Raquel Explains Everett's Thesis

Raquel's explanation of Everett's Thesis isn't at all scientific, and yet it offers hope that in some adjacent universe, quite similar to this one, I am a rich and famous writer of science fiction. What follows is an excerpt from THE NAOMI VERSION, a novel which I continue to believe (no matter how obscure, or indeed, Utterly Unknown, it may be) is nevertheless worthy of your consideration.

Raquel Explains Everett's Thesis

“So,” he said, “Tell me about Hugh Everett’s Thesis. And remember, I’m not a real professor—so talk slowly, using words of one syllable, or even fewer.”

“Oh, it seems complex—and of course it is—but to describe it is easy. You remember that the margins between energy and matter are rather indefinite. Quanta appear to be either waves or particles, depending on when you look. It’s embarrassing, because physicists measure things—and yet it's measurement causes the confusion. For our purposes it’s just an analogy—a reminder not to be dogmatic about things we don’t really understand.”

“So,” she continued, “We have the analogy of Schrödinger’s famous cat. It’s in a box. Is it alive, is it dead? We don’t know. Like quanta which have not yet been observed, we say ‘It’s in an indeterminate state.’ The only way to know is to look—but also like quanta—looking is what causes the cat to live or die. Forgive me, Jack, I’m not a physicist. I’m sure a great deal is getting lost in translation.”

Jack nodded, “Sure. No problem.”

Reassured, she continued, “So Everett tells us it’s not a question of whether quanta are particles or energy, or whether the cat is alive or dead—but a question of which reality you are talking about. Cats don’t exist in an indeterminate state—so it must be alive in one reality and not the other—and both realities are co-existent. It’s the same for quanta.”

Jack laughed, “I see. That makes it a great deal clearer.”

She waved her hand impatiently, glancing around for another analogy. There was a chess set on a side table. “Here,” she said, placing it between them, “Let’s suppose I have chosen white, a slight alteration of the state of the universe, since I might have chosen black. If I had, we’d have a different game. The evening would turn out differently—and everything that follows from it would be different.”

“Maybe that would be best,” Jack said.

She shook her head. Having started, she did not intend to let him off easily. She picked up a white pawn, “In this reality, we do play. I am White. I make the first move—P-Q4—or wait, maybe P-K3—but no, perhaps a Knight move would be best. In each case the history of the universe is slightly altered. A trifling difference, but who can know what the ultimate effect might be? Perhaps catastrophic, like that butterfly in China whose flapping wings cause a hurricane in Cuba.”

...

“Anyway,” she continued, “We are sitting here at the chessboard—and suddenly the North Star goes supernova, or not. We are showered with gamma rays, or not. Your children are born with stripes, or not. You answer with a Pawn move, I move a Knight. You spill your drink, I rub the blister on my heel, or not, or not, or not.

“O.K.,” Jack said, “I think I’m with you so far.”

She sat for a moment frowning, and biting her lower lip. The pawn she held had gathered a cosmic weight of gloomy consequence. She replaced it carefully it in its original position. At last she continued, “Every moment of every day, everywhere in the universe, events occur which alter reality. And think of the magnitude of it. There are probably a hundred billion stars in this galaxy, and a hundred billion galaxies, or so. Can we seriously believe that none of them has a planet identical to Earth where two people named Jack and Raquel are having a silly conversation that avoids the ultimate question? There must be millions, and that’s just our Universe.”

“Good grief.”

“Yes. But Everett’s theory suggests that there are other universes, that reality is not just this way, but all possible ways—an infinite number of worlds, created in part by our own choices. You and I are certainly on some of those other worlds, making still other choices.” She looked at him seriously, compelling him not to scoff, “This isn’t any weirder than cats who are both alive and dead.”

He nodded, “O.K.”

She waved at the chess board and continued, “So, of course I didn’t make just one opening move. In all possible worlds, I’ve tried all the possible openings, and you’ve made—or will make—all the possible responses. And beyond the chess board lurk infinities of possibility from which our poor, finite minds select what we need to spin stories from darkness.”

...

They walked to the streetcar holding hands ... As they came around the corner of the building they saw the streetcar stopped a block away. They hurried to the platform. The bell on the streetcar clanged. It started slowly forward, and then accelerated, approaching their stop at an almost alarming speed. She gave him a hurried peck on the cheek as the car came to a stop and the automatic door opened. “We all like to be called,” she said as the door closed.

