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theswiftarmy · 4 years

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#16 – It’s Like Eating Chips (Or If you’re British Like Emma Watson Is, It’s Like Eating Crisps)

The front door of the The Spaceship opened on its own allowing entry to Ariana and Justin. Oak Felder’s voice boomed out in a pre-recorded greeting, ‘You may enter if you dare!!! Mawahahahaha… Welcome aboard The Spaceship my friends.’

“Hello?” Ariana called into the house, usually a Defender would immediately appear to greet a new guest, but Ariana had been coming in and out of the house all morning so when she looked into the facial recognition camera to unlock the front door, the Defender on duty approved the door open request without giving it a second thought. Ariana and Justin stopped in the main entranceway. She put the cat cages down and unhooked the latches, opening the cages, letting Sushi and Tuna run free.

“You can’t just let the cats out!” Oak appeared with two Defenders by his side.

“Well the cats are out of the cage now and there’s no going back, besides they don’t want to stay all cooped up in those cages—Can you blame them?”

“I guess not.” Oak acquiesced. “Unfortunately, I don’t have litter boxes.”

“Yeah but you have some potted plants, that’s probably fine.”

“I’d prefer they didn’t soil the plant soil—I’ll have one of my defenders stop to get kitty litter and food for them, they are already at the store anyway, we needed more sandwich bread. “ Oak smiled. “Come along, we’re all in the kitchen we were about to make lunch.”

As they entered the kitchen Scooter, Scott, a few Ariantors and Defenders sat around a large table.

“He doesn’t look too good.” Scott said as soon as he saw Justin.

“That’s what I said!” Ariana agreed.

“Bruh, you look like crap!” Scooter echoed.

“I’m fine.” Justin replied annoyed. “Nooo, he’s definitely not.” Ariana snapped her fingers in front of his face. He barely flinched.

“I’m just going to take a wild guess here, Justin, but, I’m assuming this is related to Taylor’s masters going missing—“

Ariana stared down Scooter. “Can we focus on Justin’s wellbeing first before we start the interrogation?”

“I messed up, guys. I’m sorry, okay? I really… messed up…” He trailed off again.

Pop Wansel walked over to him and looked into his eyes, “I think he’s infected with an earworm.”

“An earworm?” Scooter inquired. Dropping the accusation against Justin and focusing on fixing him.

“Yeah, Scooter, you know, a catchy melody you can’t get out of your head!” Ariana schooled him.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I know about them. The songs that get billions of plays from a handful of listeners because they listen to it on repeat, over and over and over again.”

“What was that you were saying yesterday on the helicopter about catchy music…” Scott said contemptuously, chiding Scooter.

Scooter shot Scott a look that said, ‘well played’ and at the same time ‘you’re a jerk’.

“Hmm, this seems different. I don’t think this is your usual run of the mill earworm that eventually goes away on its own. This looks to me like a sonic warfare earworm—Earworm warfare.“ Oak disappeared for a few seconds then returned with a strange device. He held it up to Justin. “Sing the melody into this.”

“What’s that?” Ariana asked.

“It’s like a breathalyzer for how strong the earworm is inside. It goes from One to Ten. One means we can just overwrite it with another catchy tune. But, Ten? Well, Ten means he’ll need to find an antidote song.”

“A what?” Scooter inquired getting up and walking over to get a closer look at the device.

“Well, it’s a song that cancels out the earworm. It’s like… Hmm… being stuck on a ex. Until you meet that next one… You can’t move on, or at least it’s really difficult. It’s a lot easier when eventually meet someone new that sparks your heart and suddenly, you’re cured. Out with the old earworm, and in with the new.” Everyone agreed, because who hasn’t been stuck on an ex, and if you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. There’s nothing worse than still being into the memory of a love that was and no longer is, there’s probably a Taylor Swift lyric about that. I’m sure there’s a Taylor Swift lyric about that.

“Well, if he’s just got a song on repeat in his head, let’s just play him something else. Just knock it out of there!” He made a baseball bat swinging motion then pointing to the stands, calling his shot.

“No, Scooter. That wouldn’t be wise.” Wansel said in a very serious voice.

Oak shook his head. “Well, with a sonic warfare earworm, you risk making it worse if you play the wrong thing. It’s a bit like… Okay, have you ever heard of Steganography?”

“I have” Scott replied.

“No, what is it?” Everyone else said.

“It’s a hidden message in a picture. But you could apply it to music. It’s like the song is communicating with the mind, if you just pulled or pushed it out, you risk side effects, since the brain has kind of remapped its networks around the song.”

