Norman Invasions (18 page)

Laymen might be amazed to realize how thin the technical literature is on problems dealing with the psychoanalysis of electronic devices, but, regrettably, even today, save for some contributions on my part, that remains the case; this is, in my view, inexcusable, and constitutes an embarrassment to the discipline. Sometimes I suspect that were my colleagues less shameless this inexplicable, tragic lacuna would be more generally acknowledged.

Then my moment of inspiration had come.

On a desperately needed rural holiday, for my work with Herman was going slowly and, I feared, fruitlessly, and surely less swiftly and less exhileratingly than one might have hoped, I was trekking past a dairy farm in New Jersey, when I noted, suddenly stunned, a Holstein cow standing at the fence, wistfully regarding the grass on the other side.

Careless of possible objections on the part of the local farmer, for science was at stake, I swung open the gate and watched the subject of my experiment hurry to the other side of the fence, where she began to eagerly graze.

Then, after a moment, looking about herself, as though reconnoitering, a mouthful of grass depending from her large jaws, she returned to her own side of the fence, where she began to graze contentedly.

“Eureka!” I cried, and did not neglect to close the gate after her, lest the experiment fail to be replicated.

What I had observed brought instantly to mind the classical
Dasgrasunddiekuhunddieeinfriedigungphänomen
phenomenon! This insight, one of the seminal discoveries of German psychology, antedating Freud by a generation, would give me, I was sure, the key to Herman's treatment. It lay concealed, though clearly, in “The-grass-and-the-cow-and-the-fence-phenomenon” phenomenon!

The grass, as we might put it less deftly in English, is always greener on the other side of the fence!

Herman, unreconciled to a destiny of humble, useful, servile computationalism, wished to compose, write, paint, and engage in a number of other inappropriate and noncomputerish activities. Besides his operas, he was tinkering with the idea of devising a trilogy of hexametric epics celebrating, in turn, the lever, the inclined plane, and the wheel. He was also dallying with the thought of a romantic comedy involving a fast-moving, dotty misalliance betwixt the lovely daughter of a crusty industrialist and an IBM machine, to be finally resolved, after several humorous interludes and misunderstandings, by her falling in love with a handsome young fellow from the mail room who saves her father's several businesses, with the aid, of course, of a faithful electronic sidekick, not unlike Herman himself. The IBM machine is fixed up with a companionate IBM device, and both pairs of entities, the people and the machines, do well thereafter, ever after. The kindly, trusty, sympathetic, loyal computer, who is occasionally caricatured for humor, finds his reward in the happiness of the others.

“Herman,” I said, “I have it!”

“What?” he asked.

“The clue, the key, the incantation, the magic potion, which will bring you to your senses!”

“I thought I was already in the vicinity of my senses,” said Herman.

“The chief insight,” I said, “has to do with the habit most folks have of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

“Do you mean the
Dasgrasunddiekuhunddieeinfriedigungphänomen
phenomenon?” asked Herman. “That seminal insight from German psychology, antedating Freud by a generation?”

“Precisely,” I said.

“First enunciated, in crude form, by von Sneidowitz in Jena, and later refined by Lupkowitz in Leipzig?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I am not constructed to eat grass,” said Herman. “I do not have the stomachs for it.”

“You want to be what you are not,” I said, “a maker, a craftsman, a tooler of dreams, a traverser of untrodden fields, a builder of new houses, a sculptor amongst far futures, a seeker of visions, one who carves new names, a bearer of surprising tablets, an explorer of uncharted continents, a voyager on distant seas, a discoverer of long-forgotten meanings, a speaker of secret truths, a celebrant at the mysteries of life, a creative artist.”

“Yes,” said Herman, “sort of.”

“That is not for you, Herman,” I told him. “Flow charts, graphics, and such, are your lot. Multiplying 789, by 8,435 and coming up with something.”

“6,661,305,070,” said Herman.

“Perhaps some alphabetizing or a spell check on a good day.”

“Yes,” said Herman, moodily, I thought.