“Wait!” he said, “What was the question? The one they were avoiding on Andromeda?”

But the door had closed so he did not hear her reply.

__________________________________

[O.K. So much for the excerpt from the work published in this dimension--but to further illustrate the fact that possibilities are endless, consider a scene cut from the published text.] 

__________________________________

Later that same evening, or perhaps in another Portland in some alternate reality, Raquel wakened from a nervous dream. She was filled with sleepy remorse, aware that her explanation had been stupid. Reality was nothing like chess. Chess was just a contest of human skills and attention. There was nothing to it really, a checkered plane with alternate squares and equal resources. The rules were so simple that, unless ‘White’ made a mistake, it must always prevail. 

In centuries of play great masters had discovered all the best opening moves, and other masters had figured out the most effective responses. Even beginners could soon learn and remember the best ones. What was the point of inventing other openings? Why not set up the board with those moves already played? 

And other people (Nabokov, she remembered) imagined intricate and surprising end games. ‘It’s only in media res,’ she thought, ‘… where we always find ourselves … that any doubt exists. The great chess masters remembered entire games, and even a dull-witted computer could win at chess, given time to anticipate, and memory to recall, all the games that had ever, or could ever, be played. Anticipation and memory would thus become the same thing. Mistakes would be impossible and White would always win. 

Jack, caressed her shoulder… “What? Did you say something?”

She flinched, startled out of her half sleep. 

‘Oh God!’ she was naked, a little cold, and Jack lay behind her, also naked but radiating heat like a dwarf star. How did he get here? Awake now, she recalled her flirty kiss as the streetcar approached, ashamed to remember her playful tug on his shirt collar. ‘Oh God,’ she mourned, ‘So blatant! I must have been drunk.’

He’d followed her into the car, and up the hill to the University stop. They had crossed the Park Blocks arm in arm to her apartment, their embrace anticipating everything to come, which (she now recalled) was both the cause and effect of his presence in her bed. He kissed the back of her neck, lifting her hair to kiss her behind her ear. She shivered. His left arm slid from her shoulder to caress her breasts.  

She slapped it, then clutched it to her chest, like a valuable possession. “No Jack!” she said, and as urgently as they had earlier made love she apologized, “I was wrong. I lied. About Reality. It’s not like chess.”

“Oh? What’s it like?” he asked, sleepily.

“It’s different. It’s more complicated.”

“O.K. Tell me tomorrow. I’ll be here.”

That night, elsewhere in the city, and in all possible Portlands, in this and other universes, lit by uncountable multitudes of moons, other lovers made other choices. Things that might have gone one way, went another, but in the morning, their worlds appeared much as they had before. A few might understand how everything was new and different, but fewer still would remember their other options, or have any notion of their other lives continuing in different directions in other present times. 

The Works of 'Desiree Cayenne'

I live in a neighborhood blossoming with female writers. Cheryl Strayed lives just down the street, and Whitney Otto around the corner. My friend, Pamela Lindholm-Levy, who lives a block or two beyond Ms. Strayed, has recently published 'Count the Mountains' an interesting historical novel about life in early Colorado.

It must have been all these shining examples that caused the pseudonymous, 'Desiree Cayenne' to seek my help in publishing her stories.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm a writer." she said. "I need to express myself."

"So?" I said, "The stories are already written, or you might say 'already expressed'. Publishing is different. Everybody and her Aunt Jane are publishing books. Amazon can't give them away fast enough."

"I don't care about fortune. I want to be famous."

"That's just silly," I said, "You're so shy even your best friends don't know your real name."

"Sorry. You're right. I don't want to be famous--I want 'Desiree' to be famous."

"So... You prefer to remain infamous."

"Ha... Ha... Ha..." she pretended to laugh. "Very funny. Are you going to help, or not?"

Sure. Why not? Desiree's books include the slightly risque, THE GARDENER'S APPRENTICE, written for women who can dare to contemplate sex and humor in the same story. She is also writing the slightly more advanced, FRANKIE HILL, for senior members of that same tiny demographic.

They were originally published at $2.99, because, as her publisher, I couldn't figure out how to  make them cheaper--and (alas) $2.99 does not appear to be the right price. At least, none of them have ever sold. I feel a bit sorry for her--no artist of her calibre should be living under a bushel.

