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presents...
Time Travel Clyde
Good Idea.
MIDI Clyde Tunes™The great inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, was busy working in one of his many laboratories on a number of projects. Edison was the first man to invent, among other things, an invention factory. Apprentices and assistants would come from all over just to work with the great genius.
Outside the Edison Lab in Ft. Myers
Inside the Edison Lab in Ft. Myers
Edison already had a number of accomplishments to his credit, but was busy these days trying to create the world's first electric light. There were many skeptics, for the project had been tried numerous times before, by numerous other people, with no results. But the resourceful and persistent inventor was determined to succeed.
Thomas Edison, a persistent inventor.
He had good reason. Besides his hopes of making a huge profit, he was
greatly concerned about another problem. The popular Elizabethan game of "drafts"
(wherein people ran around the house opening doors and windows to blow out
candles) had become all the rage in 19th Century America and was causing
an epidemic of the sniffles. Edison reasoned that if he could invent a light
source that you couldn't blow out, then the game would lose its popularity
and disappear, and the sniffles epidemic would be ended. If he had been in
the pharmaceutical business, things might have turned out quite differently.
The problem with an electric light seemed to be that every known substance used as
a filament would burn up in a very short period of time, and as everyone knows, when
the filament on a light bulb goes, it's time to buy a new one. But, Edison couldn't
do that, since the stores didn't yet carry light bulbs. He was hoping that they soon
would be.
As he pondered the problem, there was a brilliant flash of light (not exactly
electric) and Clyde was catapulted into the middle of the lab by the infamous,
if errant, time rings.
The startled inventor blinked a few times at the cat (who was licking his paw in
an "I meant to do that" attitude), shrugged and returned to his work table.
Edison was used to the unusual, since he invented so much of it anyway.
Now, Edison was also a stickler for two things, punctuality and concentration. This
day, both were not on his side. A blast of cold air from outside alerted him to the
fact that one of his assistants was arriving late.
The great inventor (who was, admittedly frustrated by his light bulb experiment)
turned on the assistant and chastised him for being late.
"As punishment, you shall invent a way to wrap a piece of foil around a cylinder
without wrinkling it!" He barked and returned to his work. Everyone knows that
it is almost impossible to do anything with foil without wrinkling it, so the poor
assistant was hard pressed to please the angry inventor.
Clyde observed all this with his keen eye, but took no interest. He saw a piece of
thread lying on the floor, and he wanted to play with it. So he batted it around
for a while, chewed on it, and then finally managed to get it messed up with some
carbon dust that had been spilled on the floor.
Clyde and thread
The noise distracted Edison who, in a fury, turned around and bellowed, "This
is no place for a cat. Now either invent something, or get out!"
Clyde looked at him with his adorable eyes, and the inventor felt instantly
sorry. He bent down, patted Clyde gently, and took the thread away from him,
placing it on his work table. As he was working, he got the thread mixed
up with some other materials, and placed it into his electric light. When
he applied the current, the bulb shone dimly, then more brightly, as if it
were going to burn out, but then, it stabilized and shone steadily. The inventor
was ecstatic. He had done it! It never occurred to him that Clyde had actually
done it, but even if it had, Edison probably wouldn't have given him the
credit.
Edison's Electric Light
All the assistants, except the poor fellow working on the foil problem, gathered
around to admire the new invention. The bulb burned brightly for hours, in fact,
it only stopped when the battery went dead. Edison knew he had the invention of the
century and predicted that soon, everyone would light their homes with these things.
He was, of course right. He also made a fortune. So it goes.
Anyway, while everyone was busy staring into the light (and developing those strange
dark spots in their vision that come from staring into a bright light for too long),
Edison's wife, Mary, came in carrying a huge megaphone and a picnic basket. The cold
breeze from the open door caused Edison to turn around.
"What have you got there?" He asked her.
"I brought you some snacks. Oh, and this is my megaphone from rowing practice."
She replied.
"Mary, it's 32 degrees outside. What were you doing rowing in this weather?"
"Practice makes perfect, you know that!" She giggled.
"Well, put that down and come here and see my new invention." Edison encouraged
her.