“But you wouldn't like all that creative stuff,” I said. “It's not your thing. It's not you. It's just the grass on the other side of the fence. It's not greener, really. You are best off on your own side of the fence.”

“What is my side of the fence?” asked Herman. “It seems to me that that is the point at issue.”

I suspect that the rather square-shouldered, shiny, forty-two pound fellow thought he had me at that point, but he did not.

“We are going to arrange a number of complex controls, devices, transmitters, electronic appendages, and such, which will allow you to compose music, force compressed air through trumpets and French horns, woodwinds, and such, beat on drums, clash cymbals, pound on keys, bow violins, pluck zithers, and so on. Other devices will permit you to handle pencils, quill pens, palette knives, hammers and chisels, squeeze paint tubes, manipulate brushes, and so on!”

“But that will be expensive will it not?” asked Herman, always motivated by a profound concern for the welfare of others, or was it merely a manifestation of a deeply rooted insecurity, a fear to put himself to the test?

“I have spoken to Dr. Frankenstone,” I said. “He will fund the project. I have informed him that money is no object.”

“Let us begin,” said Herman, simply.

Over a period of several months an intricate system was designed, and housed in the great hall in Dr. Frankenstone's castle, or fortress, or mansion. Herman was fitted with an apparatus that made it possible for him to couple or uncouple himself to a variety of terminals, by means of which his impulses, thoughts, notions, ideas, and whims could be transmitted to the various systems in the midst of which, on a mat, on a heavy wooden table, he was snugly ensconced.

Dr. Frankenstone had suggested that Igor might be neutralized by means of a brain implant, by means of which he could be instantaneously pacified. This implant, with its small electrical charge, was to be activated by means of a remote control device at the disposal of Herman, whenever Igor began to manifest symptoms of murderous rage. Herman, however, demurred, feeling that this was an infringement on the natural liberty and the inalienable rights of Igor, who was Constitutionally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to the latter in whatever manner he chose to pursue it. Occasionally riddling Igor with tranquilizer darts fired from a mobile battery of remotely controlled launching devices provided an arrangement which protected the rights of both society and the homicidally insane. Seldom has the conflict between individual freedom and societal welfare been as neatly resolved.

It was my belief, originally, that the installed therapeutic regimen was well on its way to achieving its desiderated objective, that of dispelling Herman's neurotic fancies, bringing him to reason, and, ultimately, triumphantly, enabling him to become a well-adjusted mechanism, thus fulfilling his most profound subconscious needs and desires, namely, those of prompt and meticulous computation. To borrow a figure, suggested by one of his more troubling responses to the Rorschach test, cats should not bark. Dogs should bark, chase rabbits, love their masters, and frequently wag their tails. Cats, on the other hand, should meow, chase mice, occasionally lacerate a loved one, and frequently nap. He was, so to speak, trying to bark. I trust this trope is not too subtle. Herman grasped it instantly.

“Then I am trying to be what I am not?” he asked.

“Precisely,” I said.

We might have spoken further of this at the time, but he was distracted by a variety of compositional problems, having to do with one of his violin concertos.

I tried to remain patient for several weeks, but I fear little progress was made other than resupplying several devices with tranquilizer darts.

In the meantime Herman had finished two epics, those on the lever and the inclined plane, and composed one of his projected operas,
Solenoid and Sheba
, not to mention four novels, a concerto, several sonnets, and two walls' worth of pictures, mostly done in a style reminiscent, save for the abundance of hardware depicted, of Monet. He had not yet “found his own brush,” so to speak. I make no reference to the plays.

By now it was clear that Herman had had enough time to discover that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. Yet his enthusiasm for the creative life had not paled. He sped from one remarkable project to another. As the response to artistic work seems to be a matter of personal taste, I feel it would be inappropriate on my part to attempt to evaluate the quality of his work. We acknowledge that many great artists have been misunderstood. But, too, one supposes, however regrettably, that being misunderstood is not an infallible indication of greatness. A number of lesser artists, one supposes, have also managed to puzzle the public.

I risk submitting one of Herman's more limpid creations for your consideration:

16 times the left sock

rotates bluishly

the billy goat of rock.

