In the minutes of stunned silence that followed the
unveiling I searched hurriedly for both logical and illogical explanations.
Was it something extrasensory? After all, we were neighbors. Could it have
been some form of paranormal transfer of long-wave electrical impulses between
two brains within a few blocks of each other? No! Not pseudoscience! I had
spent too long in science's harness to entertain that idea.
More time went by as I made sure of the kinship between rock and wool. Then,
tentatively, in unsteady voice, I asked Mary Ann Moraga how she had come
to construct such a weaving.
The mystery quickly melted away in an anti-climax. For
her weaving, she explained,
Moraga had numerically encoded and colorized one of the choral fugues from the Well-tempered Clavier and had woven the musical composition into the tapestry.
The yellow patches in the cloth, my beds of halite and times of extreme dry climate, were the voices of the chorale.