Page 195: Shakespeare speaks!

Having been discovered, the hand behind Hamlet Special Edition responds with a couple of prescient quotes from the Bard:

Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toys,
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.

is spoken by Guiderius in Cymbeline, Act IV Secne II. In this context, the passage suggests that critics have reveled in making a big deal out of a trivial fact (the authorship of Hamlet Special Edition). Not only is it a #MonkeyReference, but it also suggests that a jolly time was had at the expense of a bunch of hairless apes.

Joseph Noel Paton illustrated The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1849) from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This is followed by Theseus’s lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I:

More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold.

This passage deals with how there is no single “reality,” that all is subjective, often based upon the biased perceptions of lovers, madmen, poets, et al. This meditation on the malleability of reality reflects the main theme of The Billionth Monkey, and the last line about more devils than vast hell can hold gives us another #DevilReference to boot!

Page 194: A Numerological Guide to Tweezer.Me

On page 194 we see for the first time the url for www.tweezer.me, which is in reality a microsite dedicated to showing some Destiny Jones status updates that do not appear in The Billionth Monkey. These posts also appear on Destiny Jones’s Facebook page, but on Tweezer I can control the time of the post, the number of likes, and other details for bonus Easter eggs. I held off on discussing the url until this point of the walk-through because the website contains spoilers. As does this post, so if you haven’t read The Billionth Monkey yet you may want to hold off reading this post.

The user icon (photo by steve prue) and cover image for Destiny Jones's Tweezer account.

Here’s a guide to the posts as they appear (i.e., in reverse chronological order):

9:30 on February 27: This post refers to the scene at the Men in Black nightclub (page 184). “Sir” is a term from the leather crowd. Here we find the following numerical Easter eggs:

• 276 (from 6,276 followers) = עור, leather.
• 52 (from 52 likes) = MIB, or “Men in Black.”
• 93 (from 9:30) = the number of times HAL transmits the message “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE” at the end of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010.

7:18 on February 27: Refers to the lighter on page 190.

• 31 (from 31 likes) = the path on the Tree of Life attributed to the element of fire.
• 111 (6,111 followers) = אלף, the letter alef spelled in full, which is attributed to the Tarot card The Fool (i.e., clown).
• 718 (from 7:18) = The monolith on Jupiter is 718 times larger than the one on the moon, according to Arthur C. Clarke. This is also the number of the hangar whose sensors Rey triggers in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

February 26: This one was posted shortly after her encounter with The Slasher (page 134).

• 13 (from 13 likes) = אחד, achad, one (i.e. “uni”).
• 350 (from 4,350 followers) = קרן, qeren, horn (“corn”).
• 326 (from 3:26) = κερας, keras, horn

February 25: Posted just before Destiny Jones meets Niels Belanger (page 97).

• 12/06 (from 12:06) is the traditional date of Krampusnacht (Krampus being the person depicted in this post).
• 15 (from 3,015 followers) = the number of the Tarot card The Devil.
• 26 (from 26 likes) = the path on the Tree of Life attributed to the Tarot card The Devil. [Since there are 10 sefirot, for clarity the twenty-two netivot or paths are commonly numbered from 11 to 32. The first of the twenty-two Tarot majors is numbered zero...putting the fifteenth card on path 26.]

So this post is a big #DevilReference, and also kind of foreshadowing.

January 1: Destiny gets invited skiing in Wyoming. (See conversation on page 102).

• 65 (from 65 likes) = ניה = NYE, i.e. New Year’s Eve.
• 114 (from 1:14) = בהן (thumb) x 2 i.e. “who has two thumbs?”

December 24: A reference to Christmas is yet to come in the story (page 251).

• 310 = שי, gift or tribute
• 495 = מטנה, gift
• 61 = אין, ain, not…a homonym and bad pun for “knot.”

December 5: This paper is later referenced on page 209.

• 56 (from 56 likes) = אימה, emah, horror
• 606 (from 6:06) = פלצות, pallatsuth, horror or fright

Readers of Perdurabo may recall that December 5 was the date of Aleister Crowley’s funeral in 1947.

December 1: We know from page 101 that Destiny’s mother is a painter.

• 52 (from 52 likes) = אימא, mother.
• 42 (from 6:42) = אמא, mother
• 60 (from 2,060 followers) = ס, samekh, the letter attributed to the Tarot card Art.

