Wow, I sure haven't posted for a while!
I was just sitting on the toilet, leafing through some magazines, when I realized, in a kind of toiletty epiphany that I do not want to be comfortable.
Actually, it is a thought I have had for a while now. I guess I have decided that comfort does not in fact make me happy. Sure, briefly I am happy, but after a while I start to feel dull and stupid, and I don't want to feel stupid. So from now on, I am going to go out of my way to find discomfort. In physical ways as well as emotional ways, and intellectual ways. Not to say that I will never feel comfortable again. I probably will. It is probably unavoidable. But I think that if I try to feel uncomfortable most of the time, if I struggle, then maybe those brief moments of comfort will be like little cadences in my life. I think that maybe this will bring me lasting joy.
I only worry that I am too cowardly to properly pull this off. I just watched a short video on boingboing about train hoppers, and to be honest I don't think that I could be that uncomfortable. Not yet anyway. I am going to take small steps. Firstly, I am going to listen to an entire discography tonight. I usually can't stand listening to more than a whole album at once, but I am going to sit myself down and force myself to listen to the entire works of Trent Reznor. I will let you know if I have any epiphanies. This is my first task in discomfort. Wish me well.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Solmate.7 and Guitars
Dear beloved readership of one,
I guess you can probably tell that I have given up, for now, on the story I started writing when I started this blog. However, today I am going to put up a story that I wrote a little while ago that I have left alone for a little while. Luckily, this one is already completed, so I don't have to feel guilty about it.
But first I want to talk a little bit about some of the responses I have gotten to my music and how I feel about them. For the most part they have been very positive, and I am grateful to my friends for listening. But I always find it interesting how people see your art really different from the way you yourself see it. My teacher, for example, keeps calling it atmospheric, which is, in a way, true. But I mean, it is not all just sound; it has pitch, harmony, melody, and rhythm. I think what she really means is that it doesn't have guitar, bass, and drums, or voice(yet). I started talking to Cody, my boyfriend about it, and he came up with a great metaphor. He said that guitars were like bluejeans: they don't really go with everything, but because they are so ubiquitous, they seem to, and other options (say purple satin pants) seem abnormal. Well, purple satin pants are abnormal, since blue jeans are the norm, but that doesn't make them not pants! Ok.. that particular metaphor is kind of failing me here. I just get annoyed that when there are so many different timbres to choose from and to make, these same set of instruments should rule the roost. I understand that the guitar is a very flexible instrument, almost as flexible as the human voice, and it has a long history, and it is very capable of eliciting a wide range of emotional responses. But I also think that there are lots of other different emotional, or even... atmospheric (aw crap) realms that you can go to with other instruments and sounds. Other responses to it were very positive, although the word 'creepy' keeps rearing its head. This is the response I like the most:
"I love your piece. It sounds like the inside of a watchmaker's shop at the top of a belfry in the middle of a breezy rainforest with tiny ants crawling around."
Thanks Sophia!
I just realized something really embarassing. I keep going back to my myspace page to check how many people have visited and listenend to my stuff, and I got a little confused. Because it said that 40 people had visited, which I thought was pretty awesome, but only 14 people had listened..(some of which were me). Then I realized.. with bubbling horror, that I must've visited it like 30 times just checking!
Sigh, do you ever wonder about whether or not you will finally wake up one day and be a sophisticated adult? I know a girl my age who has three children. THREE CHILDREN. In fact, I keep facebook stalking her just because I am so amazed. Granted, having three children at age 22 is a little early, but still.... just.... wow.
Anyway, here is my story, enjoy:
Solmate.7
Professor Havelock wiped a damp film of sweat off his forehead and his upper lip with his sleeve. He brushed his hand through the wisps of ginger-brown hair that sparsely populated his pale naked skull. He coughed a quiet, dry cough, and when this failed to draw attention, he said in an equally dry and raspy voice, “Settle down class, settle down. We still have a lot to finish off from last class’ material. There’s a midterm coming up in three weeks.”
The class settled down.
“Now,” said professor Havelock, looking down at his notes, “can anyone tell me where we left off last thursday?”
A small hand shot up like a nervous animal.
“Yes, uh..”
“Quina, sir,” said a bright tiny face in the first row. The face looked like it belonged to a first year who had nagged her way into one of the more advanced 500 level courses. Flattened under the overwhelming pressure of her naive eagerness, a few grad students sighed.
“Yes, uh Quina?”
“We were talking about, I mean we were discussing, the early days in Time travel development, and the--”
“--Yes. Time Travel Development,” said Professor Havelock. “Now, if any of you took the time to prepare for class and looked over the secondary sources, you do all remember what secondary sources are, don’t you? You all know this is history class?” rasped professor Havelock, showing some serious signs of mental wear.
The class, some thirty or more students, grunted, nodded and mumbled their assent in something entirely unlike unison.
“Right. Good. Well. If you have all looked over the Leong-Goldstein and the Cresslock readings you’d know that there were primary sources as well. Some audio-visual materials.”
Professor Havelock often said things that he thought were especially important in a heavy faux-french or british accent as a kind of a weak and, to his students, incomprehensible joke. Today he said “audio-visual material” in mixture of both.
“This audio-visual documentation,” he did it again, this time leaning towards a more british interpretation, “was taken by two different sources: the security cameras at the TTDA facilities, and “Cube,” or the Solmate.7. Solmate.7 was an early version, though very advanced for its time, of the Companprimer series that exists today. It was a very expensive prototype for its time and not yet widely available.”
Due to the looming threat of exams, attendance in the class had risen sharply. Several nervous students were furiously trying to get down as much information as possible, hoping it might make up for everything they hadn’t learnt. Words such as “audio-visual” and “primary source” and “Solmate.7” whizzed across screens . Other less concerned students sat blithely back and sent pithy notes to their friends.
“Now,” said Professor Havelock “today in class, I am going to show you ‘zese materials. I’ll show ze security tape first.”
The lights dimmed as Professor Havelock drew his fingers across his teaching console. An old projector sputtered into life, and a grainy video started to play.
There were three figures in it, walking noiselessly, their movements made jerky and jumpy by the silence and the poor quality of the recording. There were two adults and a child, their facial expressions unclear, walking in a cavernous grey room alongside large circular pools filled with something that had the consistency of mercury. The pools quivered and lurched in tiny frantic motions. They were translucent, with light coming up from beneath.
“That,” said professor Havelock, his sunken face and pale complexion lit by the blue-gray light of the video “is President Harper. That is doctor Eisenstein, and that,” he said, pointing to the smallest figure, “is the president’s five year old daughter, Aurora-Borealis. President Harper always had a penchant for unusual names. She named her twin sons Castor and Pollux, after the myth. Anyone here in Cynthia Lewkowicz’ Greek Mythology class? No one? Well anyway...” Dr Eisensterin was gesturing towards the pools, flapping his long arms like a mother goose defending her young, and the President was nodding intelligently, impassively.
“Those pools are temporal interfaces. The deeper you go into them the further you move away in time.” said professor Havelock.
“I..I don’t think that’s right, I thought that--” whispered a student in the back.
“--You in the back. Quiet. Watch closely or you’ll miss it.” said professor Havelock.
The smallest figure was skipping alongside her mother, every now and then turning and talking to a bright little darting object that moved too quickly to be recorded.
Then, It happened almost instantly. The recording rate of the camera made it seem as though it took no time at all, and as soon as Aurora went in she was being pulled out by Dr. Eisenstein, backpack first. She was crying and rubbing her head, and her mother pulled her close. Dr. Eisenstein stood back, aghast, looking forlornly up at some invisible technician. And then the video stopped.
Professor Havelock turned the lights back up. For a few seconds there was silence.
“Well, What was the most interesting part of this video, do you think?” he asked.
A hand that was becoming familiar shot up and fluttered like a flag in the wind.
“Yes, uh, Quina?”
“It was only a minute and a half long. And she was only in the pool for about 3 seconds.”
“And why is that important?”
“Well, the recording taken by the Solmate.7 is ten minutes long.”
“Yes. Exactly. Time inequality was one of the early and potentially very dangerous kinks of Time travel.”
A few students jotted down “Time inequality”, and “kinks” followed by “dangerous.”
“Time,” said Professor Havelock, “ runs like a river.”
A couple of students rolled their eyes. One, maybe a physics student, whispered loudly, “It doesn’t run like a river at all.” A girl tittered.
“Time runs like a river,” said professor Havelock “and it goes faster in some places than in others. It speeds up and slows down.” His hand flurried and coursed its way down an imaginary river. “And where, or rather when, Aurora fell in, which experts estimate to be sometime in the autumn of 1993, the river was moving a little faster than the time she fell in from.”
A student whispered, “I guess that explains, like, why some of his lectures seem to take forever.” The girl tittered again.
“Now,” said Professor Havelock, “can anybody think of any other “kinks” or problems with early Time travel that might possibly have led to the eventual cancellation of the program?”
Quina’s hand shot up again. Professor Havelock glanced at it, glanced over it, and looked around the class. “Maybe somebody else could take it this time?” asked the professor. Silence reigned. Quina’s hand, undaunted, remained afloat.
“Didn’t anybody do the readings?” He laughed his dry laugh accusingly.
Nobody made eye contact with anyone or anything. Then a boy, with a panicked look on his face, as if to say, “I didn’t know my hand was going to do this either” raised his hand.
“Ah, yes, Trence?” said professor Havelock.
“Well, um, wouldn’t we like, you know, if anybody could do it for, like, any reason, be popping in and out existence and being continually replaced with, like, alligator people or shrubs or something? And we wouldn’t even know it?”
The class erupted into laughter, and Trence, emboldened by his comedic triumph, went on. “And, wouldn’t like, this class, be, like, impossible to teach because history would constantly be changing?” he said.
“Not that that would be a great tragedy,” mumbled someone in the back. Everyone laughed again.
“And you could be, like, your own grandpa!” yelled someone from the back.
