what you run into trying to carry a full lesson load on open-circuit broadcasting. I picked it up to show the Senator here, Congressman, Pecci…

— energy still locked in the vast shale oil deposits beneath thousands of barren mountain peaks jutting from the sea of the public domain, two thirds of the stete of Utah…

— Structuring the material in terms of the ongoing ahm, situation yes, on Mozart’s, ah, Ring, is it?

— I noticed something here… Mister Ford spoke for the first time with the commanding indifference of an old-school drawl, running his finger down a catalogued list — here, The Rhinegold is it?

— Oh, you have one of our schedules, we… having trouble locating one, this use of, utilization of…

— Schepperman?

— Schepperman? Yes well he, ahm, it was his idea originally. This doing this Ring, before he, before we replaced him. He, ah, painted, taught painting, that was before we replaced him of course, a little trouble over the loyalty oath provision…

— Little? Mister Pecci repeated, opening pinstripe over his glittering tieclasp in a campaign gesture. — Like being a little bit pregnant, eh?

— Yes well of course the, on the cultural aspect of the arts we have a studio teacher now, Whiteback came on at the brightness control, — a video personality that motivates a really meaningful learning experience in these youngsters…

— Everybody has a laughing place, to go, hol hol

The face of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart shimmered on the screen.

— To go hol hol

— Here she is now yes, I think she taped this audio part, introducing this, music appreciation this is, in terms of closed-circuit capabilities this…

— In terms of tangibilitating the full utilization potential of in-school television…

— Something for the pit and something for the gallery, murmured Mister Ford.

— Making the artist really come alive for these youngsters. Humanizing them, the artists that is to say, motivating…

— Warm bodies…

— Today, boys and girls…

— Who’s that?

— The Mozart. It’s…

— No. The voice…

— fairy tale life of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Even his name, Amadeus, or in German, Gottlieb, means beloved by the gods…

— Remind me to call him later, about the fire sprinklers, Whiteback inclined toward Hyde in undertone.

— Call who.

— Gottlieb, about the fire sprinklers.

— darling of the gods, this little Peter Pan of music who never really grew up, a real life fairy tale that takes us from the glittering courts of Europe to a scene in a great thunderstorm. There’s even a mysterious messenger of death in this tale, filled with magic and enchantment…

— That’s not Dan, is it? the voice? muttered Hyde, as the camera shuddered down the spangle-decked embroidery of a sleeve to fingers drawn poised on a keyboard.

— apple cheeks, dressed in silks of lilac and gold, was barely seven years old when he played for the court in Vienna and the Emperor called him my little magician. In Naples the superstitious Italians even made him take off a ring he was wearing, to prove it wasn’t a magic ring that gave him his magical powers…

And in response to a querulous growl from Mister Pecci the still picture on the screen gave way to a face staring directly at the viewers, glistening with perspiration.

— playing and composing music since the age of four. By the time he was fourteen Mozart had written sonatas, a symphony, even an opera…

— This is our, our composer in residence, Whiteback blurted with what sounded like relief. — He’s been working with our ahm curriculum specialist she thought he needed, must have thought he needed exposure to the ahm, to do a very fine job of course we have you Foundation people to thank…

— rich people who commissioned work from artists and gave them money. Mozart wrote beautiful music for his patron until he left the Archbishop’s house to marry a beautiful girl named Constanze. Later Mozart told a friend, when my wife and I were married we both burst into tears, and that shows us what a really human porson this great genius really was doesn’t it boys and girls. His wife’s name Constanze means constancy, and she was constant to her dear childlike husband all the rest of his, of his, his cheap coffin in the rain that…