Readers of Perdurabo may recall that December 1 was the day that Aleister Crowley died in 1947.

November 10: Destiny’s first post on Tweezer.

• 237 (from 2:37) is the valuation of “Tweezer” transliterated as טוההזהר.
• 628 (from 1,628 followers) is the valuation of “Tweezer” transliterated as תוההזהר.
• 31 (from 31 likes) = אל , El, God, and לא, lo, not. Put them together and we get Ello.

November 10 is also a meaningful date for me.

Finally, the sidebars at Tweezer.me contain a few self-referential goodies. On the left, we have the following trending topics, which I call Tweezer Pleasers:

• Deepwater Lemuria Trial (mentioned on page 79)
• Bog Snorkelling (see page 16)
• French Quarter Shooter (see page 88 et al.)
• Hamlet Special Edition (first mentioned on page 128).

Meanwhile on the right we have the following "sponsored" (though they're not really sponsored) ads:

• Hamlet Special Edition graphic novel (special supplement to the book, or free online at Stanley's Marvelous Comics)
• Godco Insurance (first mentioned on page 18)
• The Billionth Monkey
• Ham Stabbeth First t-shirts (mentioned on page 129) and other merchandise that you can actually buy.

Page 192–4: Weiner gematria, plus the true story behind Area 54

The reference on page 192 to Area 54 is based on a true story. I attended a professional dinner in Las Vegas one evening, after which a bunch of us piled into an SUV limo to take us back to our hotel. Someone joked about driving out to Area 54, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Unlike Belanger, I didn’t point out the error. We were having a good time, so why be a 8===D?

Which brings us to Destiny Jones’s Tweezer posts.

The first post on page 193 contains:

• 78 (from 78 likes) = the number of cards in a Tarot deck. Not that this post has any connection to the Tarot reading in Chapter 1, or the Tarot at all, but it was an unused number in the ballpark that I needed for this post.
• In addition, disco transliterated as דסחו enumerates to 78.
• 831 (from 7,831 likes) = φαλλος, phallus.

The second post on page 193 contains:

• 85 (from 85 likes) = פח, the Hebrew letter Peh spelled in full; in the Western esoteric tradition, this letter is attributed to the planet Mars, whose symbol ♂ has clear connections to 8===D and 8=D.
• 85 is also מילה, circumcision.

Finally, the post on page 195 gives us:

• 304 (from 304 likes) = רקד, to dance.
• 1,040 (from 10:40) = χορος, a chorus.

Page 191: Female Fan Communities

In this scene from The Billionth Monkey, Niels Belanger feels stereotyped by Destiny Jones and defensively argues that SFF fandom isn’t all-male by rattling off a list of nicknames for various female fan communities. Can you tell the actual names from the ones I made up? The real ones have URLs in their names linking to a relevant site.

• Estrogen Brigades: an actual term referring to the trope of a group of female fans within a normally male-dominated fandom.
• Twihards: fans of the Twilight books and films.
• Cumberbitches: Female fans of Benedict Cumberbatch.
• Beanstalkers: The Sean Bean fangirl community.
• Hiddlestoners: Fans of actor Tom Hiddleston
• Bamber Bunnies: Fans of Jamie Bamber, who portrayed Lee Adama in the 2000 reboot of Battlestar Galactica.
• Spiner Femmes: Fans of Brent Spiner, who portrayed Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Debbie Downeys: Fictional fans of Morton Downey Jr. (Iron Man).
• Gimli’s Girls: Fictional fans of John Rhys-Davies, who portrayed Gimli in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Shatnerds: Fictional fans of William Shatner, famous as Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk.
• Sereni-T&As: Fictional fans of Joss Whedon’s TV show Firefly, and its subsequent movie Serenity.
• JAG Hags: Fictional fans of the TV show Judge Advocate General. Not very sci-fi/fantasy, I wonder if there’s an actor with initials JAG and I’ve forgotten my own joke.
• Hobbettes: Fictional fans of The Hobbit.
• Jason Stackhussies: Fictional fans of Ryan Kwanten, who portrayed Jason Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood. (Bonus trivia: I kinda-sorta imagined Nicholas Young looking something like a young Jason Stackhouse.)
• V’s for Vendetta: Fictional fans of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta.

I basically had Belanger roll out a bunch of actual terms from fandom--all of which are punny to begin with--then switched over to fictional ones to take it over the top.

