(2023-01-31) Sloan In The Stacks Maisies Tune

Robin Sloan: In the Stacks (Maisie's Tune). I’m a librarian, so of course I was picking melted plastic out of the 3D printer when I heard the news that Maisie Martin had died.

Maisie was dead, so it was time, at last, to break down the synthesizer.

The Big Red Synthesizer is, by contrast, unique. Before it was Maisie’s instrument, it was my headache.

The synthesizer’s markings, “VCO” and “VCF” and “LFO,” were as inscrutable as an ancient tablet

There was, as far as I knew, just one patron who understood the use of the Big Red Synthesizer, and her expertise made up for all our ignorance. Maisie Martin, 83 years old, was a virtuoso.

Maisie kept a schedule. Wednesdays were library days; synthesizer days. After being delivered by a young chauffeur, she would walk slowly to the front desk and sign her name in the studio logbook, her handwriting smooth and elegant

For a piano, you write a song. For a synthesizer, you invent a patch. I have been working on my patch.

there would, for twenty or thirty minutes, be silence. Maisie was plugging the right cables into the right jacks, rebuilding her composition.

Every Wednesday, she built her patch, nudged it along, broke it down. Every Wednesday except for one.

It was the library’s policy that you should leave the studio as you found it

Maisie needed no such reprimand

I should have known, therefore, that it was a Wednesday unlike any other—that the world was about to change—when, at the end of the day, I poked into the studio to turn off the lights, and found the synthesizer still wired up.

DO NOT DISTURB
UNTIL PLAYED FOR
KING OZY

When she missed her appointment the next Wednesday, it confirmed the feeling of dread that had settled around the synthesizer.

I searched the internet, and my master’s degree in library science did not fail me. King Ozy was a real person, a music producer whose “glitch grime” genre was quickly becoming the sound of global pop music

How might King Ozy (real name: Ousman Colley, age 34, resident of London) be contacted?

my colleague Marcus’s eyes narrowed. Gears ground in his head. He was the library’s youth program manager, and also its voice on social media. “Let me try,” Marcus said.

Two days later, at an hour chosen for its balance across time zones, Marcus posted, to the library’s account on a fast-growing algorithmic video platform, a short presentation that featured the Big Red Synthesizer as its star.

His phone began to vibrate. The prophet had foreseen it

Two million people had watched the video, which wasn’t the most ever for a Lawrence Public Library joint—Marcus was good at his job—but it was a lot.

Then, finally: he appeared. Early in the morning—late at night in London—the badged and verified @KingOzy arrived in the comment section, and there, he rendered his judgment:

Marcus appeared at my desk. The prophet’s eyes were bugging out of his head

“He wants Maisie’s number,” Marcus panted. “HE WANTS TO CALL HER.”

King Ozy came to Lawrence

King Ozy visited Maisie in her hospice

*“Where have you been hiding all this time?” Ousman Colley asked her. “We could have been making records ten years ago, gal.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Maisie said. “I was learning.”*

*“Why'd you want me to hear this?” King Ozy asked, quietly. “Me, of all people?”

“I’ve been listening to your music for years,” Maisie said. “It’s wonderful. The muses speak to you*

King Ozy's track In The Stacks (Maisie’s Tune) was released in October, and Maisie was alive to hear it. She nodded along to the beat, said she liked the lyrics. Detected the classical allusions.

Maisie Martin died in November, while I was picking melted plastic out of the 3D printer.

I sat staring at the Big Red Synthesizer. I didn’t know how to take apart a patch. Was there a prescribed sequence? Testing, I wiggled some of the knobs, none more than a degree. The sound wavered, seemed to grow sharp or murky in ways that were mysterious but appealing. I wiggled again.

I pulled one of the cables out, and with a gentle pop, the brassy peals went silent. It seemed tragic; impossible. But the patch had to go. The teens, having heard the celebrated sample on King Ozy's knockout track, now expressed guarded interest in learning how to use the synthesizer

Another cable came out, and another. Now, only the high, flute-like voice was left, dancing across those arpeggios. Maybe this part was Maisie’s own voice

I lowered the volume, rose from the stool, turned off the lights, and shut the door. Maisie's tune would play through the night.