“Yes,” said professor Havelock, smiling wearily. “ Yes, well, you’re all right in a way. The points that you are trying to make can be synthesized into the flattening and the muddying processes described in Cresslock. You see, if time travel became ubiquitous, the waters in the river of time would become muddied. The flow and the direction would be disturbed. Events and objects, like particles of sand in the water, would be strewn about. Cresslock argues that if time travel became commonplace there would be no past or future only a kind of directionless present. Time would be a bit less like a river and more like a muddy infinite puddle,” he chuckled. “ And, as you say, there would be no point in a history class.”
“Now, any other “kinks?” asked professor Havelock.
A brooding girl in the third row with some ferocious face armor raised her gauntlet.
“Ah yes, Branwen?”
“Who’s to say that these are even problems? Maybe its time that the river reached the ocean, you know? This kind of unidirectional, linear and prejudiced attitude towards Time might be problematic in and of itself. I mean, who’s to say that free time would be negative? Think of all the good that could be done. Bromstad and Higgenfeller argue that Time is already like a puddle, or like a cloud, and that our individual and collective consciousness’ see Time as a kind of river, as a flow from the past to the future. But it isn’t really that way. So maybe we should just, you know, free our minds? And stop harping on the fascist dictates of president Harper.”
“Ah, yes, well... don’t get ahead of us now. We are going to be studying Bromstad and the rest Time Fighters next week. But for now, any more problems--?”
“--Sure, maybe a lot of good could be done, but what about power?” interjected Quina. “I mean, eventually it would become a kind of flattened out mish-mash cloud, but before that happened all the power in all of time would fall into the hands of whoever had enough energy to operate a machine. Those three seconds that Aurora fell in took enough energy to supply fifteen cities for a year. Don’t you think that that energy could be better used?”
“Energy consumption could be brought down,” Branwen retorted.
“I think it was incredibly noble,” Quina said “with all that Time and power just sitting in front of her to say, ‘no way, it stops here. I will use whatever force we have to make sure that it stops here, to ensure the future, and the past, and the present of human kind.’”
“Yeah, but think about what we could give to the starving and the ignorant of the past. And what we could learn from the future! And when the flow of time is finally stopped we could all live forever.” said Branwen.
“Or not live at all.” said Quina.
“How can you--?” began Branwen.
“--Now now, although this is an interesting although impromptu debate” said Professor Havelock looking down at his console “we are running a little short on, ha ha, time, so I am going to show you the second recording made by the Solmate.7, or as little Aurora called it, “Cube”, taken on her journey back to 1993.”
The lights darkened again.
“This recording is a little more advanced,” said professor Havelock. “It is a an early holo’ and it of course has sound.”
The recording started playing from hundreds of tiny different projection systems around the room.
A small girl with white-blond hair wearing a pink and green jumpsuit and a matching backpack appeared, humming and skipping around, floating in front and slightly above the class. The pinkish hue of the skin around her eyes and their pale colour made her look like a rabbit. But unlike a rabbit, she had the oblivious self possession and confidence that only the very young can have.
As she skipped she cast shadows on the ceiling, away from the quivering pools. The pale light struck her from below: under her chin, above her eyes, and under her earlobes, giving her an uncanny upside-down surprised look.
“Cube, look!” she said, staring into the pool. Her voice was like a little theremin, floating, bubbling, and bouncing off the walls of the enormous room. Like her mother, she had a soft southern-spanish twang to her voice. “Don’t it look sticky?” she asked. Although the pool’s surface shimmered, Aurora could not see her reflection in it. Whatever light the pool reflected was not coming from inside the room.
“Watch out or you’ll slip.” said Cube, as Aurora made an ambitious jump. Its voice was like another child’s.
“Look how far I can jump!” said Aurora.
“And the first human Expedition will be made by..?” asked President Harper, walking next to Dr. Eisenstein.
“Samuel Argos, Madame President. He’s our top man, or rather, human, for the job. He is in preparation now, learning the dialects and customs of what we hope will be the 16th century American colonies. We hope to gather lost historical information about the --”
“--Look how far I can jump, Cube! Look!” squealed Aurora.
“Ooh, that was far. .4 meters!” said Cube with tentative enthusiasm. She jumped again. “.37 meters.” said Cube.
Aurora made one final jump a little too close to a pool. She slipped and fell face first, and Cube went in after her.
A bright light and enormous popping noise rent through the air in the classroom.
“Sorry!” yelled Professor Havelock. He turned down the volume as the students covered their ears, grumbling. “Idiot,” someone mumbled.
Suddenly there was sunlight and the sound of a million children screaming.
“Interestingly enough,” said Professor Havelock “early Time machines had a strange kind of sensitivity to the traveler. Much to the chagrin of the developers, the early models didn’t only move in Time, they also moved uncontrollably in Space. The machine, left to its own devices would seem like it was, almost invariably, fitting the place to the person. It would fit the destination to the traveller. Some scholars argue that the machine put Aurora down into a playground in a small Canadian school in order to protect her. Others think that...”
Out of the bright light a few children ran past the bewildered and dizzy Aurora.
“...In a later, more carefully controlled experiment,” continued professor Havelock “Samuel Argos, an avid cyclist, was accidentally put down into the 1951 Tour de France, in medieval clothing and on a horse, and knocked some unfortunate man in the race down into a ravine. Luckily when the man came to and told people what had happened, they just thought that he had had a hard bump on the head.”
“Where are we Cube?” asked Aurora
Cube flew around her, saying nothing.
A ball bounced in front of Aurora. She looked at it.
“Kick it!” yelled a little boy a few years older than her. She didn’t move. He rolled his eyes.
“Come on. Kick it!” he said, miming the action. She smiled, went up to it and booted it.
“Thanks!” he yelled, running away with the ball.
“Also, every now and then,” began Professor Havelock “scientists working on the Time machine would find things in their office that they had lost. Things that they had lost as children. I remember there was this human interest story in the news at the time about how Dr. Eisenstein found a puppy under his desk. It was his puppy, Rudolf, that had been hit by a car when he was seven, just sitting there, alive and well, wagging his little tail,” Professor Havelock chuckled to himself.
Aurora walked around on the grass. She sniffed the air.
“It smells weird here” she said. “Kind of sweet and burning.”
“It has 14% more pollutants and particles in it,” said Cube.
“Whadya mean?”
“Plant life, soil, ozone, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and trace amounts of lead.”
“Lead!?” Aurora covered her mouth.
“Hey!” said a voice. Aurora turned around.
An older girl with long dark braids walked up. Cube hid behind Aurora’s ear, fluttering lightly like a humming bird.
“Hey,” said Aurora.
“What’s your name?” asked the girl.
“Aurora. What’s yours?”
“Lena.” she said.
“You’re new around here aren’t you,” Lena said. “Whose class are you in?”
Aurora said nothing.
“You’re that new, eh? You look like you should be in the kindergarten-play-area.” She slurred ‘kindergarten-play-area’ as if it were one word.
“I’ll take you there.” She grabbed Aurora’s hand, and Cube flew into her face. Lena screeched and backed away.
“Stop that Cube!” yelled Aurora. Cube darted back behind her ear.
“What.. what is that?” asked Lena, eyes wide. “Is it a toy?”
“No. It’s Cube,” said Aurora. “He’s my mate. He’s a Solmate.7.”
Lena’s brow furrowed. Aurora gloated.
“Yeah, he’s something ain’ he? He won’t be out for another generation. He’s a pro.. a prototype. What do you have? a .6? .5?”
“What’s it do? Why’s it called Cube?” Lena asked.
“Because that’s Cube’s fav’rit shape,” said Aurora. “But he can shapen and morph into just about anything, can’t you Cube?”
“Well, I can’t turn invisible” said Cube. “But I can camouflage.” One side became immediately like the trees behind it, leaves twitching and all. “See?” it said, and it shook and giggled.
Lena giggled too.
“What’s your fav’rit animal?” Cube asked her.
“Rabbit,” said Lena, looking anxiously at Cube.
The next moment Cube was a fluffy brown flemish giant tumbling out of Lena’s arms. He blew a large spit bubble and popped it. Lena laughed. Cube licked her fingers.
“Cube’s my best friend,” said Aurora. She tossed her hair and for a moment looked just like her mother giving a speech. “He can do all sorts of stuff; he can tell the best stories, he can sing songs,” the rabbit began to sing an aria from Carmen, “he can play holos,” a dancing holo couple projected out of the rabbit’s eyes. “And videos too,” she added. “He also tells me all kinds of stuff, since he’s webbed, and he learns with me and helps me with school. We only get into fights sometimes.”
“Oh, oh wow!” Lena said as Cube hopped around her. “Where did you get him?” she asked.
“Whadya mean, where?” Aurora laughed. “I’ve always had him. Since I was born. Where’s your mate?” she asked, looking around Lena’s slim frame.
“I.. I don’t have one.” Lena said
“Oh,” Aurora faltered, “Is it in for repair? Once, Cube had to go in for repair. I cried all night. But that was only when I was little,” she added quickly.
“No,” said Lena, looking down. “I’ve never had one.”
“Never?” said Aurora.
“No. Never,” said Lena.
“Never?” she asked again, this time to herself. Her tiny sweet expression slowly turned from confusion to horror mixed slightly with revulsion, all of which combined unfortunately into something like pity.
“Oh you poor thing,” she said.
Lena squirmed.
“Well,” said Aurora, mustering back her pluck, “my Mom’s the pres’dent. And she could get you one. Yeah,” said said, smiling a little now and reaching forward, “she could get you one.”
“The president of what?” Lena pulled away.
“Why, she’s the pres’dent of North ’Merica, silly.” Aurora smiled, and rolled her eyes teasingly.
“She isn’t. There’s no such thing,” Lena said. “ There’s no such thing as the president of North America.”
“Yes there is. She’s the pres’dent.” said Aurora, rolling her eyes, hand on hip. Cube jumped into her arms and she started to pet him.
