Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning Re: [MMM] the new "silence"

Joe,

I guess you mean the similarities to the sound of your own nervous
system, right? The ring is real close, but not so much the hum and the
cycle. With my computer I'm mostly aware of a quiet in my right ear
and a horrible presence in my left--my computer's electronically
stimulated purr and whine.

In case you haven't guessed, my computer's on my left. Worse yet, it's
in a corner, and I think the combination of its ring and hum bouncing
around over there and the open space on my right is only contributing
to my woe. I actually get feelings like my left ear is closing down,
like it's trying to block out the ring by going partially deaf or by
mimicking tinnitus! I'm in a very small space with few options as far
as moving it go, but I must--thanks for reminding me.

Unfortunately there's even worse things than the ring... like the
computer screen for instance... don't close your eyes! On certain
occasions, I've had strange binary like patterns either branded onto
my eyes or into my brain... kind of like white line fever, only
worse... much worse. It's like automated tiling of patterns and
sometimes even bizarre, super fast number sequences... like a
calculator screen powered by a fever dream. Because it's generated or
at least occurring inside my body, it sometimes seems to want me to
think it's organic. But it's not. In fact, it's rather horribly
inorganic.

I suspect this all may have as much to do with me as it does with the
computer, but I still don't trust it. Beware.

This past weekend I was hiking Rutland State Park and at one point I
was sitting halfway down some strange quarry, kind of lodged
in-between some rocks, and as I was soaking up the gorgeous noontime
sun I became acutely aware of the no traffic... it's been a while. You
see, I hike nearly every day here on the Cape (Cape Cod,
Massachusetts), but Rt. 6 is never far enough away no matter where I
go, and while I haven't learned to live with it exactly, I have lived
with it far longer than I ever thought I could without going mad (4
plus years now).

Air traffic at a distance and an infrequent period is not too
unpleasant, but highway traffic at any distance and frequency I
despise. The maddening thing is that the sound of traffic when
strained through the trees of the woods is not all that different from
the roar of the distant wind, which I love--it's truly horrible to
have something you love uncomfortably resemble something you're
actively at war with. Anyway, as I was sitting there amongst the rocks
hovering between attentive consciousness and half-sleep, it took me a
while to get to the point where I could hear the wind coming in the
distance and time its arrival... to know when it's about to blow by
you and rattle the trees and shake the leaves and prickle your skin
and waves your hair.

Eventually I could track it as it just sort of moves away through the
solid and the ephemeral world like some surprisingly supple brute off
into oblivion... as far as hearing it goes, it just disappears having
exceeded the threshold of my ear's perceptibility... but I can still
'hear' it. Like a flock of birds passing overhead, there's more than
birds there... I mean it's almost like they're the atoms and molecular
infrastructure in some larger morphing body whose shape I can clearly
understand as a living thing of it's own... and living things are
sometimes perceptible in some hard to access and somewhat diffuse way
even when you can no longer see, hear, touch or smell them.

Art can touch those places... and if it can't exactly spell them out,
it certainly can exaggerate in their direction in such a way that a
communication above and beyond the participants is achieved... and
that's one way to tell your reflexes and your imagination a story
they'll understand without any preamble.

take care,

--Dan Stearns

----- Original Message -----
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@...>
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 8:03 AM
Subject: [MMM] the new "silence"

> Since we were speaking of Cage and such like...
>
> Has anybody here thought about the fact that we now are experiencing
> a new "silence??" At least *I* am.
>
> It's the constant sound of computers humming.
>
> I'm assuming other people are around this as much as *I* am.
>
> It seems to be the new "silence..." ??
>
> jp
>
>
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Re: [MMM] the new "silence"

🔗D.Stearns <STEARNS@...>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@...>