“I don’t get it.” Ariana replied.

“Did you know that in 2013, when Katy Perry released her Prism album the Capitol Records building blinked out ‘Katy Perry. Prism. October 22nd, 2013.’ In Morse code.”

“No way.” Scooter said astonished by the Felder factoid.

“Really?” Ariana added.

Oak nodded. “No one noticed because they thought it was nothing more than a blinking light on top of the building—and, technically, that is also true. If you had scanned the nighttime Los Angeles skyline with your eyes back in 2013, you would have just said… ‘Oh, look at that cool light’. And, if you had stopped to look at it, you would have taken in the message—” Oak lowered his voice, “-even if you didn’t know you were.”

Ariana looked at Oak. “SO Katy Perry was broadcasting a secret message that no one ever knew about?”

Oak continued, “In a way, yes. Although, a few people knew. Katy knew. Capitol Records knew. But most people who saw it had no idea. Sure, they saw the light blink in a specific way and it’s likely their brains recognized the pulses had an order to them. The brain is programed to attach to patterns. So even if you didn’t know the message was there, you may have been mesmerized by the cadence of the light. Your brain would have picked up on the pattern and started working on it like a puzzle. The thing about it is THAT light on top of the Capitol Records building ALWAYS broadcasts a message, just, usually a different one. It has been sending secret messages for decades, the word of choice, ‘Hollywood’. In fact, when the building opened in 1956 Samuel Morse’s granddaughter Leila Morse enjoyed the honor of turning the light on for everyone to see. From that day on the code was broadcast, secretly, out into the world for anyone who dared to look. An Easter egg, if you will.“

Everyone leaned in closer, captivated by Oak’s impromptu kitchen TED talk. “Music is a bit like Morse code, but more elegant, smoother. The brain enjoys music; the patterns are comforting, especially when they contain repetition. Repetition in music is what really hooks your brain in. Repeating melodies and lyrics, the mind loves that. Morse code is a series of dots and dashes but it also contains repetition because letters and numbers repeat within words and words within sentences. Morse code can be represented in anything that can stay on or off for a long or short length of time, just like a quarter note, versus a whole note, it can travel through anything that emits light, or sound, or electrical energy, just like music. It travels down a wire, or through the air as a radio wave. It transmits information by way of those letters to sentences to entire paragraphs that have meaning—Because there’s repetition when a letter repeats. There really could be code in any flashing light, or beeping sound, for all we know. Just as any song could potentially contain an earworm. But there’s no way to know that until you hear music, your brain connects to it, it understands, it remaps your mind, or at least changes your emotion, minor or major key can make you feel happy or sad with the melody, slow tempo, or fast tempo. Music changes your state of emotion, it fires off neurons—Makes you form memories in different ways. It’s a language, really. A connector. The earworm works on the same premise as the Taylor sound. But in a different way—It’s not derived from the egg sound we experienced last night, it seems to come from something else.”

The Carlyle Lawyer nodded slowly at Oak.

Oak continued, “The earworm is derived from musical composition—Katy Perry’s Morse code on the top of the Capitol Records building, like the lyrics in her song, it chains you to that rhythm if you sit there and stare at it long enough, we all become chained to the rhythm—whereas the Porter Pyramid Easter Egg comes from the production and engineering of the recording itself, the sound that we couldn’t hear. Music is essentially math, a math it is still a language. As I said, you can hear the happiness in major key, and sadness in minor key, and that alone is enough to change your thoughts—”

“Okay, that was a lot of words you said there, and I’m not sure I understood it all. I have to be honest, I’m not sure any of us really understood it. So, Oak, can you simplify what you’re trying to say?” Scooter shuffled back to his seat at the kitchen table.

“Well, how about this, the wrong tune could wipe his mind out completely. It’s like a Trojan inside his brain. If he were to hear the wrong song, it could blank his mind. Almost like how a computer virus can wipe out a hard drive.”

“Well damn. Sucks to be you dude. ” Scooter said to Justin.

“Scooter!” Ariana screamed.

“What? I mean, that definitely sucks—Sorry, it’s just hard empathize with someone who defected from the group.”

“That’s not fair, Scooter, and you know it. He had to get his cats back from Taylor.”

“I just feel like maybe giving up the masters should have been a last resort and not a first one.” Scooter crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well maybe we should have given YOU up, Scooter.” Ariana said angrily.