“No, she isn’t.” said Lena. She looked at Cube, and then down to the ground and dug her toe into the soil. The she looked up again, her face twisted, “You’re a liar!” she yelled.
“No I’m not!” said Aurora, taken aback.
“Yes you are! You’re a liar!” Lena kicked up some sand.
“No I’m not! I swear, she’s the pres’dent! She is!” said Aurora. “Now don’t be silly... just ‘cause you don’t have a mate doesn’t mean that--”
Lena reached forward and pulled Aurora’s long blond hair. Aurora whinnied and Cube flew at Lena again.
“Liar liar! Pants on fire! Liar liar pants on fire!” yelled Lena.
“I’m not a liar!” Aurora cried, “I’m not! She’s the pres’dent!” and just as Lena gave an extra hard tug she and Cube were pulled back out of the pool by Dr. Eisenstein.
“I’m not a liar! I’m not!” yelled Aurora. She was crying and holding her head. She fell into her mother’s arms. Dr. Eisenstein ran his hands through his hair and looked up again at the invisible technician.
The holo ended and the lights in the class went up. “So,” said professor Havelock “what I want you to do for next class...” students were putting on their coats and pilling their belongings into sacs, “is to get into groups of three or four and discuss this last video and its implications on Harper’s universal ban on Time travel, and prepare a short presentation.” A few students meandered up to the front of the class to ask for extensions on their papers. “We will also be discussing the materials on the Time-Fighters next class, so please read them.”
I guess you can probably tell that I have given up, for now, on the story I started writing when I started this blog. However, today I am going to put up a story that I wrote a little while ago that I have left alone for a little while. Luckily, this one is already completed, so I don't have to feel guilty about it.
But first I want to talk a little bit about some of the responses I have gotten to my music and how I feel about them. For the most part they have been very positive, and I am grateful to my friends for listening. But I always find it interesting how people see your art really different from the way you yourself see it. My teacher, for example, keeps calling it atmospheric, which is, in a way, true. But I mean, it is not all just sound; it has pitch, harmony, melody, and rhythm. I think what she really means is that it doesn't have guitar, bass, and drums, or voice(yet). I started talking to Cody, my boyfriend about it, and he came up with a great metaphor. He said that guitars were like bluejeans: they don't really go with everything, but because they are so ubiquitous, they seem to, and other options (say purple satin pants) seem abnormal. Well, purple satin pants are abnormal, since blue jeans are the norm, but that doesn't make them not pants! Ok.. that particular metaphor is kind of failing me here. I just get annoyed that when there are so many different timbres to choose from and to make, these same set of instruments should rule the roost. I understand that the guitar is a very flexible instrument, almost as flexible as the human voice, and it has a long history, and it is very capable of eliciting a wide range of emotional responses. But I also think that there are lots of other different emotional, or even... atmospheric (aw crap) realms that you can go to with other instruments and sounds. Other responses to it were very positive, although the word 'creepy' keeps rearing its head. This is the response I like the most:
"I love your piece. It sounds like the inside of a watchmaker's shop at the top of a belfry in the middle of a breezy rainforest with tiny ants crawling around."
Thanks Sophia!
I just realized something really embarassing. I keep going back to my myspace page to check how many people have visited and listenend to my stuff, and I got a little confused. Because it said that 40 people had visited, which I thought was pretty awesome, but only 14 people had listened..(some of which were me). Then I realized.. with bubbling horror, that I must've visited it like 30 times just checking!
Sigh, do you ever wonder about whether or not you will finally wake up one day and be a sophisticated adult? I know a girl my age who has three children. THREE CHILDREN. In fact, I keep facebook stalking her just because I am so amazed. Granted, having three children at age 22 is a little early, but still.... just.... wow.
Anyway, here is my story, enjoy:
Solmate.7
Professor Havelock wiped a damp film of sweat off his forehead and his upper lip with his sleeve. He brushed his hand through the wisps of ginger-brown hair that sparsely populated his pale naked skull. He coughed a quiet, dry cough, and when this failed to draw attention, he said in an equally dry and raspy voice, “Settle down class, settle down. We still have a lot to finish off from last class’ material. There’s a midterm coming up in three weeks.”
The class settled down.
“Now,” said professor Havelock, looking down at his notes, “can anyone tell me where we left off last thursday?”
A small hand shot up like a nervous animal.
“Yes, uh..”
“Quina, sir,” said a bright tiny face in the first row. The face looked like it belonged to a first year who had nagged her way into one of the more advanced 500 level courses. Flattened under the overwhelming pressure of her naive eagerness, a few grad students sighed.
“Yes, uh Quina?”
“We were talking about, I mean we were discussing, the early days in Time travel development, and the--”
“--Yes. Time Travel Development,” said Professor Havelock. “Now, if any of you took the time to prepare for class and looked over the secondary sources, you do all remember what secondary sources are, don’t you? You all know this is history class?” rasped professor Havelock, showing some serious signs of mental wear.
The class, some thirty or more students, grunted, nodded and mumbled their assent in something entirely unlike unison.
“Right. Good. Well. If you have all looked over the Leong-Goldstein and the Cresslock readings you’d know that there were primary sources as well. Some audio-visual materials.”
Professor Havelock often said things that he thought were especially important in a heavy faux-french or british accent as a kind of a weak and, to his students, incomprehensible joke. Today he said “audio-visual material” in mixture of both.
“This audio-visual documentation,” he did it again, this time leaning towards a more british interpretation, “was taken by two different sources: the security cameras at the TTDA facilities, and “Cube,” or the Solmate.7. Solmate.7 was an early version, though very advanced for its time, of the Companprimer series that exists today. It was a very expensive prototype for its time and not yet widely available.”
Due to the looming threat of exams, attendance in the class had risen sharply. Several nervous students were furiously trying to get down as much information as possible, hoping it might make up for everything they hadn’t learnt. Words such as “audio-visual” and “primary source” and “Solmate.7” whizzed across screens . Other less concerned students sat blithely back and sent pithy notes to their friends.
“Now,” said Professor Havelock “today in class, I am going to show you ‘zese materials. I’ll show ze security tape first.”
The lights dimmed as Professor Havelock drew his fingers across his teaching console. An old projector sputtered into life, and a grainy video started to play.
There were three figures in it, walking noiselessly, their movements made jerky and jumpy by the silence and the poor quality of the recording. There were two adults and a child, their facial expressions unclear, walking in a cavernous grey room alongside large circular pools filled with something that had the consistency of mercury. The pools quivered and lurched in tiny frantic motions. They were translucent, with light coming up from beneath.
“That,” said professor Havelock, his sunken face and pale complexion lit by the blue-gray light of the video “is President Harper. That is doctor Eisenstein, and that,” he said, pointing to the smallest figure, “is the president’s five year old daughter, Aurora-Borealis. President Harper always had a penchant for unusual names. She named her twin sons Castor and Pollux, after the myth. Anyone here in Cynthia Lewkowicz’ Greek Mythology class? No one? Well anyway...” Dr Eisensterin was gesturing towards the pools, flapping his long arms like a mother goose defending her young, and the President was nodding intelligently, impassively.
“Those pools are temporal interfaces. The deeper you go into them the further you move away in time.” said professor Havelock.
“I..I don’t think that’s right, I thought that--” whispered a student in the back.
“--You in the back. Quiet. Watch closely or you’ll miss it.” said professor Havelock.
The smallest figure was skipping alongside her mother, every now and then turning and talking to a bright little darting object that moved too quickly to be recorded.
Then, It happened almost instantly. The recording rate of the camera made it seem as though it took no time at all, and as soon as Aurora went in she was being pulled out by Dr. Eisenstein, backpack first. She was crying and rubbing her head, and her mother pulled her close. Dr. Eisenstein stood back, aghast, looking forlornly up at some invisible technician. And then the video stopped.
Professor Havelock turned the lights back up. For a few seconds there was silence.
“Well, What was the most interesting part of this video, do you think?” he asked.
A hand that was becoming familiar shot up and fluttered like a flag in the wind.
“Yes, uh, Quina?”
“It was only a minute and a half long. And she was only in the pool for about 3 seconds.”
“And why is that important?”
“Well, the recording taken by the Solmate.7 is ten minutes long.”
“Yes. Exactly. Time inequality was one of the early and potentially very dangerous kinks of Time travel.”
A few students jotted down “Time inequality”, and “kinks” followed by “dangerous.”
“Time,” said Professor Havelock, “ runs like a river.”
A couple of students rolled their eyes. One, maybe a physics student, whispered loudly, “It doesn’t run like a river at all.” A girl tittered.
“Time runs like a river,” said professor Havelock “and it goes faster in some places than in others. It speeds up and slows down.” His hand flurried and coursed its way down an imaginary river. “And where, or rather when, Aurora fell in, which experts estimate to be sometime in the autumn of 1993, the river was moving a little faster than the time she fell in from.”
A student whispered, “I guess that explains, like, why some of his lectures seem to take forever.” The girl tittered again.
“Now,” said Professor Havelock, “can anybody think of any other “kinks” or problems with early Time travel that might possibly have led to the eventual cancellation of the program?”
Quina’s hand shot up again. Professor Havelock glanced at it, glanced over it, and looked around the class. “Maybe somebody else could take it this time?” asked the professor. Silence reigned. Quina’s hand, undaunted, remained afloat.
“Didn’t anybody do the readings?” He laughed his dry laugh accusingly.
Nobody made eye contact with anyone or anything. Then a boy, with a panicked look on his face, as if to say, “I didn’t know my hand was going to do this either” raised his hand.
“Ah, yes, Trence?” said professor Havelock.
“Well, um, wouldn’t we like, you know, if anybody could do it for, like, any reason, be popping in and out existence and being continually replaced with, like, alligator people or shrubs or something? And we wouldn’t even know it?”
