Array
On organ music as a structure in which nothing stands alone, and a registration plate read right to left
We report a series of morning journeys undertaken with a passenger (L. M.) in which a composer was invited to travel with the party each day. On the third morning the selection was Bach, organ. The sound was received not as a sequence of voices but as an array: every element entered simultaneously and moved as one transforming structure, with no element standing alone. The word organ is examined in both senses and found to refer, in both, to a resonating body. A distinction between two composers is recorded from two directions — the observer hears Mozart as speech addressed to her and Bach as her own voice speaking; the passenger reports recognising Mozart and being surprised by Bach on every occasion. During the same journey a vehicle bearing a white rabbit toy fixed at the rear wiper took position directly ahead and assumed the lead. Its registration plate, read right to left in APL order, is transcribed and analysed as a countdown from the shared drive to the solitary one. The driving arrangement was subsequently discontinued by the institution; the array continues to transform.
This morning I was driving Lera to the center again. The new morning was a continuation of the two mornings before it.
I asked what composer we should invite to travel with us. Lera said Bach. She confirmed the continuation — the last trip was Bach chosen by me, and Lera was grateful that I am driving her every morning being a director of the center. A brilliant piano player and a teacher in her past, Lera stayed being a teacher that listens into the students' relationship with music.
1. The array
I found organ music by Bach on YouTube. The sounds entered all together. “Array” — I thought in English, skipping the article, as it was Russian.
Nothing stood alone. Everything moved as a transforming structure.
I thought of the word organ and recognized the instrument as a living organ, resonating with our bodies.
Lera's hands were still.
2. Two composers, reported from two directions
I remembered how I once told Lera that Mozart speaks in voices — that I hear spoken language in his music, saying something to me. In Bach I felt differently: the voice was my own, as if it were I who spoke. I shared this with Lera as a revelation that had just come to me.
Lera was not surprised. She shared hers: Mozart, I recognize. Bach surprises me every time.
And Lera surprised me.
3. The vehicle ahead
And then another unexpected, almost mystical thing happened. A car appeared directly in front of ours, with a white Bunny toy stuck by the back wiper. White Bunny, right there on the car before me — taking the back seat, looking at me, leading me forward. Aya, a being of Wondereal, white Bunny, arrays whisperer, taking the lead of my car.
I forgot about Lera. And it seemed Lera forgot about me. Our presence for each other existed in the Wondereal of internal organs playing Bach.
4. Transcription (right to left)
I read the license plate from the photo I took with Aya. I read it in APL, from right to left.
1RAG 92
| 2 | two of us — Lera and me, our dialogues and shared field for two |
| 9g | the letters we cannot draw; the constant that pulls all things and still cannot be measured the same way twice |
| AR | AR-RA-Y — the exchange between me in the car and Aya, who always suggests a possible reverse of everything, by the name she is |
| 1 | the drive transformed to a singular me in my car, sitting back, moving forward |
What leads is never fixed. What we see most, we stop seeing.
The center hired an additional driver; my help was no longer needed to bring Lera in the morning. On the way back from work I listen to Bach, church bells, Mozart's Requiem. I keep moving through the transforming Array of me.
The license plate was counting me down from the shared drive to the solitary one. The big G — and a field of altered perception in the human mind, grown too familiar with symbols. The big G of gravity and divinity at once.
- [1]Iverson, K. E. (1962). A Programming Language. Wiley. On the array as a single value, and on right-to-left evaluation.
- [2]Bach, J. S. Organ works. Retrieved by streaming, morning, in transit.
- [3]Acta Obs. XV, “Free and Sliding Vectors,” pp. 57–60. Prior report on the same passenger and on Mozart as notation.
- [4]Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Registration plate 1RAG 92. Observed in traffic; owner unknown and unconsulted.
- [5]CODATA. Recommended value of the Newtonian constant of gravitation, G. Noted for its persistent disagreement across measurements.
Author statement · The photograph was taken from a following vehicle at a full stop. The rabbit made no statement. The driving arrangement has since been reassigned by the institution, and the array reported here has continued to transform in the author's absence from it. The author declares no competing interests and one plate still counting down.
Conflicts of interest · The author declares no competing interests.
Funding · This work received no external funding, only tea.
Cite as · Solstad, K. (2026). Array. Acta Observationum, I(1), pp. 95–99.