Page 185–9: A Quartet of References

The promotor fidei (Promoter of the Faith) or advocatus diaboli (Devil’s Advocate) was originally a Roman Catholic canon lawyer appointed by the church to skeptically oppose a candidate for canonization. The term “devil’s advocate” came to refer to generally to someone who takes an opposing view for the sake of challenging and improving the original idea. In the context of The Billionth Monkey, it’s also a #DevilReference.

Cover for the motion picture soundtrack to Devil's Advocate (1997).

“Little sunshine” on page 186 is a reference that readers of Perdurabo may recognize. It’s my favorite anecdote about Aleister Crowley. In 1934, he tried unsuccessfully to sue former student Nina Hamnett for alleging that he practiced black magic; when the defense challenged him to explain why he calls himself “The Great Beast 666,” Crowley explained that the number is simply that of the sun, and if counsel preferred they could refer to him instead as “Little Sunshine.” Not only is the remark hilarious, Crowley was also being serious: The number of the sun in the Western esotericism is traditionally 6, as are its extensions 6² and Σ(1-6²)…or in other words a 6x6 magic square, and the sum of all the numbers within that magic square. This occult understanding flies in the face of popular conceptions of the number 666, which is why the juxtaposition of The Great Beast and Little Sunshine is so funny. Because of the associations of 666 in the popular mind (e.g., through movies like 1976’s The Omen), I count this as a #DevilReference.

A hair-raising moment from The Omen [image source: The Omen Wiki].

Nicholas Young’s dialogue on page 186 is part-inspired by the hit song “A Criminal Mind” from Canadian musician Lawrence Gowan’s Strange Animal record. When the album came out in 1985, my buddy TJ and I drove to Windsor, Ontario, from the states to buy it because copies were unavailable back home. (Bear in mind this was before the World Wide Web, and CDs were still a relatively new format.) I always thought the chorus was chilling; a paraphrased version worked perfectly in this scene. It’s also a sort of replay of Young’s “Do you know who I am?” schtick. Anyway, Gowan is a wonderful songwriter and musician, and currently fills the keyboardist role in the band Styx. If you don’t know Gowan’s material, check it out!

Music video for Gowan's "A Criminal Mind" (1985).

Let’s wrap this up by looking at Destiny Jones’s Tweezer post on page 189. Given the subject matter, there wasn’t a lot to do here numerologically, so I just snuck in the number 165, which is the numeration of the city “Babylon”: another shout-out to readers of Perdurabo.

Music video for David Gray's "Babalon" (1998).

Page 184: Men in Black

Long before they were the name of a hit sci-fi hit comedy, the Men in Black were a fixture in UFO mythology. According to lore, mysterious men clad in black suits and driving an unmarked black car would visit people who have witnessed a UFO…often well before they ever reported their sighting. The purpose of the Men in Black was ostensibly to harass and frighten eye-witnesses into silence, and—failing that—to discredit their testimony. My favorite portrayal of the Men in Black is beyond a doubt the X-Files episode “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space.’” It’s my absolute favorite episode of the series, and a brilliant send-up of every UFO cliché out there. [As I post this, Fox is preparing to air the first of its six-episode X-Files revival this Sunday: if you watch only one episode to prepare yourself, make it Jose Chung!]

For these reasons, the Men in Black Nightclub seemed like the perfect name for a bar in Roswell. So perfect, in fact, that it has its own Facebook page. You will never find a more wretched hide of bad puns and obscure sci-fi references. Here’s a guide to the entries:

• February 26: Links to the Hot Tormato website, the band that you read all about in yesterday’s post.
• February 24: Drink special: the “Lost Time.” This references another key detail of UFO mythology, that those who have had a close encounter with a UFO often report “lost” or “missing” time, that is a period of time that they cannot account for because their memory has been erased or has suppressed the incident.
• February 22: The Voigt-Kampf machine isn’t a bar game, but actually a device from the movie Bladerunner, Ridley Scott’s classic adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• February 19: “The Band Who Fell To Earth” is a pun on the David Bowie-starring film by Nicholas Roeg, The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976).
• February 17: The “Face Hugger” drink special is a reference to Ridley Scott’s other classic sci-fi film, Alien. I thought that the idea of the face-hugger as a beer-bong was hilarious. Apologies for the crude photoshop work, I promise not to quit my day job.
• February 12: Triple-breasted ladies’ night is a reference to the movie Total Recall, originally starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (1990), with a 2012 remake featuring the model in this post.
• February 11: Weekly karaoke contest sponsored by Captain Jack Rum. The sponsor is a fictional pun on Captain Morgan Rum, with the titular pirate replaced by Captain Jack Harkness from the BBC Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood. The background of the label, rather than showing a pirate map, is the floor-plan of the Torchwood Institute in Cardiff. This week’s winner is a reference to my wife, who owns a copy of the sheet music to “Ewok Celebration” from Return of the Jedi…thus proving that I married the right woman.