The class erupted into laughter, and Trence, emboldened by his comedic triumph, went on. “And, wouldn’t like, this class, be, like, impossible to teach because history would constantly be changing?” he said.
“Not that that would be a great tragedy,” mumbled someone in the back. Everyone laughed again.
“And you could be, like, your own grandpa!” yelled someone from the back.
“Yes,” said professor Havelock, smiling wearily. “ Yes, well, you’re all right in a way. The points that you are trying to make can be synthesized into the flattening and the muddying processes described in Cresslock. You see, if time travel became ubiquitous, the waters in the river of time would become muddied. The flow and the direction would be disturbed. Events and objects, like particles of sand in the water, would be strewn about. Cresslock argues that if time travel became commonplace there would be no past or future only a kind of directionless present. Time would be a bit less like a river and more like a muddy infinite puddle,” he chuckled. “ And, as you say, there would be no point in a history class.”
“Now, any other “kinks?” asked professor Havelock.
A brooding girl in the third row with some ferocious face armor raised her gauntlet.
“Ah yes, Branwen?”
“Who’s to say that these are even problems? Maybe its time that the river reached the ocean, you know? This kind of unidirectional, linear and prejudiced attitude towards Time might be problematic in and of itself. I mean, who’s to say that free time would be negative? Think of all the good that could be done. Bromstad and Higgenfeller argue that Time is already like a puddle, or like a cloud, and that our individual and collective consciousness’ see Time as a kind of river, as a flow from the past to the future. But it isn’t really that way. So maybe we should just, you know, free our minds? And stop harping on the fascist dictates of president Harper.”
“Ah, yes, well... don’t get ahead of us now. We are going to be studying Bromstad and the rest Time Fighters next week. But for now, any more problems--?”
“--Sure, maybe a lot of good could be done, but what about power?” interjected Quina. “I mean, eventually it would become a kind of flattened out mish-mash cloud, but before that happened all the power in all of time would fall into the hands of whoever had enough energy to operate a machine. Those three seconds that Aurora fell in took enough energy to supply fifteen cities for a year. Don’t you think that that energy could be better used?”
“Energy consumption could be brought down,” Branwen retorted.
“I think it was incredibly noble,” Quina said “with all that Time and power just sitting in front of her to say, ‘no way, it stops here. I will use whatever force we have to make sure that it stops here, to ensure the future, and the past, and the present of human kind.’”
“Yeah, but think about what we could give to the starving and the ignorant of the past. And what we could learn from the future! And when the flow of time is finally stopped we could all live forever.” said Branwen.
“Or not live at all.” said Quina.
“How can you--?” began Branwen.
“--Now now, although this is an interesting although impromptu debate” said Professor Havelock looking down at his console “we are running a little short on, ha ha, time, so I am going to show you the second recording made by the Solmate.7, or as little Aurora called it, “Cube”, taken on her journey back to 1993.”
The lights darkened again.
“This recording is a little more advanced,” said professor Havelock. “It is a an early holo’ and it of course has sound.”
The recording started playing from hundreds of tiny different projection systems around the room.
A small girl with white-blond hair wearing a pink and green jumpsuit and a matching backpack appeared, humming and skipping around, floating in front and slightly above the class. The pinkish hue of the skin around her eyes and their pale colour made her look like a rabbit. But unlike a rabbit, she had the oblivious self possession and confidence that only the very young can have.
As she skipped she cast shadows on the ceiling, away from the quivering pools. The pale light struck her from below: under her chin, above her eyes, and under her earlobes, giving her an uncanny upside-down surprised look.
“Cube, look!” she said, staring into the pool. Her voice was like a little theremin, floating, bubbling, and bouncing off the walls of the enormous room. Like her mother, she had a soft southern-spanish twang to her voice. “Don’t it look sticky?” she asked. Although the pool’s surface shimmered, Aurora could not see her reflection in it. Whatever light the pool reflected was not coming from inside the room.
“Watch out or you’ll slip.” said Cube, as Aurora made an ambitious jump. Its voice was like another child’s.
“Look how far I can jump!” said Aurora.
“And the first human Expedition will be made by..?” asked President Harper, walking next to Dr. Eisenstein.
“Samuel Argos, Madame President. He’s our top man, or rather, human, for the job. He is in preparation now, learning the dialects and customs of what we hope will be the 16th century American colonies. We hope to gather lost historical information about the --”
“--Look how far I can jump, Cube! Look!” squealed Aurora.
“Ooh, that was far. .4 meters!” said Cube with tentative enthusiasm. She jumped again. “.37 meters.” said Cube.
Aurora made one final jump a little too close to a pool. She slipped and fell face first, and Cube went in after her.
A bright light and enormous popping noise rent through the air in the classroom.
“Sorry!” yelled Professor Havelock. He turned down the volume as the students covered their ears, grumbling. “Idiot,” someone mumbled.
Suddenly there was sunlight and the sound of a million children screaming.
“Interestingly enough,” said Professor Havelock “early Time machines had a strange kind of sensitivity to the traveler. Much to the chagrin of the developers, the early models didn’t only move in Time, they also moved uncontrollably in Space. The machine, left to its own devices would seem like it was, almost invariably, fitting the place to the person. It would fit the destination to the traveller. Some scholars argue that the machine put Aurora down into a playground in a small Canadian school in order to protect her. Others think that...”
Out of the bright light a few children ran past the bewildered and dizzy Aurora.
“...In a later, more carefully controlled experiment,” continued professor Havelock “Samuel Argos, an avid cyclist, was accidentally put down into the 1951 Tour de France, in medieval clothing and on a horse, and knocked some unfortunate man in the race down into a ravine. Luckily when the man came to and told people what had happened, they just thought that he had had a hard bump on the head.”
“Where are we Cube?” asked Aurora
Cube flew around her, saying nothing.
A ball bounced in front of Aurora. She looked at it.
“Kick it!” yelled a little boy a few years older than her. She didn’t move. He rolled his eyes.
“Come on. Kick it!” he said, miming the action. She smiled, went up to it and booted it.
“Thanks!” he yelled, running away with the ball.
“Also, every now and then,” began Professor Havelock “scientists working on the Time machine would find things in their office that they had lost. Things that they had lost as children. I remember there was this human interest story in the news at the time about how Dr. Eisenstein found a puppy under his desk. It was his puppy, Rudolf, that had been hit by a car when he was seven, just sitting there, alive and well, wagging his little tail,” Professor Havelock chuckled to himself.
Aurora walked around on the grass. She sniffed the air.
“It smells weird here” she said. “Kind of sweet and burning.”
“It has 14% more pollutants and particles in it,” said Cube.
“Whadya mean?”
“Plant life, soil, ozone, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and trace amounts of lead.”
“Lead!?” Aurora covered her mouth.
“Hey!” said a voice. Aurora turned around.
An older girl with long dark braids walked up. Cube hid behind Aurora’s ear, fluttering lightly like a humming bird.
“Hey,” said Aurora.
“What’s your name?” asked the girl.
“Aurora. What’s yours?”
“Lena.” she said.
“You’re new around here aren’t you,” Lena said. “Whose class are you in?”
Aurora said nothing.
“You’re that new, eh? You look like you should be in the kindergarten-play-area.” She slurred ‘kindergarten-play-area’ as if it were one word.
“I’ll take you there.” She grabbed Aurora’s hand, and Cube flew into her face. Lena screeched and backed away.
“Stop that Cube!” yelled Aurora. Cube darted back behind her ear.
“What.. what is that?” asked Lena, eyes wide. “Is it a toy?”
“No. It’s Cube,” said Aurora. “He’s my mate. He’s a Solmate.7.”
Lena’s brow furrowed. Aurora gloated.
“Yeah, he’s something ain’ he? He won’t be out for another generation. He’s a pro.. a prototype. What do you have? a .6? .5?”
“What’s it do? Why’s it called Cube?” Lena asked.
“Because that’s Cube’s fav’rit shape,” said Aurora. “But he can shapen and morph into just about anything, can’t you Cube?”
“Well, I can’t turn invisible” said Cube. “But I can camouflage.” One side became immediately like the trees behind it, leaves twitching and all. “See?” it said, and it shook and giggled.
Lena giggled too.
“What’s your fav’rit animal?” Cube asked her.
“Rabbit,” said Lena, looking anxiously at Cube.
The next moment Cube was a fluffy brown flemish giant tumbling out of Lena’s arms. He blew a large spit bubble and popped it. Lena laughed. Cube licked her fingers.
“Cube’s my best friend,” said Aurora. She tossed her hair and for a moment looked just like her mother giving a speech. “He can do all sorts of stuff; he can tell the best stories, he can sing songs,” the rabbit began to sing an aria from Carmen, “he can play holos,” a dancing holo couple projected out of the rabbit’s eyes. “And videos too,” she added. “He also tells me all kinds of stuff, since he’s webbed, and he learns with me and helps me with school. We only get into fights sometimes.”
“Oh, oh wow!” Lena said as Cube hopped around her. “Where did you get him?” she asked.
“Whadya mean, where?” Aurora laughed. “I’ve always had him. Since I was born. Where’s your mate?” she asked, looking around Lena’s slim frame.
“I.. I don’t have one.” Lena said
“Oh,” Aurora faltered, “Is it in for repair? Once, Cube had to go in for repair. I cried all night. But that was only when I was little,” she added quickly.
“No,” said Lena, looking down. “I’ve never had one.”
“Never?” said Aurora.
“No. Never,” said Lena.
“Never?” she asked again, this time to herself. Her tiny sweet expression slowly turned from confusion to horror mixed slightly with revulsion, all of which combined unfortunately into something like pity.
“Oh you poor thing,” she said.
Lena squirmed.
“Well,” said Aurora, mustering back her pluck, “my Mom’s the pres’dent. And she could get you one. Yeah,” said said, smiling a little now and reaching forward, “she could get you one.”
“The president of what?” Lena pulled away.
