Rio and Others (sport, music, de Beauvoir) http://www.alansondheim.org/bctrip2290.jpg miniature afghan fretless tambur -> inv-dyn http://www.alansondheim.org/afghani2.mp3 (i've gotten there) miniature afghan fretless tambur http://www.alansondheim.org/afghani.mp3 (i'm getting there) I've been watching as much of the Olympics as I can; it's good to practice music while they're on. I'm disgusted by U.S. chauvinism; I'm also disgusted by the rampant commercialism - cutting away, for example, whenever an athlete is hurt. But I'm also amazed at the brilliance of athletes (as I write this, Neymar is down), who practice for years, perfecting their sport; it's inspiring to see such ability. I keep thinking of my own musical practice; whenever I go slack, touch and sound loosen their uneasy collaboration, and I feel the need to start over again. When I'm playing, say, the tambur (do listen to both versions), my eyes focus on the bottom of the instrument, where the bow is; if I video my fingers, I'm fascinated by their speed, as if they're acting on their own, responding to the quick and strange dynamics of muscle memory. Anything that someone does well physically (beyond this always seems to be well out of my league; I sense whole realms opening up at the touch of a finger, a hand, a leg, a vault, and kick, a jump. I watch these unattainable worlds; I can't imagine what it's like, for example, to complete a floor exercise, or hold perfectly still in an archery competition. So what I'm doing, now, is trying out small modules, processing them with inverse amplitudes, odd dynamic translations; at least I can hear something new, for me, and at my end, something old as well, as these modules appear to be, on one hand, an imitation the sounds of anomalous shortwave signals, and on the other, some traditional structures of ecstasy and repetition. One always does what one can. And while I recognize all the dreary patriotism and commercialism of the Rio games, I try to tunnel beneath these, and rise to witness the elegance above. Neymar's okay. "I was rowing, and the boat glided along without leaving a trace, so quietly. To be nothing but the white ripple rising and disappearing into the even surface of the water. _That voice should be killed. That voice what was saying: 'I should like to be that ripple.' She said: 'That voice should be killed.' The ripple was born and died without a voice._" - Simone de Beauvoir, The Blood of Others, p. 143, trans. Roger Senhouse and Yvonne Moyse, New York, 1948. French original, 1943, Le Sang des Autres. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