• February 10: The White Walker refers to the snow zombies from Game of Thrones i.e. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Its alternate name, Wampa, refers to the abominable snow creature in The Empire Strikes Back.
• February 5: The warm-up bands tonight are references to Alien (the planet they land on is LV-426) and its prequel-of-sorts, Prometheus (in which the creators of the human race are called The Engineers).
• February 4: “Where There’s A Whip” is a song from the Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King (1980):

• February 3: The “Soylent Green Mojito” refers to the movie Soylent Green (1973)…which is not made of any of the ingredients in the drink.
• January 29: The name and logo for Aeroway is supposed to suggest Aerosmith, except Aeroway is the name of the lead character in Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, Contact (portrayed by Jodi Foster in the 1997 movie adaptation). “Tannhäuser Gate” comes from Rutger Hauer’s classic improvised monologue at the end of Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner. And “All These Worlds” is a reference to the message that HAL transmits 93 times at the end of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010. To the best of my knowledge, none of these are the names of actual bands.
• January 28: The Brunnen-G fight song comes from the oddball sci-fi television series Lexx.
• January 27: “Blue skies on Mars” is a reference to the film Total Recall.
• January 22: Another trio of made-up band names. “Poulsen Treatment” refers to Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos. “Barsoom” refers to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fictionalized Mars from his classic John Carter of Mars series. And “Outpost 31” is the name of the Antarctic research center in John Carpenter’s movie The Thing (1982).
• January 21: This refers to Bill Murray’s classic lounge-singer version of the Star Wars theme song from Saturday Night Live (1978).
• January 21: Vogon Poetry Slam is a reference to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
• January 20: “Brown Coat Stout” refers to Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
• January 15: “Bennie and the Jets” is from the Elton John song of the same name. The rest are the names of actual bands.

Page 183: Yes tribute band Hot Tormato

Yes tribute band Hot Tormato makes a cameo beginning on page 183 of The Billionth Monkey. Their name is taken from Yes’s 1978 album Tormato, which went to #8 in the UK and #10 in the US. Released during the punk and disco heyday, this album found the band paring down its signature epics into shorter, radio-friendly arrangements that (on reflection) failed to make the best of the seed material. Their highly-acclaimed previous release, Going for the One (1977), was a tough act to follow, and Tormato suffered by comparison. It would prove to be the (temporary) swan-song for singer Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman, both of whom departed soon after the supporting tour. The follow-up album, Drama (1980), found the duo replaced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of The Buggles. I personally think this is a brilliant record, but many Yes purists rejected it for lacking two of the band’s most iconic members.

If it isn’t clear, I’m an unabashed fan of prog rock. I’ve played keyboards on several prog rock recordings, and Yes is my favorite prog rock band. Thus, when I started building micro-sites for people and places in The Billionth Monkey, I naturally had to put together a Hot Tomato website to pay homage to Yes.  I’d also like to thank Yes’s publishing company for permitting me to quote the lyrics to “Arriving UFO” from Tormato in The Billionth Monkey. This album came out right when I was discovering prog rock and has a special place in my heart: being able to quote one of the songs was a genuine treat.

Here is a guide to the Yes references and puns found on Hot Tormato’s website:

Banner from the Hot Tormato website.

Home/Main Page

• Dig it: This popular phrase appears in the single from Tormato, “Don’t Kill the Whale.”
• You’ll get up and get down: Paraphrases lyrics from the mellow section of “Close to the Edge” (from the album of the same name).
• Klaatu, Starcastle, Skryvania: Actual band names. Klaatu also gave me permission to quote lyrics from their hit, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft,” while Starcastle and Skryvania are often described as capturing Yes’s distinctive sound.
• Stanley Snail: An actual band/project whose name is a mondegreen of a lyric from Yes’s “Siberian Khatru” (which Stanley Snail subsequently covered for the 1995 Yes tribute album, Tales from Yesterday).
• Master of Soul, Electric Freedom, and Ocean Maid: Fictional band names taken from Yes lyrics to “Awaken,” “Sound Chaser,” and “And You And I,” respectively.
• Nu sommes du soleil: From “Ritual.”
• Live for the Pleasure: Pun on a lyric to “Tempus Fugit.” (I hear “live” here as an adjective—as in “live in concert”—rather than a verb as in the original lyric.)
• It Could Happen To You: From “It Could Happen.”
• Don’t surround yourself with yourself: From “Your Move.”