“Why, she’s the pres’dent of North ’Merica, silly.” Aurora smiled, and rolled her eyes teasingly.
“She isn’t. There’s no such thing,” Lena said. “ There’s no such thing as the president of North America.”
“Yes there is. She’s the pres’dent.” said Aurora, rolling her eyes, hand on hip. Cube jumped into her arms and she started to pet him.
“No, she isn’t.” said Lena. She looked at Cube, and then down to the ground and dug her toe into the soil. The she looked up again, her face twisted, “You’re a liar!” she yelled.
“No I’m not!” said Aurora, taken aback.
“Yes you are! You’re a liar!” Lena kicked up some sand.
“No I’m not! I swear, she’s the pres’dent! She is!” said Aurora. “Now don’t be silly... just ‘cause you don’t have a mate doesn’t mean that--”
Lena reached forward and pulled Aurora’s long blond hair. Aurora whinnied and Cube flew at Lena again.
“Liar liar! Pants on fire! Liar liar pants on fire!” yelled Lena.
“I’m not a liar!” Aurora cried, “I’m not! She’s the pres’dent!” and just as Lena gave an extra hard tug she and Cube were pulled back out of the pool by Dr. Eisenstein.
“I’m not a liar! I’m not!” yelled Aurora. She was crying and holding her head. She fell into her mother’s arms. Dr. Eisenstein ran his hands through his hair and looked up again at the invisible technician.
The holo ended and the lights in the class went up. “So,” said professor Havelock “what I want you to do for next class...” students were putting on their coats and pilling their belongings into sacs, “is to get into groups of three or four and discuss this last video and its implications on Harper’s universal ban on Time travel, and prepare a short presentation.” A few students meandered up to the front of the class to ask for extensions on their papers. “We will also be discussing the materials on the Time-Fighters next class, so please read them.”
Friday, March 5, 2010
Music Box, Or Study No 1.
Hi,
Here I am again. This was supposed to be a daily thing, but I never could get the hang of diaries. I wonder why? I think some people in life are very sure of their identities, but mine seems to shift everyday, so writing about myself seems a nearly impossible task.. Or I’m just lazy. No, but seriously, I know that I call myself slothlady, but I am not sure that I believe in laziness. That is if you define laziness as a genuine desire to do absolutely nothing. I think that in my case, maybe I do nothing sometimes because I am anxious or fearful, or bored, or sad. But do I actually have a deep rooted desire to do nothing? No, I don’t think so. On the other hand, I also do not think that leisure time is something to feel guilty about. Which I do. A lot. But I do not think that you should always be ‘useful’ or ‘productive’, words which actually mean that you should be doing what other people think that you should be doing. Sometimes you do have to please others, but sometimes you just have to please yourself as well, and not feel guilty about it. Anyway, I just finished a piece, for now anyway. Here it is. I just made a myspace, and can't figure out how to change the background yet. It is called musicbox.. because I made it from a sample taken from a music box. Alright, not a very original name. Lets try again... hmmmm. How about Study no 1? Now I know you just threw up a little in your mouths, but try to hold the rest down just long enough to hear me out. I’m not trying to make some kind of statement about how music should only be appreciated on its own terms, for the innate beauty of its language and blah blah blah, and therefore it must not be associated with words (yucky stuff), except obliquely for organizational purposes. Nope, that’s not what I mean. I was thinking more about the word study itself. I was thinking about it on the subway, actually. The subway is a great place to think. I don’t know how those headphonedrones (people who are sewn to their ipods) do it. Sometimes I wonder if they just can’t stand being inside their own heads. Wasn’t there a character like that in Fahrenheit 451? Oh yeah, it was the wife of the main character. She just sat around all day listening to her music or watching TV(feelies? was that what they called them?), no real friends or family, just insulated inside her warm cushy womb of sensory stimulation. Or maybe I'm just a jerk and the people on the subway just really like their music. Or maybe I am just too cheap to get sound canceling headphones.
Anyway..
About studying.. I was thinking that most of the art I have ever made has been a study of some kind. Of sound, of different instruments, of shapes and colours and different brushes, glues, pencils. When I dance I dance to see what new things I can do with my elbows. Drawing is the intimate study of vision, of what you see. And it is also the study of how you represent what you see using the materials you have. Drawing helps you to realize how much you never saw and how much more there is to see. And how many more ways there are to show what you see. It is also a study of yourself.
For Musicbox, or Study no 1, I guess I was studying the sound of the music box itself, processing and editing different sounds. I was also studying what I could do with the program (I tried using ultrabeat! which worked out pretty well.. I am no Aphex Twin, but I still had fun and it was remarkably simple.) I made some cool sampler instruments, and I am learning how to use ableton live, so maybe it might be performable. Also, my piece is also 2:42s long. This is the ideal length. Seriously. Look it up. There have been studies.
Also, I went to the MOMA today and saw Tim Burton... it was ok, he is obviously an animator 1st, film maker 2nd, and everything else 22nd. (But who the Fraglerock am I to talk? he is wildly successful and has an exhibit at the MOMA..) What really moved me today were the animations of William Kentridge. So beautiful, all black and white with smeary charcoal, and funny too. There’s this whole room where he made films dedicated to Melies. It has all this wonderful (magical) trick stop-motion. He also animated Mozart’s The Magic Flute in a way that made me enjoy and think about Mozart in a way that I haven’t for a really long time. Phillip Miller was the composer, and his stuff was amazing as well. It was worth at least half of the experience. Check them out. Gee I would love to collaborate with a visual artist.
So anyway, this is supposed to be a daily exercise and I really am going to try to stick to it, no matter how much I think I change in a day(can’t be that much really, though wonder how many of your cells are replaced in a day. I know that your whole body replaces itself in something like seven years(?) I dunno. Its not the actual number of years that counts, but the fact that your body REPLACES ITSELF a la The Thing, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers).
Anyway, I just put up another song too, called ma chere zombie, that I am even more proud of than musicbox(or study no 1). And I have decided to call my musical self The Ladies of Grace Adieu, after the short story by Susana Clarke, author of Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell. If you get a chance to read it, read it. Only buy the paper back because that one thousand page sucker is hard to carry around.
Here I am again. This was supposed to be a daily thing, but I never could get the hang of diaries. I wonder why? I think some people in life are very sure of their identities, but mine seems to shift everyday, so writing about myself seems a nearly impossible task.. Or I’m just lazy. No, but seriously, I know that I call myself slothlady, but I am not sure that I believe in laziness. That is if you define laziness as a genuine desire to do absolutely nothing. I think that in my case, maybe I do nothing sometimes because I am anxious or fearful, or bored, or sad. But do I actually have a deep rooted desire to do nothing? No, I don’t think so. On the other hand, I also do not think that leisure time is something to feel guilty about. Which I do. A lot. But I do not think that you should always be ‘useful’ or ‘productive’, words which actually mean that you should be doing what other people think that you should be doing. Sometimes you do have to please others, but sometimes you just have to please yourself as well, and not feel guilty about it. Anyway, I just finished a piece, for now anyway. Here it is. I just made a myspace, and can't figure out how to change the background yet. It is called musicbox.. because I made it from a sample taken from a music box. Alright, not a very original name. Lets try again... hmmmm. How about Study no 1? Now I know you just threw up a little in your mouths, but try to hold the rest down just long enough to hear me out. I’m not trying to make some kind of statement about how music should only be appreciated on its own terms, for the innate beauty of its language and blah blah blah, and therefore it must not be associated with words (yucky stuff), except obliquely for organizational purposes. Nope, that’s not what I mean. I was thinking more about the word study itself. I was thinking about it on the subway, actually. The subway is a great place to think. I don’t know how those headphonedrones (people who are sewn to their ipods) do it. Sometimes I wonder if they just can’t stand being inside their own heads. Wasn’t there a character like that in Fahrenheit 451? Oh yeah, it was the wife of the main character. She just sat around all day listening to her music or watching TV(feelies? was that what they called them?), no real friends or family, just insulated inside her warm cushy womb of sensory stimulation. Or maybe I'm just a jerk and the people on the subway just really like their music. Or maybe I am just too cheap to get sound canceling headphones.
Anyway..
About studying.. I was thinking that most of the art I have ever made has been a study of some kind. Of sound, of different instruments, of shapes and colours and different brushes, glues, pencils. When I dance I dance to see what new things I can do with my elbows. Drawing is the intimate study of vision, of what you see. And it is also the study of how you represent what you see using the materials you have. Drawing helps you to realize how much you never saw and how much more there is to see. And how many more ways there are to show what you see. It is also a study of yourself.
For Musicbox, or Study no 1, I guess I was studying the sound of the music box itself, processing and editing different sounds. I was also studying what I could do with the program (I tried using ultrabeat! which worked out pretty well.. I am no Aphex Twin, but I still had fun and it was remarkably simple.) I made some cool sampler instruments, and I am learning how to use ableton live, so maybe it might be performable. Also, my piece is also 2:42s long. This is the ideal length. Seriously. Look it up. There have been studies.
Also, I went to the MOMA today and saw Tim Burton... it was ok, he is obviously an animator 1st, film maker 2nd, and everything else 22nd. (But who the Fraglerock am I to talk? he is wildly successful and has an exhibit at the MOMA..) What really moved me today were the animations of William Kentridge. So beautiful, all black and white with smeary charcoal, and funny too. There’s this whole room where he made films dedicated to Melies. It has all this wonderful (magical) trick stop-motion. He also animated Mozart’s The Magic Flute in a way that made me enjoy and think about Mozart in a way that I haven’t for a really long time. Phillip Miller was the composer, and his stuff was amazing as well. It was worth at least half of the experience. Check them out. Gee I would love to collaborate with a visual artist.
So anyway, this is supposed to be a daily exercise and I really am going to try to stick to it, no matter how much I think I change in a day(can’t be that much really, though wonder how many of your cells are replaced in a day. I know that your whole body replaces itself in something like seven years(?) I dunno. Its not the actual number of years that counts, but the fact that your body REPLACES ITSELF a la The Thing, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers).