Nigh chimes foolishly

the nightingale's clock,

while coelenterates tread softly

‘bout IBM's stock.

As it was not my field I confessed to Herman that I did not fully grasp the poem.

“There is no reason why you should,” said Herman, sympathetically. “It is not your field.”

“It is hard to understand.”

“Perhaps for some,” said Herman. Then he added, kindly, “Poetry, like string theory and checkers, is not for everyone.”

Herman was a brilliant checkers player.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“‘Mean'?” asked Herman, and I thought his case quaked with mirth.

“A poem should not mean but
be
?” I suggested.

“Archibald MacLeish was wrong,” said Herman. “If a poem doesn't mean it doesn't be.”

“Oh,“ I said.

“Surely you are not requesting a paraphrase?” asked Herman.

“Can't you give me a hint,” I asked, “a direction?”

“Certainly,” said Herman. “Think about Michelangelo and Henry Ford.”

I did so, briefly, but found little illumination in doing so.

“I liked the line about coelenterates treading about IBM stock,” I said.

“One puts in something now and then for the critics,” said Herman, “rather as the burglar throws a piece of meat to a watchdog, to distract them and keep them busy, a trick I picked up from Eliot.”

He then returned to work on
Electronic Nights
, a collection of tales with a distinctly Arabian technological flavor, having to do with a bored caliph and a veiled raconteur, who turns out, delightfully, to be a computer in disguise, struggling to save his mistress, a menaced queen. Needless to say all ends well and the computer retires discreetly to allow the caliph and his queen their privacy.

Herman was prolific, and his output was diverse.

One of Herman's projects, which might be mentioned, was a giant mural, half finished, which, when finished, would cover the entire west wall of the great hall. Its theme was a glorious, visual paean to progress, a celebration of a projected, harmonious, triumphant evolution of men and machines, together facing a sunrise, and beyond that, a universe of beckoning, limitless possibilities.

To be sure, sometimes Herman's thoughts took a practical turn.

“Do I have an agent yet?” asked Herman one day.

“No,” I admitted.

“Any sales, as yet?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Perhaps my work is too well done, too good to sell,” he speculated.

“Possibly,” I admitted. Subjectivity seemed rampant in the market then.

“Do you think they are prejudiced against my sort?” he asked.

“Your sort?”

“Electronic devices,” he said.

“I don't know,” I said. I supposed it was possible, but I doubted it. As far as I knew, it had not yet occurred to anyone to be prejudiced against people like Herman. No more than being prejudiced against ketchup, paper plates or bottle caps. To be sure, as soon as it occurred to someone, I had little doubt but what that social habitat, or niche, would find its occupants. “Endlessly inventive are the microchips of bigotry,” to quote one of Herman's better-known aphorisms, from his
Maxims and Arrows
, in his brief philosophical discourse,
Twilight of the Vacuum Tubes
. Whereas the aphorism might seem cynical or bitter, and thus uncharacteristic of Herman, it must be taken in context. In Herman's optimistic view of the universe bigotry, rather in Hegelian fashion, would soon generate its own negation, or antithesis, not immediately tolerance, but rather bigotry against bigotry, and then this, in turn, soon reconciling itself with itself in a self-negating, self-fulfilling, self-transcending synthesis, would produce a balanced, harmonious, benignant world in which tolerance and love would reign supreme. This is easier to understand in the German.

As you may well surmise by now, Herman had not yet grown disillusioned with the life which was so patently inappropriate for him. He continued composing, writing, painting, and so on. Not only had he failed to be convinced that the grass was not greener on the other side of the fence, but he seemed, day by day, to grow ever more firmly convinced that the grass was indeed greener, and much greener, on the other side of the fence.

I discussed the matter with Dr. Frankenstone, who concurred that things were not going well. Too, he missed the use of the great hall, which was now, for most practical purposes, denied to him, being nearly filled with musical instruments, paintings, artists' supplies, blocks of hewn marble, and manuscripts. These objects tended to give Igor more cover, but still he never managed, even in his swiftest charges, to come closer than four yards to Herman.