I will cheerfully send you a copy in e-mail form, for free, if you express a sincere interest in helping Desiree become famous.

A Memorial Day Expedition

I am nearly 80 and don't travel much. My four brothers range downwards in age from 78 to 68. Mostly grizzled, overweight and arthritic, we resemble rejects from a Duck Dynasty casting call. I live on the West Coast. The other four live in Northwest Connecticut where we grew up.

A few weeks ago they visited Gettysburg. Here are a some (lightly edited) excerpts from my next oldest brother's "after-action report":

***

"We left early Wednesday A.M. with enough bottled water, snacks, trail mix and granola for a ten man expedition for a month.  It is my belief that our respective spouses hoped we would take the hint and keep going until the food ran out. We made several coffee stops--also anti-coffee stops--and did walk-arounds to keep muscles and joints loose, but still made it to Gettysburg by early afternoon. We did a drive-around to get oriented, putting the first day's action behind us. Second and third days were misty, foggy and rainy, so we drove around checking all Connecticut monuments, stopping long enough at Gen'l Sedgwick's* monument for a late afternoon toast of Bourbon to our local hero (also a few after dinner Bourbons back in our rooms.) Early to bed--early up. Lingered over breakfast. Rain stopped long enough for an extended stop at Little Round Top and the Devil's Den--a place of hollow feelings and heavy, ghastly whisperings, a place where I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure my brothers were still there and alright."

***

"Having done the battlefield from both sides we spent the end of the day at the Cyclarama, still a good show. The visitor's center is new since I was there last and the mural has been cleaned. The book and gift shop was a disappointment--music wasn't much. I have more in my collection. ... The great part was having a picture taken with Abe. Nice guy. Did the cemetery--stood in an area not quite on the spot where he made his address. National Cemetery next to busy road--mowers going--people all around--but five steps through the gate a mighty hush and quiet surrounds you--a peaceful feeling, not the haunting feeling of Devil's Den, or the staging area for Pickett's Charge."

________

They continued on to Antietam, where they were pleased to discover the postcards were not only cheaper than those at Gettysburg, but on sale for half price. They walked along the infamous Sunken Road whose "... empty, haunted feeling is equal to Devil's Den." ...

________

The writer and I were in the artillery together nearly 60 years ago. Our battalion was the spiritual descendant of the storied "19th Connecticut Heavy Artillery"--recruited from the same Litchfield hills. Many of our fellow troopers bore the same surnames as their ancestors of the '19th'. 

My brother sent me an artillery badge, and remarked: "We spent a bit of time at the staging area of Pickett's Charge, looking at topography and feeling like targets, knowing every Union cannon was trained on that sector. I know I couldn't have moved my feet for a few steps, let alone a mile of open ground." 

I was there, too, several years ago, except at the top of the ridge where the defenders were entrenched. Many of them were said to have wept for the futile sacrifice of Pickett's Division. I pitied them too. It was an ill considered attack, which no amount of tragic gallantry could make otherwise. 

I am not one of those who despise the Confederate battle flag or would topple their commemorative statues. They were Americans, too. They, too, gave "the last full measure of devotion". Looking down that hill, and imagining my brothers looking up, I cannot believe a single one of Pickett's troops charged that hill to preserve slavery. It must have been the furthest thought from their minds. Like all soldiers, they fought for their homes, and their families, for the fellow next to them, and the honor of their units. It is not for us, one-hundred fifty years later, to attribute ignoble motives to their sacrifices.

________________

"A long shower, a good meal, a night's sleep and then home...  I am still eating snacks and trail mix."

________________

* General Sedgwick was born about five miles from our home town, a contemporary of our great, great grandfather. A graduate of West Point, he was commander of Sixth Corps (including several divisions of the Union Army.) Considered an excellent officer, he was loved by his troops who called him "Uncle John."

Regrettably for his reputation, his all too famous last words were, "Don't worry boys--they can't hit a barn door at this distance."

Mansfield Park, the (almost entirely predictable) Conclusion

Avid readers may recall a recent blog post in which I complained about Miss Jane Austen's tedious build up (some 37 chapters or so) to the resolution of Mansfield Park. She did go on about it--but that was the point. Country life was a maddening reiteration of similar days, followed by tea.