Anyway, I just put up another song too, called ma chere zombie, that I am even more proud of than musicbox(or study no 1). And I have decided to call my musical self The Ladies of Grace Adieu, after the short story by Susana Clarke, author of Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell. If you get a chance to read it, read it. Only buy the paper back because that one thousand page sucker is hard to carry around.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I'm back!!
Well, I'm back! And ashamed that I was away for so long after I had promised myself to be dedicated to it. Why on earth did I make something that would make me feel guiltier than I already feel? WHY!?!? Oh well, I may at least comfort myself in saying that I warned you. My name is Slothlady, and pretty much, I was asleep all last week. No, not true. I have been working on this piece for my portfolio. I'm adapting a short story by H.G. Wells and putting music to it. Electronic Music (Oooooooooh). It's going pretty well, only I don't have a very good way of recording my voice (read good as cheap and non-labor intensive). I tried recording on my mac with the internal mic, but the sound really sucked, and I did it without a pop screen so it is a little .. poppy. So my prof, Milica Paranoic (meh-litzah paranoh-sich... yeah, I'll tell you a story about how much I messed that up someday. This is her website, she's super cool:
http://www.milicaparanosic.com/ ) lent me an old edirol field recorder that works much better.
And can I just say something really quick. My roomate is drving me bananas. He is trying to remix songs from Grease the musical right now and when he's not doing that he's talking really loudly and productively on the phone. Sorry roomie, you're awesome and I realize that you gotta do what you gotta do, but my advice to all humans out there: do not ever live with someone who makes their office in you house. DOn't dO iT. Because not only do you have to listen to it, you have to feel it. A sort of frenetic anxiety that infects your whole house, and seems to whisper "I am working" in a creepy reverby-pitch shifted sort of way. It makes me want to hide out in my room. And I do. All the time. And then I tell myself to Woman-Up and be an Adult. To be brave and go into the living room. And I do. And I get nauseous, go back in my room, climb back into bed, and worry about how I am ignoring my blog.
But more on this field recorder. I thought that it was a wonderful gift from he GODS!!(I am making it an all caps GODS to imply that these GODS are in fact the GODS from Jason and the Argonauts --VIRTUAL SLAP!-- NO! Not the new movie coming out you Foooooool! The old Harryhausen movie that me and my little bro were raised on, with mixed results. Can I just say that I love the score for the movie sooooo much! And the harpies. I love the harpies. There is no way that the new movie will match this one). Anyway, like any gift from the GODS, this Edirol recorder came with a catch.. a few catches actually. The batteries died, and then the compact flash card, overwrought with grief, died in sympathy after I had spent two hours recording on it in my bathroom. Which is not very clean. Some might argue that this is my fault; I however would tell them to eat broccolini (broccolini is foul stuff. You think that its just like broccoli, only smaller and cuter and with an adorable name, but it is more like broccoli's evil, bitter tasting cousin that has the power to ruin any stir fry).
Anyway, when my piece is finished I will put it up here and you can all listen. All one of you. I am really happy with the way it is going, and I can't wait to rerecord the voice, which I will do today, if it be will of the GODS! And after a lengthy discussion with my roomy about ambient sound I am going to make a recording in a pillow fort in my bedroom. I am pretty excited about it.
I have been thinking a lot about grad schools lately where I can study music technology. I can't figure out which one is best. So I am starting a new section in my blog, called
School Schmool
where I will weigh the pros and cons of different schools for my own personal benefit. But if they happen to help you out in any way, that's great.
My first school is ...
Brown
Pros:
For me, the main appeal of Brown seems to be that it has lots of opportunity for creativity and art within the field of music technology. I have got to say that I am most interested in the music part of music technology. I want to learn how to use and make technology in order to create music. I want technology to serve art. And it seems that Brown is interested in that too. It is also a school that lets the student decide what kind of education they get. Very 'multidisciplinary'. So I could study video making, design, visual art or writing alongside my studies in music technology in order to better inform the art I make. They also do collaborative work with risd, which sounds pretty enticing. They also have an electronic music ensemble, which makes me drool. They have six performance spaces, 5 digital recording studios, 3 project studios with 24 hour access, and a multimedia studio too.
Cons:
They only offer a PhD. You can't just get your masters. So that's a five year long program. At 60 000 $$$ a year for international students. Ouch. I could get a pretty good house for that much. If I stay that long out of the workforce, I guess am saying that I am considering a life in academia, which would be ideal really, except that I would have the debt of a lifetime to pay off. And Universities do not, as a rule, pay very well. I mean, my bf gets paid 50 000 a year. Really, if I want to make art, maybe I am better off doing it on my own, because there is nothing like crippling debt and poverty to make you hate everything.
They do offer a lot of different ways to get money while you are in school: fellowships, work-study, teaching assistanceships, graduate proctorships and tuition scholarships. One of the questions I guess I need to ask them is if I get any of these things, how much will they offset the tuition.
Also, Brown is in Providence. Providence is beautiful, and it has a lot of great places to eat, but if I wanted to intern while I was at school, there wouldn't be too many opportunities. I would have to do summer internships in another city.
Of course there is another thing to consider, which is a personal consideration; my boyfriend lives and works in New York City (Is that the proper use of a semi-colon?). He is starting up a company here, so he probably is not leaving anytime soon. If it were just a masters, two years might be o.k. for a little long distance shuffle. But five years seem like a bit of a stretch.
I also missed the deadline this year to apply, so I have to almost two years before I could go.
What I would have to do to get in:
I need to do a GRE, whatever that is. I hope it doesn't involve math, but I have an eeking sensation in my brain that it might.
I need to have a portfolio, with three or four good examples of my work. Also possibly a website. They primarily judge you on your artistic abilities.
What I still need to look into:
-The faculty: I want composition lessons, so obviously there has to be a good composition teacher there who has experience working with technology.
-How to offset my tuition if I go there?
-Maybe find a way to talk to students who are there and see how they feel about it.
-Look more at the courses they offer and possible paths other students have taken. Figure out what fancy terms like '3D audio' actually mean.
-Get a tour of the facilities, maybe go to a few concerts.
-Also, will my boyfriend will dump me if I go there? Will you sweetie?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Sunday Fantasy Continued
Well, here I am again with another post. I know you are all surprised, saying to yourselves, 'what kind of a Sloth is this lady?' Well, let me tell you, you should be asking, 'what kind of a lady is this Sloth?' I have been exploring the new and exciting field of staring at a wall or a window for a really long and then closing my eyes tight and trying to name all the colours of the colour splotches that appear under my eyelids. This activity is best done lying down. Ooooh lavender.
There is something, however, about me that is very unsloth-like. Guilt. When I am not in a sleepy stupor, I am consumed with guilt. Guilt about all the things that I really, really should be doing. Sloths never seem like they feel guilty about anything. I mean, look at them. I love this video because of the guy just cracking up in the background. Anyway, sloths do not look guilty, probably because they have nothing they should be doing other than being a sloth. Sometimes, well most of the time, I feel as though what life requires of me is much more than what I was meant to be. Like, for instance, I feel that human beings were never supposed to be fiscally responsible, or have bank accounts. And when I feel this way I start staring at walls.
But I am like a sloth in a lot ways. Watch this video to find out why. Or I could just summarize: my muscles have been 'reduced to thin ribbons' through inactivity, I generally defecate in the same place (unfortunately David Attenborough rarely stands by and watches), and I move really slowly. I do not however choose to do less instead of eating less. I just do both. And I don't eat leaves. often. Also, why does Attenborough pronounce sloth like 'sloath.' I wonder if sometimes he pronounces things wrong, only no one tells him because even if it was wrong, after he pronounces it a certain way, it's right. And it has always been right. It's called the Attenborough effect. I also wonder how much I do in the time it takes David Attenborough to eat lunch.
Anyway..
I have been working a little more on my H.G. Wells piece(I am making a kind of musical radio play using an H.G. Well's short story) only I've been stuck for the past few days, unsure, musically, where to go next. I am sampling my own voice and adding effects and doing a little audio processing, and so far it sounds pretty cool and creepy, but I'm just stuck for ideas now. It's an interesting challenge. How can you properly underscore speech so that both stay interesting. It seems to me that one always takes away from the other. That's why in movies they always bring it down low, though I don't know why they always use strings under dialogue. It would seem to me that strings, sounding so much like the human voice, would draw attention away from the dialogue. But it seems to work. Maybe because they use a string section, or maybe because the string sound blends with the voice so that there isn't any competition. Like there might be between say a saxophone and a human voice, or an oboe. Or maybe its just a musical symbol. Woodwind instruments always felt more like voices to me, regardless of whether or not they are similar in sound to the human voice, because they are often used as individual voices, as solo voices. So maybe when you hear an oboe, you think solo voice, because that is what it usually is, irregardless of whether or not the sound itself is especially distinctive. Hmmm, I wonder what an oboe choir would sound like. Oh God NOOOO!! Wow. That there is a very good reason why there aren't a lot of oboes in an orchestra.
Oh well, so far, I'm underscoring human spoken voice with human sung voice (it's all my voice actually). I used my own voice to make the music (sat around in my room singing pitched syllables like 'na' over and over into my laptop and then put them onto a sampler). I am glad that I did that. The human voice is so variable and has so much in it to work with. Maybe I should try using just audio files instead of midi instruments. I'll think about it.
Besides, the snowpocalypse is keeping me away from the lab at school, so I can't do much now anyway.
Here is some more of that story I was working on:
The wind whistled in her ears as she ran, or rather slid, down the mountain. The enormous bird's shadow was just about to overtake her when she suddenly remembered a movie from her childhood, In Search of the Castaways, an insidious Disney adventure film starring Hailey Mills. At one point in the film Hailey little brother is captured by a giant eagle who lifts him up by his shoulders. A native shoots the bird down and it falls like a leaf, slowly spiraling to the ground. When she was a little girl she knew two things about this sequence that she still knew now:1)the bird wouldn't hold onto her shoulders with its talons, it would rip through her shoulders with its talons, and 2)if she did manage an escape from the bird in midflight, obliging native or no, she would not fall to the earth like a leaf, she would fall to the earth like a human being.