“Okay. Everyone let’s just chill out a little here… I think we’re all getting a little hangry. My Defender should be back from the store any minute and then we can make sandwiches.”

“Fine.” Scooter and Ariana said in agreement.

“How about, for now, let’s do a quick hands on experiment that will help us better understand the earworm and solve our hanger issues at the same time.” Oak motioned to a Defender wearing a chef’s apron. He passed out bowls of chips. “Everyone, eat some chips.”

They began to eat the chips.

“It’s like eating chips, or if you’re British, like Emma Watson is, it’s like eating crisps.” Oak said in a teacher’s voice.

“Have you ever had that discussion with someone from England? It gets really confusing.” An Arianator said to another.

“Oh yeah. It’s super confusing, you’re like chips, and they are like crisps and then it’s like, I just want some fries! OMG.” The other Arinator said back.

“Let’s bring our focus back to the chips.” Oak said, smiling at the two Arinators sitting on the far end of the table. “Okay, so, tell me what you hear?”

“Umm, it sounds like crunching.” The first Arinator said.

“Exactly, but you also hear me talking, right?” Oak continued his lesson.

“Yeah. I hear you and crunchy chips in my head.” The second Arianator replied.

“These are good chips, where you get these from?” Ariana asked.

“Umm, I think they’re Trader Joes.” Oak said getting up to find the bag.

“I LOVE TRADER JOES!” Ariana said excitedly.

“How could you not?” Scott said jumping on the bandwagon.

“I know right?” Ariana bit into another chip.

Oak brought the bag over to the table and placed it in the center. Scott reached for the bag to inspect it. “You know I’ve got a good dip that would go with this—“

“Scott, no.” Oak slowly shook his head back and forth.

“Fine.” Scott whined.

“Okay, so, the crunching noise is in the foreground and all of us talking to one another is in the background.” Oak went back to his teaching voice.

“Yeah.” The Arinators said in unison chewing another chip, also in unison.

“Justin… Is that similar to what you’re experiencing?” Oak turned to Justin, seeking confirmation for his experiment.

Justin stood for a moment listening to the melody in his mind. “Yeah… But without the chips part.”

“Well, that’s because you’re not eating any chips.” One of the Arinators pointed out.

“I don’t know… I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat Justin.” Ariana said, concerned.

“I’ll eat a sandwich when we make sandwiches, okay?”

“You promise Justin?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Ariana turned back to her bowl picking up her last chip, “I wish we had these chips last night! I was sooo hungry. Oak, you had chips the whole time and you didn’t tell us!?”

“Well, I didn’t want to have to vacuum.”

“Don’t you have Felder Fenders for that?” Scooter asked between a few bites of chips.

“They don’t vacuum… It’s in their contract.”

“Weird.” Scooter replied eating another chip.

“It was something I was willing to let go of in negotiations. It’s all about give and take as a hiring manager. It’s hard to find people that want to work in an underground spaceship! Which is weird, because if you ask me…. An unground spaceship would be my FIRST choice.”

The front door opened then closed again in the distance, the shopping Defender arrived back from the store.

“Wait, everyone, this is soo cool! Check this out. I put an effect on a Snapchat video I’m recording of me eating chips. I’m gonna do one of those ASMR postings of me eating chips.” One of the Arianators sitting at the table said with a mouth full of chips. She held her phone out and fiddled with the camera and app filter settings.

“No, don’t do that.” Scott said shaking his head.

“Why? What’s the big deal?” The second Arianator said back to Scott.

“Taylor could be watching us. I think it’s a good idea not to post anything for now. She might be looking for updates on Justin’s whereabouts.” Ariana took the hint from Scott and soothed his fears taking her Arianators under her wing. “Better to put the phone away.”

“Ohhh, you mean Taylurking?” The first said.

“I think you mean twerking?” The second one started to fight with the first.

“No. Taylurking, it’s when Taylor lurks on her fans’ social media accounts.”

“And how would you know about that?” Scooter questioned the Arinator, suspiciously.

“Oh, umm, it’s just a thing that everyone knows.” The Ariantor said defensively.

“We didn’t know.” The Lawyer said, in a low and ominous voice.

“It’s just a thing, honest, like… a lot of people know about Taylurking. It’s really not a big deal, honest.”

The group stared at the Arianator.

“Fine, I won’t post anything. I didn’t realize I was still living at home with my parents.” She begrudgingly put her phone away and then stuck her tongue out at everyone.

#taylor swift #taylurking #chips #crisps #capitol records #katy perry #justin bieber #arianators #asrm #oak felder #trader joes

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