Who wouldn't have wanted a little amusement? Some amateur theatricals perhaps? But (apparently) they were immoral--so we knew what the end must be. We ought to have braced ourselves for it. But lulled into a stupor by thirty-seven chapters of Fanny's life as a poor relation--we weren't quite prepared for divine retribution.

We fully expected the eldest son to be stricken--and stricken he was, but Miss Austen fooled us by not entirely disposing of him. Almost fatally chastened, he was kept alive for the sole purpose of preventing his younger brother, Edmund, from inheriting the title, thereby forcing Edmund to become a Church of England clergyman (notwithstanding the absolutely conclusive arguments of his would be girl-friend, the beautiful and wealthy Mary Crawford, against it.)

But Edmund doesn't care about her, really. She's too worldly and ambitious. She actually hopes his older brother will die so Edmund can become the Baronet (a social rank once described, as '...neither a gentleman nor a lord...' but still, not bad, compared to being a Church of England clergyman.)

Never mind--she'll get over him--because she's got what it takes to succeed in London--beauty, money and the kind of low morals that can't see any objection to amateur theatricals.

And the rest of them must be similarly dealt with. It's like a family gathering in Afghanistan, thirty-seven chapters of boring, and suddenly, for hardly any reason at all, a drone strike!

The eldest daughter is chivvied into marrying a complete idiot, because he has the big bucks. She can't take it for long, however, and soon has a torrid affair (we assume 'torrid' although it happens in London, beyond our horizon) with Henry Crawford, the very same amateur thespian who is either trifling with, or in love with, Fanny. [He is the brother of Mary Crawford, who is either trifling with or in love with Edmund, Fanny's cousin. Try to keep up!]

Fanny's other cousin, Julia, elopes with the other thespian, Mr. Yates, pretty much a 'no-good' although not charged with anything except acting. Julia is thereby doomed to spend her life with somebody completely 'ineligible'

It's all rather shocking, but it is interesting that divine retribution, which takes the form of grotesque marriages of convenience, scandalous divorces, elopements and general degradation, should also be the reward of virtue, for (as we had long suspected) Fanny marries her cousin, Edmund, dooming themselves to a cheese-paring life in the Parsonage. Happily, they were so virtuous we can assume a sexless marriage, thereby avoiding further genetic damage to the ruling class.

Having brought you to the end of Mansfield Park I am obliged to confess that I cheated a little. Just to be sure I finished the story in my lifetime, I got the film, starring Frances O'Connor. It was quite good. Film Fanny is a bit more 'gamine' than Book Fanny, but all the more charming for that. At a brisk 112 minutes, the film must be about 900 minutes shorter than the book--cutting away a vast over-burden of subtlety--much of which we could do without.

They could have cut another 10 or 12 minutes by leaving out scenes, totally without any basis in the book, suggesting that Sir Thomas tortured and raped his slaves.

But who knows? We can't assume much from what Miss Austen leaves out of her stories. Maybe, in 1812, all Baronets with sugar plantations were known to be rapists--so that the film people felt obliged to clarify what Miss Austen considered common knowledge.

As for the veiled sexuality, Austen was a country girl. She (and Fanny) knew where the kittens came out--and how they happened to be in there. As absurdly innocent as her heroine appears to us, Fanny lived in an age when adult women were pregnant half their lives, and babies were born at home. It wasn't a mystery--just another unpleasantness which, in books at least, could be avoided.

Reading Miss Austen

I've been reading Mansfield Park. Last week I read Sense and Sensibility.

There is something to be said for Miss Austen's story (she only wrote one, apparently.) She noticed everything about her characters, and brought it all to our attention. Her story has given rise to many excellent movies, and her detailed explanation of her character's feelings must be a great aid to the actors assigned to play them.

The movies are much to be preferred to her books, where characters of the utmost delicacy speak to each other in full paragraphs (sometimes several paragraphs at a go) made up of sentences whose brilliantly chosen words, are arranged in four or five clauses each--so that, on a Kindle, you are likely to lose track of whether you are still at Mansfield Park, or perhaps at Downton Abbey, or some country parsonage, where more or less identical characters are agonizing over the same dilemma ('three thousand a year' versus 'true affection'.)

It is no wonder that Americans consider the British upper classes (as depicted in British fiction) twits and poltroons, redeemed only by our envy of those high-waisted Empire gowns and the libraries and stables of their country estates.