It might also, very probably, gauge my eyes out, she thought in an inexplicably calm inner voice. Her outer voice, which up until now had been waiting for her inner voice to finish, decided to start screaming.
Up ahead she saw a thick forest and she made for it like as if her feet were skis. She made it just in time. The bird flew back up into the sky and screeched dejectedly.
Immediately upon arrival into the forest, she wrapped her arms around the friendliest looking tree and threw up. Afterwards she let out a few comforting sobs.
She looked back up the mountain. She looked up and saw the bird still circling in the sky.
'Well, I can't go back that way,' she said.
She looked down the mountain and into the forest. It was dark and quiet. A piece of snow fell off a tree in a menacing kind of way. It made no noise. Snow dampened, she thought.
She sighed and started to make her way down the mountain through the forest.
As she walked the air grew warmer and she started feeling a little better about things. All I really have to do, she thought, is make my way up that other mountain. So long as I don't get mauled by some animal or something, I should be just fine. The forest started to sing with birds. Tiny birds, she thought.
Mingled with the birdsong, she started to hear a strange melody played on an instrument a little like a flute only more woody. The sound went in and out. It bounced off and trees, and she couldn't tell where it was coming from until she was standing right in front of the musician.
'Oh,' she said.
His skin was alabaster white. He looked, from behind, like a statue in a museum. She imagined she could almost hear the marble grinding as his back muscles moved. He was sitting on a rock covered in snow, and being so white himself he was well camouflaged. He was playing a pan pipe, and when he turned around she noticed that his eyes were a deep green flecked with gold. She also noticed that he had goat legs. And little horns.
'If you are a nymph, a nereid, or a dryad,' he said, 'I am feeling a little bit down right now and I am not interested in chasing you and ravishing you. So please leave me alone.'
'Uh.. goat legs,' she replied.
'What?' he said.
There is something, however, about me that is very unsloth-like. Guilt. When I am not in a sleepy stupor, I am consumed with guilt. Guilt about all the things that I really, really should be doing. Sloths never seem like they feel guilty about anything. I mean, look at them. I love this video because of the guy just cracking up in the background. Anyway, sloths do not look guilty, probably because they have nothing they should be doing other than being a sloth. Sometimes, well most of the time, I feel as though what life requires of me is much more than what I was meant to be. Like, for instance, I feel that human beings were never supposed to be fiscally responsible, or have bank accounts. And when I feel this way I start staring at walls.
But I am like a sloth in a lot ways. Watch this video to find out why. Or I could just summarize: my muscles have been 'reduced to thin ribbons' through inactivity, I generally defecate in the same place (unfortunately David Attenborough rarely stands by and watches), and I move really slowly. I do not however choose to do less instead of eating less. I just do both. And I don't eat leaves. often. Also, why does Attenborough pronounce sloth like 'sloath.' I wonder if sometimes he pronounces things wrong, only no one tells him because even if it was wrong, after he pronounces it a certain way, it's right. And it has always been right. It's called the Attenborough effect. I also wonder how much I do in the time it takes David Attenborough to eat lunch.
Anyway..
I have been working a little more on my H.G. Wells piece(I am making a kind of musical radio play using an H.G. Well's short story) only I've been stuck for the past few days, unsure, musically, where to go next. I am sampling my own voice and adding effects and doing a little audio processing, and so far it sounds pretty cool and creepy, but I'm just stuck for ideas now. It's an interesting challenge. How can you properly underscore speech so that both stay interesting. It seems to me that one always takes away from the other. That's why in movies they always bring it down low, though I don't know why they always use strings under dialogue. It would seem to me that strings, sounding so much like the human voice, would draw attention away from the dialogue. But it seems to work. Maybe because they use a string section, or maybe because the string sound blends with the voice so that there isn't any competition. Like there might be between say a saxophone and a human voice, or an oboe. Or maybe its just a musical symbol. Woodwind instruments always felt more like voices to me, regardless of whether or not they are similar in sound to the human voice, because they are often used as individual voices, as solo voices. So maybe when you hear an oboe, you think solo voice, because that is what it usually is, irregardless of whether or not the sound itself is especially distinctive. Hmmm, I wonder what an oboe choir would sound like. Oh God NOOOO!! Wow. That there is a very good reason why there aren't a lot of oboes in an orchestra.
Oh well, so far, I'm underscoring human spoken voice with human sung voice (it's all my voice actually). I used my own voice to make the music (sat around in my room singing pitched syllables like 'na' over and over into my laptop and then put them onto a sampler). I am glad that I did that. The human voice is so variable and has so much in it to work with. Maybe I should try using just audio files instead of midi instruments. I'll think about it.
Besides, the snowpocalypse is keeping me away from the lab at school, so I can't do much now anyway.
Here is some more of that story I was working on:
The wind whistled in her ears as she ran, or rather slid, down the mountain. The enormous bird's shadow was just about to overtake her when she suddenly remembered a movie from her childhood, In Search of the Castaways, an insidious Disney adventure film starring Hailey Mills. At one point in the film Hailey little brother is captured by a giant eagle who lifts him up by his shoulders. A native shoots the bird down and it falls like a leaf, slowly spiraling to the ground. When she was a little girl she knew two things about this sequence that she still knew now:1)the bird wouldn't hold onto her shoulders with its talons, it would rip through her shoulders with its talons, and 2)if she did manage an escape from the bird in midflight, obliging native or no, she would not fall to the earth like a leaf, she would fall to the earth like a human being.
It might also, very probably, gauge my eyes out, she thought in an inexplicably calm inner voice. Her outer voice, which up until now had been waiting for her inner voice to finish, decided to start screaming.
Up ahead she saw a thick forest and she made for it like as if her feet were skis. She made it just in time. The bird flew back up into the sky and screeched dejectedly.
Immediately upon arrival into the forest, she wrapped her arms around the friendliest looking tree and threw up. Afterwards she let out a few comforting sobs.
She looked back up the mountain. She looked up and saw the bird still circling in the sky.
'Well, I can't go back that way,' she said.
She looked down the mountain and into the forest. It was dark and quiet. A piece of snow fell off a tree in a menacing kind of way. It made no noise. Snow dampened, she thought.
She sighed and started to make her way down the mountain through the forest.
As she walked the air grew warmer and she started feeling a little better about things. All I really have to do, she thought, is make my way up that other mountain. So long as I don't get mauled by some animal or something, I should be just fine. The forest started to sing with birds. Tiny birds, she thought.
Mingled with the birdsong, she started to hear a strange melody played on an instrument a little like a flute only more woody. The sound went in and out. It bounced off and trees, and she couldn't tell where it was coming from until she was standing right in front of the musician.
'Oh,' she said.
His skin was alabaster white. He looked, from behind, like a statue in a museum. She imagined she could almost hear the marble grinding as his back muscles moved. He was sitting on a rock covered in snow, and being so white himself he was well camouflaged. He was playing a pan pipe, and when he turned around she noticed that his eyes were a deep green flecked with gold. She also noticed that he had goat legs. And little horns.
'If you are a nymph, a nereid, or a dryad,' he said, 'I am feeling a little bit down right now and I am not interested in chasing you and ravishing you. So please leave me alone.'
'Uh.. goat legs,' she replied.
'What?' he said.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Elegy, Precision Skating, Stranvinsky and Stews.
Hmmm... Well, today I spent most of my day in the lab working on a short piece for solo violin. An Elegy. Here is the definition of elegy from wikipedia:
The term "elegy" originally denoted a type of poetic meter (elegiac meter). It commonly describes a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegeia (ἐλεγεία) derived from elegos (ἔλεγος)—a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. As such, it may be classified as a form of lyric poetry. An elegy can also reflect on something that seems strange or mysterious. Additionally, "elegy" (sometimes spelled elégie) may denote a type of musical work, usually of a sad or somber nature. The term "elegy" is not to be confused with "eulogy."
Wow. Thanks wikipedia for giving me a word that sounds a lot like elegy, and that is related in meaning to elegy, in order to avoid confusion. That'll help me a lot.
Anyway, my prof said that the piece is supposed to be about specific event, something tragic in my life. But I can't think of anything. Not to say that nothing tragic has ever happened to me, but just that all my tragedies have been small tragedies. Tragedies not necessarily worthy of a piece of art. Trifling tragedies. Like being snubbed by animals in general(why don't they ever want to cuddle with me?). Or feeling upset because someone thought I was lame for wearing fake louis-V, only I didn't even know it was a fake anything-at-all. I just thought it was a watch my mom gave me. Or being made a spare on a children's precision skating team called Capitol Blades. I wonder if they are still around. Hmmm.. well I just did about three minutes of internet searching and couldn't find them. I guess they failed. snicker snicker. Or changed their name.
Actually, after watching this video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0poMM6BPZXM&feature=related
I'm not sure that my exclusion from the world of synchronized skating was so trifling a tragedy after all. I mean, look at all the sequence. Just look at it. You have no idea how much hair gel went into that event. All I am going to say is : whale-bladder-ful.
I guess there have been some real sad things in my life, but somehow writing a piece about them feels wrong. Like I could never do real tragedy justice through art. Besides, I never can seem to write programmatic music. When I sit down to write it's all notes, rhythms, phrases, textures, and harmonies. The emotional and visceral content must eek out subconsciously. Which is kind of nice, because that way I can just sit back and enjoy listening to my own music on a level that has nothing to do with notes, rhythms, phrases, textures and harmonies. As if I didn't even write it myself.