Fate is a strange thing, especially when Clyde is around, and two things
happened at the same time at this point.
First, that poor assistant with the foil problem had decided to put his cylinder
in a lathe and turn it slowly, pulling the foil around it evenly. He was on the right
track, but had not entirely disengaged the lathe's cutting knife, so it tracked across
the cylinder as it turned. Only, he didn't notice this.
The second twist of fate came from Clyde. As Mary was going to see Edison's light,
she noticed Clyde sitting on the floor, and forgetting herself, stuck the megaphone
in the first convenient place, which just happened to be the lathe cutting knife
handle.
She cried out in wonder, "Who is this adorable little cat?", and bent down
to stroke Clyde.
Clyde, an adorable little cat.
In the meantime, the hapless assistant went on working, totally ignoring
the megaphone on the lathe cutting knife, and Mary, after admiring the electric
light, but sensibly not staring into it for too long, prepared her little
snacks for all the members of the lab.
She had brought their favorite, english muffins and preserves. That's when fate intervened
again. Mary was quite proud of her preserves (they had won prizes at fairs) and was
piling them onto the muffins when Edison turned around, noticed, and bellowed sarcastically:
"Mary, have a little jam?!"
Everyone stopped and stared, and Mary, a bit embarrassed, hastily began putting the
preserves back in the jar.
"Oh, never mind about that now." Edison remarked. Then he noticed the late
assistant, nd bellowed: "Have you solved my problem yet?"
"I think so", said the assistant, who had an uncanny resemblance
to the great inventor, Nikola Tesla, creator of "Tesla Foil".
The late assistant (who looks remarkably like Nikola Tesla)
Edison marched over and looked. "Remarkable." He admitted. "How
did you do it?"
The assistant explained his idea, and demonstrated by turning the lathe. It came
as quite a shock when they all suddenly heard from the thing the faint, but audible
words, "Mary, have a little jam?!" in Edison's own voice.
The entire group gathered around the contraption, and in a few minutes figured out
what had happened. Edison stood up and slapped the assistant on the back, saying,
"I'm proud of you, my boy!" (He always gave credit where credit was due,
especially when bill collectors came to call.)
They all worked through the night, had plenty to eat thanks to Mary's generous helpings
of preserves, and by morning, the newest invention was perfected, the Phonograph.
Some phonographs (and yet, not stereo--how odd.)
Well, now that they had the phonograph,
all they needed were some tunes for it. They pondered the problem for a while; tried
to decide which was most marketable, Classical, Jazz, 19th Century Rock&Roll,
and got into a loud argument. Then Mary interrupted them.
"Sshh," she whispered, holding her fingers to her lips, "Clyde is
sleeping."
The inventors were so deeply touched by the sight of the adorable sleeping
cat, that they quickly gathered around their scientific instruments and arranged
them so they could play and sing Clyde a little lullaby. Unfortunately, scientific
instruments aren't very musical, but, as everyone knows, necessity is the
mother of invention. They blew across the tops of test tubes and bottles,
clinked on glasses, and hummed, to make their music.
Edison recorded all this on his phonograph. That famous recording had been lost until
Clyde revived it through MIDI on the Internet. It is now here for you to hear. You
can even sing along, Clyde copied down the words!
Lullaby Clyde - Original Arrangement
played by whatever MIDI synth is on your system.
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NOW for a REAL treat! Hear the SAME tune played by the beautiful XV Orchestra!
It will open in a little window so you can click on this main window and
read the words!
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Lullaby Clyde Who's that resting, on the sofa, on his pillow, on his chair? |
After playing the music, scroll down to continue playing the
game.
Don't see a controller? Check out Clyde's MIDI help page.
The rest, they say, is history. Unfortunately, Clyde got absolutely
no credit. But he did hang around for quite a while, as Edison recorded his
memoirs on the new machine, and occasionally listened to a few tunes. Poor
Edison, he spent the rest of his life working on a completely unsolvable
problem, even for him.
How to get Clyde off the table.
Thomas Edison was the first person
in history to record the words:
Follow Clyde back to his Home page
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Copyright © ClydeSight2.0! - 1997