It is hard to believe that Britannia ruled the waves for the satisfaction of Miss Austen's characters, that India had to be enslaved, the Welsh forced to mine coal, the Irish to dig canals, so that these mannered fellows, and their tiresome women, could fuss about their amateur theatricals, send starving poachers to Australia, misuse their poacher's daughters before ousting them into the streets, thereby condemning their bastard children to miserable (but, hey! at least they were short) lives as annoying street 'urchins' (albeit less annoying, because less frequently encountered, than their recognized children, confined to nurseries until exiled to school, there to be buggered by upperclassmen and whipped by sadistic Masters, with only the 'heir' (and possibly 'the spare') having any hope of enjoying life thereafter.)

All fiction, we are told, is about conflict, but never in the course of western literature have so many excellent words been devoted to such trivial agonies, or so dexterously avoided genuine human suffering. It makes us reflect upon how much of our cultural heritage is owed to 'markets'. Austen's stories exist because there were Austen characters, no doubt wearing high-waisted Empire gowns, to read them.

Their half-siblings (the 'street Arabs', pick-pockets and prostitutes) were illiterate and penniless. No use addressing their reality, and certainly not in sentences of twenty-seven carefully chosen multi-syllabic words, divided into several subordinate clauses.

Who knows how much Miss Austen knew, or even suspected, of those darker realities, but Mansfield Park, no matter how boring and lengthy, rings truer to our ears than Dickens. Maybe her keen sense of how much conflict would be plausible to her readers is the reason we prefer her.  Or perhaps it is the absence of special pleading--that pervasive, suffocating social consciousness, by which Dickens constantly abjures us to 'feel' for his characters--who nevertheless remain paper dolls. 

Miss Fanny Price's dilemmas, the trivial problems of a poor relation, what to wear to her first ball, how to politely reject an unpleasing suitor, how to deal with her hots for her first cousin (the boring and priggish Edmund, a second son and a C of E clergyman, the only fates worse than the guillotine) are amazingly 'real' by comparison to Mr. Carton's nobility.

I'm just beginning Chapter 37.

Still over twenty to go.

Not sure I'll make it.

From Bath to Schuyler Springs

If you escaped a meaningless life in a dying town in upstate New York, you might hate Richard Russo's latest novel, “Everybody's Fool”. Still, you'd have to laugh. That's how good a writer Russo is.

In this version of small town America the characters from “Nobody's Fool”--are ten years older, the men even more feckless, the women still grimly capable, still despairing (several of them in and out of the madhouse at Utica, and no wonder.)

Like the Greeks at Ilium everyone is subject to the random torments of the Gods (these days, 'luck'.) Sully, the unhero of 'Nobody's Fool' (played by Paul Newman in the movie version) has become rich through no virtue of his own, while the venal building contractor, Carl Roebuck (played by Bruce Willis) is now poor.

Otherwise they are the same as they were. Sully remains a loiterer in life, hanging around, no use to to his family, no longer appealing to his lover. He's dying, and suffering (fleeting) regrets for the damage he has more-or-less unintentionally done, in his unintentional life.

Roebuck is also the same, an incompetent contractor, a chiseler and cheat, but now his wife has left him, taking all his money. He has remained behind in Bath, a city with an inferiority complex. The mayor, a former academic (by definition, incompetent) has hired Carl to restore an abandoned spa, the relict of a previous era of hubris when Bath tried to copy Schuyler Springs, a sparkling place where tourists take the waters, watch horse racing, eat rugula, and do whatever the just must do in heaven.

It is somehow reassuring to find Sully and Roebuck still at it, although, as in real life, the heroes of one story are the subplot of another.

This story belongs to Police Chief Douglas Raymer, a laughingstock who ran for office on the misprinted, slogan “We're not happy until you're not happy.” He is grieving the death of his wife Becka. In her haste to leave him last year she slipped on a throw rug and tumbled downstairs 'like a slinky'. He found her folded up on the bottom step, neck broken—together with a note urging him to forgive her and to 'be happy for us'.

He's possibly the only person in town who doesn't know which 'us' she meant.

He has a clue. An electronic garage door opener was found in her car—an opener for somebody else's garage. The problem for adulterers, in Bath as elsewhere, is not so much time and opportunity, as discovery. Small town neighbors are likely to recognize your car, note that it's parked on the wrong street, and draw the correct conclusion. Solution: borrow your lover's garage door opener. Dash inside when nobody's looking.

