It is an essential human impulse to apply abstractions to people/places/event for the sake of understanding ideologies inherent in the mundane or random. It is a practice that distinguishes human understanding. I fear sounding overtly anthropocentric with the observation, and perhaps it is ignorant of me to assume that dogs and cats are not speeding through life while carelessly pigeon-holing the external world for the sake of distilling the dangerous chaos around them. Living across from a hospital will make anyone aware of the chaos. So will an overly-sensitive smoke detector. It is reflected in the frequent sirens, the flashing red lights permeating the safe white-wall confines of my pantry of a living space. Perhaps this was the impulse behind my recent (cough) acquisition (cough) of the BBC Sound Effects Library, a forty-disc set consisting of random sounds, divided into categories like natural atmospheres and farm machinery. I think they're coming out with "CD 41: Sounds of Medieval Childbirth" next year. I can't wait...
(amateur graphic edited with Windows Paint application.)
SIKE! Anyway, the set offers an intimate sonic encounter with all of those noises that tend to invade the subconscious anyway. Fuck it.. the siren outside just isn't good enough. I need to have it blaring through my headphones. Currently I have the sound of a match being struck stuck in my head. It's a catchy mix. There's even a whole CD devoted to the miscellaneous sounds of Spain. I close my eyes and I'm stabbing a bull in the side with a sharp pole.
I'll leave you with this... (Warning: It may be the most anti-climactic experience you've had in a while. The music is an excerpt from Terry Riley's "Rainbow in Curved Air.")
p.s. thanks to all visitors who came up this weekend. tecate light would not have been the same without you.