Meet the Band
Photos of the band members are all friends of mine who are musicians, fans of prog rock, and who were willing to play along with my crazy scheme. The names are inspired by the musician from Yes whose role they emulate in Hot Tormato:

• Anders Jønsson: Pretty straightforward Nordic spoonerism of lead vocalist Jon Anderson (photo by Sandra Buskirk).
• Rick. N Bocker: Yes bassist Chris Squire is famous for his unique and masterful bass lines, played on a Rickenbacker bass guitar.
• Yves Whye: A French extrapolation of guitarist Steve Howe.
• Nick Wickerman: Referencing keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman, with Yes t-shirt, keytar, and conspicuous rock-and-roll-special-effects fan.
• Bro Billfold: A sort of spoonerism of drummer Bill Bruford.
• Lou “Shifty” Ayas: The name is a pun on an alias of the guy in this photo, who also happened to be a roadie for the band Starcastle. Note the hand-made t-shirt for the fictional band “Starcaster,” recalling merch that Starcastle had back in the day.

News Is Captured
The name of the news tab refers to the lyrics to “Your Move.” These Hot Tormato news items are intended to recall, on a local scale, historical moments for the band Yes.

• 18 May: This refers to the big news of Rick Wakeman joining the Yes lineup. It was a front-page story in the August 21, 1971, Melody Maker with the headline “New Yes Man.” Here, we have Melody Faker and “New Yes Fan.” The photo of Nick Wickerman shows him with a different keytar than in his “Meet the Band” photo, and also depicts him wearing a cape…something for which his namesake, Rick Wakeman, was well-known. “Cody Taye” is based on a spoonerism of “Tony Kaye,” the keyboardist that Wakeman replaced. The story going around for many years was that Tony preferred piano and organ to newfangled analog synthesizers, so the members of Yes brought in someone who was willing to broaden their sonic palette by using all manner of keyboard instruments…and boy did he! Wakeman was known for performing while surrounded with an arsenal of instruments. The Hot Tormato news story updates this for the 21st century by referencing prog metallers Dream Theater, whose keyboardist Jordan Rudess managed to buck this trend through clever management of a single keyboard (plus a bunch of outboard gear). “Late of Summerisle” refers to the fictional town in which the movie The Wicker Man (1973) takes place, and to which Nick Wickerman is also a reference. Just as Rick Wakeman attended the Royal College of Music, Nick Wickerman attended the Roswell College of Music. Yes, I am a keyboard nerd.
• 25 October: The headline “Drum Machine Messiah” is a pun on the phrases “Drum Machine” and the Yes song “Machine Messiah.” “Waylan Hyatt” is an approximate rhyme/spoonerism for Alan White, the one-time session drummer who replaced the Yes drum throne previously occupied by Bill Bruford. He famously had to step in and play the complex arrangements live with very little rehearsal time before the band’s world tour. “Close to the edge” refers to the song of the same name. Some critics have responded to Yes’s ongoing personnel changes by calling them a band with a built-in revolving door; with Hot Tormato, this analogy has been updated for the 21st century to a “refresh button.” “Hold On” references the song of the same title. The last couple of sentences echoes the typical sort of statement that Yes or its spin-offs would use whenever there was a personnel change. The illustration shows a fictional solo album Rambunctious, modeled after Alan White’s solo album Ramshackled.
• 4 March: “Silly Human Race” refers to the lyrics to “Yours Is No Disgrace.” This news item refers to the time that ex-members of Yes regrouped under their own names as Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. (Hence Emerson, Bickers, Yakov, and Mau…whose acronym spells MAYBE backwards). The bass guitar seat was filled by session ace Tony Levin (hence the news item’s reference to “a ton of leavening”). The then-current members of Yes quarreled with ABWH for calling their concerts “An Evening of Yes Music Plus.” (Hence “An Espresso with a Slice of Hot Tormato.”) Ready Eddy’s Coffeehouse is a reference to audio engineer Eddy Offord, who lent a creative spin to many of Yes’s recording sessions; he also worked with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, whose song “Are You Ready, Eddy?” pays tribute to him. The graphic accompanying this news story uses a font reminiscent of the ABWH record.
• 8 April: “Soul Receiver” refers to the lyrics to “Gates of Delirium.” After the ABWH incident, fans came to see there being two different Yeses: Those touring as Yes were Yes West, for their headquarters in Los Angeles, while ABWH was Yes East. (Hence “A simple misunderstanding of compass directions.”) Jon Anderson and the management brokered a treaty between the two camps, resulting in an album and tour called Union. Hence Hot Tormato’s show is called “Unison.” (The illustration accompanying the story is a friendly pun on the album cover.) “Travel very far” is a reference to the lyrics to “Yours Is No Disgrace.”
• 17 May: “Grumpy Old Man” refers to keyboardist Rick Wakeman going on to a new phase of his career has a regular contributor to the BBC Two program Grumpy Old Men (he appeared in six episodes). The story itself refers to Rick Wakeman’s unpleasant reaction to first hearing the unsatisfactory Union record; why it was unsatisfactory is a long story, but he chucked the cassette out his car window and dubbed the album Onion because it was so bad it made him cry. In the 21st century, Nick Wickerman listens to MP3s of the Unison rehearsals, chucks his iPhone out the car window, and proclaims the music to be “Confusion.”