I think the elegy I am writing sounds like it fits more in the vein of the mysterious or the strange than in the tragic It has a little march half way through it that is a little nervous. It is for two voices, like Stravinsky's elegie written for viola, which I have got to say is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever heard. I have been playing it over and over again for myself on the piano. There is something kind of ritualistic and addictively repetitive about it. Like a lot of Stravinsky's music that I have heard, it is sparse yet powerful. Kind of like the poetry of H.D. Here's a link to a video with the music and some sweet pics of Stravinsky (one of them is a drawing by Picasso!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4pGbFwC1s0
Now I know you are all waiting for the rest of my story, and believe me it has been a stewin' and a brewin' in my brain. But you know how stews are; the longer you let them do what stews do, the better they taste. Unless you let them sit forever, in which case they turn into a dried out paste that eventually burns down your kitchen. Soooo, what I mean to say is that I will write some more tomorrow. I am tired and still have a cold so you, my invisible and so far nonexistent (except for Cody) readership, will have to wait.
Slothlady out.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Jan 31st, 2010 Slothlady's first entry
Sunday, sitting around with a cold in a towel with wet hair surrounded by used dishes and tissues and manuscript paper. Enjoying several fantasies about applying to TOR for an unpaid internship. I imagine that your fantasies are a little more far reaching than mine, but what can I say, modesty is the best policy.. or was that honesty? Anyway, I imagine going in for an impromptu interview and impressing someone. Well, I suppose at least my fantasies are honest, except the ones where I fight monsters, or make friends with a dejected satyr in ancient Greece. I'm still kind of mulling over that one. Maybe I should write some of it and see how it goes:
She sat alone in the subway in a nearly empty subway car. She was reading Frankenstein, which up until now she had been enjoying. Exasperated, she thought:
If Mary Shelley puts one more story inside this story and has someone tell me about it in first person I am just going to.. I dunno, resurrect something and then kill it.
She put the book down and looked at her fellow travelers. Across from her sat a man. She tried to imagine what he did for a living and it wasn't very hard. Heavy boots, durable clothes, half asleep. It added up. Construction probably. She looked at his hands. Rough. She looked at her own hands. Soft.. she thought. Actually a little dry. I should put on some moisturizer when I get home. She sighed.
It must feel.. I don't know, powerful and good to know how to build something. To have some say when it comes to things and places. At home sometimes she felt nervous because everything around her was made by someone else. She would try to imagine all the people and processes that went into making all of her things until it made her feel dizzy and nauseous. She could feel and hear all the people: the designers, the miners, the scientists, the factory workers, the shop people, the advertisers, pushing in on her, yelling their things at her, and she would have to close her eyes and listen to her own heartbeat. And she would think, looking at the blood vessels under her eye lids, well at least this place is mine.
She looked at the cover of the book. It was a painting by Caspar David Friedrich of tall naked trees in a winter wood. The word for it, she had learned in Introduction to Art History, was sublime. Sublime nature. The only sublime things about New York City were the buildings. They made her feel small. Back in montreal she used to pretend that she could, when she was sad, fall into the warm brown brick of the little two story buildings, like a father's old sweater. She could curl up into the winding outdoor stair cases and have a good cry. But the buildings here stood tall, shining and aloof, like the eyes of people that she didn't meet on the street.
She closed her eyes now. She couldn't hear her heartbeat over the sound of the subway as the train went under the water between New York City and Brooklyn. She started to nod off and she woke up later. Much later. She was drooling a little. The car was freezing cold, very dark, and empty. Well, it was almost empty. There was a faux-fur coat, pressed in plastic and newly dry cleaned, left hanging on a ceiling rail. The train had stopped moving, and the doors opened.
'Last stop.' said a cheery yet indifferent male voice.'Everyone must get off the train.'
She grabbed the coat and stepped off the train.
Maybe there's a lost and found, she thought. The air was very clear and sweet.
I must be pretty far out, she thought. She climbed up the stairs.
'Now I'll have to pay for a ticket back," she said aloud.
Wind swayed through the pine trees and she looked out on a bright winter's day. The sky was robin's egg blue and pale around the edges, and everything rang and chimed with sunlight. She was on top of a mountain and could see for miles around. The cellophane around the faux-fur coat ripped off and fluttered joyfully away in the wind and sun.
"Holy fuck." She whispered. She put the coat on. There was not a single building in sight. Not a single person in sight. Nothing and No-one was there but her.
"Fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck." She turned around. She saw the way she had come out of the subway was still there. She also saw another entrance going back the other way. Only it wasn't across the street. It was on another mountain peak. Across a valley. Maybe ten minutes away if she could fly. Maybe ten hours on foot. Maybe.
She went back into the subway and sat down on a bench. The train was gone. There were ads up for the latest movies, and graffiti carved into the wall: Mitch and Cornea 4eva. Cornea? really? she thought. There was old gum on the floor, and newspaper under the bench. She flicked open her cellphone. There was no signal. She also noticed a little battery sign trying to inconspicuously empty itself on the upper right corner of her screen. She had maybe half an hour of juice left.
"Fuck." she said.
She climbed back outside. Still no signal.
"Fuck Verizon!" She said, now suddenly blessed with a direction to throw her frustration at. She heard the screech of a eagle overhead. She looked up. Apparently, they do that to make their prey so afraid that they run panicked, and become more visible, she thought, lecturing herself. It was flying down towards her, and she realized, as soon as it got closer and once her depth perception stopped denying it, that the bird was the size of a bus. So she ran, like a silly woman in a horror movie, away from the safety of the subway and down the mountain.
Well, that's the most I feel like writing just now, but stay tuned for more and maybe some music and some art too if I feel like it. But remember, I am the slothlady and am slow, sleepy, and lazy. Don't worry though, the satyr is coming, I think, and things are going to get a whole lot more exciting for our heroine. Maybe she might even have a name next time. Who knows?
She sat alone in the subway in a nearly empty subway car. She was reading Frankenstein, which up until now she had been enjoying. Exasperated, she thought:
If Mary Shelley puts one more story inside this story and has someone tell me about it in first person I am just going to.. I dunno, resurrect something and then kill it.
She put the book down and looked at her fellow travelers. Across from her sat a man. She tried to imagine what he did for a living and it wasn't very hard. Heavy boots, durable clothes, half asleep. It added up. Construction probably. She looked at his hands. Rough. She looked at her own hands. Soft.. she thought. Actually a little dry. I should put on some moisturizer when I get home. She sighed.
It must feel.. I don't know, powerful and good to know how to build something. To have some say when it comes to things and places. At home sometimes she felt nervous because everything around her was made by someone else. She would try to imagine all the people and processes that went into making all of her things until it made her feel dizzy and nauseous. She could feel and hear all the people: the designers, the miners, the scientists, the factory workers, the shop people, the advertisers, pushing in on her, yelling their things at her, and she would have to close her eyes and listen to her own heartbeat. And she would think, looking at the blood vessels under her eye lids, well at least this place is mine.
She looked at the cover of the book. It was a painting by Caspar David Friedrich of tall naked trees in a winter wood. The word for it, she had learned in Introduction to Art History, was sublime. Sublime nature. The only sublime things about New York City were the buildings. They made her feel small. Back in montreal she used to pretend that she could, when she was sad, fall into the warm brown brick of the little two story buildings, like a father's old sweater. She could curl up into the winding outdoor stair cases and have a good cry. But the buildings here stood tall, shining and aloof, like the eyes of people that she didn't meet on the street.
She closed her eyes now. She couldn't hear her heartbeat over the sound of the subway as the train went under the water between New York City and Brooklyn. She started to nod off and she woke up later. Much later. She was drooling a little. The car was freezing cold, very dark, and empty. Well, it was almost empty. There was a faux-fur coat, pressed in plastic and newly dry cleaned, left hanging on a ceiling rail. The train had stopped moving, and the doors opened.
'Last stop.' said a cheery yet indifferent male voice.'Everyone must get off the train.'
She grabbed the coat and stepped off the train.
Maybe there's a lost and found, she thought. The air was very clear and sweet.
I must be pretty far out, she thought. She climbed up the stairs.
'Now I'll have to pay for a ticket back," she said aloud.
Wind swayed through the pine trees and she looked out on a bright winter's day. The sky was robin's egg blue and pale around the edges, and everything rang and chimed with sunlight. She was on top of a mountain and could see for miles around. The cellophane around the faux-fur coat ripped off and fluttered joyfully away in the wind and sun.
"Holy fuck." She whispered. She put the coat on. There was not a single building in sight. Not a single person in sight. Nothing and No-one was there but her.
"Fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck." She turned around. She saw the way she had come out of the subway was still there. She also saw another entrance going back the other way. Only it wasn't across the street. It was on another mountain peak. Across a valley. Maybe ten minutes away if she could fly. Maybe ten hours on foot. Maybe.
She went back into the subway and sat down on a bench. The train was gone. There were ads up for the latest movies, and graffiti carved into the wall: Mitch and Cornea 4eva. Cornea? really? she thought. There was old gum on the floor, and newspaper under the bench. She flicked open her cellphone. There was no signal. She also noticed a little battery sign trying to inconspicuously empty itself on the upper right corner of her screen. She had maybe half an hour of juice left.
"Fuck." she said.
She climbed back outside. Still no signal.
"Fuck Verizon!" She said, now suddenly blessed with a direction to throw her frustration at. She heard the screech of a eagle overhead. She looked up. Apparently, they do that to make their prey so afraid that they run panicked, and become more visible, she thought, lecturing herself. It was flying down towards her, and she realized, as soon as it got closer and once her depth perception stopped denying it, that the bird was the size of a bus. So she ran, like a silly woman in a horror movie, away from the safety of the subway and down the mountain.
Well, that's the most I feel like writing just now, but stay tuned for more and maybe some music and some art too if I feel like it. But remember, I am the slothlady and am slow, sleepy, and lazy. Don't worry though, the satyr is coming, I think, and things are going to get a whole lot more exciting for our heroine. Maybe she might even have a name next time. Who knows?
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