But can the Chief of Police go around town trying the opener on everybody's garage? Not very dignified, maybe not even legal. And what good would it do? The right garage might not even be in Bath. The Chief's assistant, a typical Russo female, more intelligent, sympathetic and devious than any male, suggests Schuyler Springs. Alternatively, she says, the same opener might work on a dozen garages. Becka's dead. Let her go. Get rid of the opener.

It's a dilemma, and dilemmas were never Chief Raymer's strong point, even before he got so depressed and confused. Did things get worse when he fainted at the funeral of the local Judge, falling into the grave, losing the opener under casket? Not really.

Did they get better when he persuaded Sully and Carl to dig up the grave to find it? Of course not, things always go from bad to worse in Bath.

There's lots more. There's an ex-con with a list of people who need to be paid back—including BITCH (ex-wife), MAMA BITCH (former mother-in-law) NIGGER COP (the elegant Jerome Bond, or as he puts it, 'Bond... Jerome Bond') SULLY himself, and OLD WOMAN (a former teacher, ten years dead, who haunts the men in the story, asking them to think.)

There's Sully's friend 'Rub'--a man barely within the definition of human, yet filled with longing and devotion, and his counterpart, Sully's dog (also named 'Rub') the world's most disgusting canine.

There's murder and mayhem.

Any reader who has made the hard slog from Bath to Schuyler Springs might spend most of the book as confused as Chief Raymer. It's not so much that you can't go home again, it's more a question of 'Why would you?'

Except ... it's so funny.

High Notes at High Volume

I spent the afternoon at the Portland District Metropolitan Opera Trials. It was fun—but I don’t know if I can promise cyberfriend Marion Stein (see her blog Idiots at the Opera) another Met star any time soon. Angela Meade, the songbird of Centralia, won this competition a few years ago, so Portlanders brag that we discovered her. However, I’m sure she must have been featured in other singalongs long before she appeared in Portland’s ‘Lincoln Performance Hall’. 

The winners this year were Daniel Ross, a young tenor from Salem, Oregon, who has sung in various venues across the country—and Felicia Moore, a soprano from New Jersey who is scheduled to sing ‘First Lady’ in Portland Opera’s production of Magic Flute. Congratulations to both of them. 

I can't argue with the Judges—they were both fine singers. I’m happy to say that I, too, awarded them winning scores in my own inexpert ratings system. I allow up to five points for singing, and five more for presentations that don’t irritate me. The flaws in my system are that I know almost nothing about singing, and am easily annoyed by overacting. However, the system is apparently precise enough to recognize winners. 

I was less successful judging the four ‘encouragement awards’. I agreed with two of the four choices, Ksenia Popova, a Seattle soprano, and Abigail Dock, a Boston mezzo. I also would have ‘encouraged’ the other tenor, Aaron Short, and another mezzo, Jena Viemeister—both of Portland. I particularly liked Viemeister who is a student in the Portland State University opera program. I hope she sticks with it, and I wish her success. She should do well, particularly at the lighter end of the opera spectrum. 

You noticed my phrase, ‘the other tenor’. As usual, there were six times as many women as men. The three men were ‘the two tenors’ mentioned above and a counter-tenor (the first live one I’ve ever heard.) No baritones. No basses. I guess all the potential male opera singers have opted for rock and roll. Who can blame them—learning opera is difficult. 

Acoustics is another subject I know little about—but I wonder if our venue is soprano friendly. Our 'Lincoln Hall' is all hard surfaces and seems awfully ‘lively’. It’s also a small fraction of the size of New York’s. All that resonance, combined with high notes at high volume, and it wasn’t long before I was experiencing soprano overload. Maybe a larger hall, with softer surfaces, would dampen some of that excess, and give a more accurate reading of how they’d sound at the Met. 

Anyway—I generally found the mezzos more pleasing—and I guess I generally do. 

There was a woman sitting just to my right who tapped her program on her knee, not quite on the beat. It reminded me of the wonderful opening scene in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, in which Dr. Maturin (as yet unacquainted with Captain Aubrey) sits next to him at a concert. Maturin finds Aubrey’s tapping so irritating he challenges him to a duel. Fortunately, the Captain apologized and they became lifelong friends. 

I thought about this—and resolved not to slap her upside the head.