This Place
The name of the links to other sites page refers to the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe lyrics to “Birthright.” Here we find links to the Men in Black nightclub where Hot Tormato are the house band; an ironic link to The Billionth Monkey, touting their cameo appearance; and I really mean it when I include a link to the official website of “our musical heroes.” And, of course, the disclaimer at the end makes it clear that Hot Tormato is not endorsed by me!

So…

This post seems to be as good a place as any to opine about what, in my mind, constitutes the contentious definition of progressive rock. Among fans there’s a debate between those who insist that the term means to constantly “progress” and push the envelope into new territory, and those who enjoy music that draws inspiration from and emulates (to varying degrees) the stylistic hallmarks of the genre’s 1970s heyday. To the former group, when bands like Yes deliver new music in the style that they pioneered, they cease to “progress”…in contrast, for example, to a band like King Crimson, which is constantly reinventing itself.

To my mind and ear, what prog rock did in the 1970s—and what I personally like about it—was to greatly expand the potential vocabulary of rock and roll by:

1. Incorporating the extended voicings and non-diatonic tonalities of jazz, classical, and world music rather than the basic root-plus-fifth power chords and 12-bar blues chord progressions common in classic rock, 
2. Using different song structures than verse-chorus, sometimes drawing upon the extended structures of classical music and other song cycles, 
3. Expanding the sonic palette by introducing instruments not normally heard in rock-and-roll, from synthesizers to nylon string guitars to flutes to vibraphones, 
4. Breaking out of the standard 4/4 and occasional 3/4 time signatures and introducing the feel of asymmetric, or even quickly-changing, meters, much like the Dave Brubeck Quartet did for jazz with Time Out (1959).
5. Shamelessly plundering and incorporating the feel of other genres, whether it be jazz, classical, folk, or world music. I especially like vocal harmonies taken from folk music, and the contrapuntal possibilities of groups like Gentle Giant and Spock’s Beard.  Note that prog records like Patrick Moraz’s The Story of I (1975) and Manfred Mann’s Somewhere in Afrika (1983) used Brazilian and African percussion before it hit the mainstream with Paul Simon’s Graceland (1986). [Of course, world music had been used in pop and rock pre-1986, including Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion.”]
6. Finding lyrical inspiration outside of the love songs that dominate so much of rock-n-roll. (Sometimes this has resulted in clichés like Tolkien rock, or completely abstract or indecipherable lyrics.)

These are the elements that I enjoy in prog rock music both old and new. Or just music (I confess to really liking Shakira’s “Rejection Tango” when it came out because it threw everything from accordion to a B-52s vibe into the sonic blender). Prog was a statement that basically threw out the rulebook for rock and made a mongrel or melting pot of everything out there. And for that reason, I see nothing wrong with groups who gravitate to certain sounds or instruments that the genre defined…so long as it isn’t pure mimicry. This is my take on it; your mileage may vary.