Apex Magazine Issue 132 by Apex Magazine

Author:Apex Magazine [Magazine, Apex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: apex magazine, Magazine
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

-Zoey.

Dear Maestra Zoey –

* * *

SteamZoey is a doll. And I love most things about SteamWorld.

But I can’t convince her to study music.

We have argued about it again and again at Café LaFortuna, which has a cappuccino machine that looks like a steam-powered pipe organ and belches out cups of coffee at the rate of a zillion a minute. The café doesn’t play opera or any music for that matter. Our conversations were punctuated with hisses and grunts from the cappuccino machine.

You see, music here is the provenance of the disreputable. The louche and debauched.

I didn’t believe it until SteamZoey took me to the Nickelodeon to watch a documentary about their version of YoYo Ma. He lived on a commune in rural Oregon and operated a sex cult involving psychedelics and minimalist tone poems he played on his cello. Oh, and he ran a multi-level marketing scam selling music recordings that he said would bring success in both money and love, but basically was a pyramid scheme. The Feds got him in the end for defrauding his customers and tax evasion. (He’s now in a high-security prison and not allowed to touch a cello.)

“But Lincoln Center is right across the street—isn’t that where you attend concerts?” I asked SteamZoey.

“Concerts?” She snorted laughter. “No one would dare to play music there! Lincoln Center is comprised of lecture halls. Inventors and scientists come from all over the world to speak.”

Unspoken in our conversations was an underlying belief that conducting a symphony orchestra represents the apotheosis of culture; that we were following a demanding and exclusive calling requiring heart, precision, and mental dexterity.

But SteamZoey’s job also requires heart, precision, and dexterity, yet she steers her trolley from a cloistered compartment at the back of the trolley car, unseen by her passengers. She collects tickets and doesn’t complain when passengers are rude or grumpy. No one applauds her, but she makes sure her passengers get to their destinations safely and smoothly.

I’m a jumble of questions and emotions because SteamZoey is making me doubt whether I or you embody the “ultimate Zoeyness.”

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