Tuesday 30 January 2018

Memory Mix 2 (Quadraphonic)

1

Sitting in a train carriage aware of a woman to my right having a tearful conversation on her mobile phone. She gives clipped agitated answers to unknown questions while coughing, crying, and pleading with the caller. She sobs throughout the call, tears streaming down her face, evidently very distressed. The caller evidently ends the dialogue angrily and swiftly leaving the woman shaking, sobbing uncontrollably. After a few minutes I lean across the aisle offering her a pack of tissues enquiring if she is okay. Turning slowly, seemingly only now aware of her very public position, she smiles slightly and takes the tissues. She opens them furtively, and with the aid of a pocket mirror from her bag, dabs one tissue to her eyes and cheeks and mouth where her make-up has run. She discards this and then takes another. She then blows her nose in a series of revolting gurgling snorts, opening up the tissue between expulsions to inspect the contents. Both the sound of her blows and the visual result she displays turns my stomach so that I look away in disgust my seat creaking as I move, her actions still visible to me in the reflection of the carriage window. Thankfully moments later the train arrives at my destination but as I get up to leave she turns to me and hands me a folded tissue with her number written on it. I smile awkwardly disembarking, still disgusted, unable to meet her gaze at the window. As soon as the train is out of sight I discard the tissue.

2

As a child attending another boy's birthday party. Sat around a table with other children from my class at school, we are all eating snacks and party food, swilling fizzy drinks; loud voices, music: noise. The kid who's birthday it is (we are all no more than nine or ten years old), is greatly excited, laughing, joking, shouting at us all across the table and above our din. It is his day after all. At some point he gets to his feet and laughing with his mouth open I become transfixed on watching the crushed food inside his mouth become a lurid coloured paste which he continually adds to as he laughs. Slowly my attention shifts away from his guffaws, and I realise that I have long-since stopped eating, the noise of the room some how diminished outside of myself now just as my thoughts inside have been silenced. All I can do is watch and listen to him closely and he alone, and as he repeatedly tilts his head back as he chews, chomps and fills his face; things going into and sounds coming out of his mouth. Then I watch in horror as a thin trickle of green snot dribbles from one nostril into his gaping mirthful maw, mixing with his food. At that moment I vomit violently which is met with a universal and mocking laughter from all present which resounds and reverberates in my memory long after it has actually occurred. To this day the memory of this haunts me still.

3

On a metro train headed for Queens, New York, stationary, waiting beside the platform. The train is quite crowded with lots of disgruntled passengers due to the unexplained lack of movement from the train. Sat beside me, Jennie is checking her phone for alternative routes, irritated by yet another delay and our lack of remaining time in the city. A garbled message interrupts the general hubbub on the train briefly, something to do with the delay no doubt, but I can't understand what was said. I turn my attention instead to two New Yorkers sat opposite, women seemingly friends who appear to be discussing someone. I can't determine who from what they say and their thick accents but from their dismissive demeanor and their casual and repeated swearing I assume it's a man they know. Momentarily disinterested in this, I listen to several screeching trains pass us on other tracks in the station, the faint clatter patter and murmur of people on the platforms, snippets of conversations within the carriage, before once again finding my attention drawn to one of the women opposite, the one furthest from me. Between trading insults with her friend, she regularly turns her body to face front, staring blankly beneath her baseball cap, and then proceed to sniff deeply, noisily, followed by a chewing of her gum with an open mouth and a smack of the lips. This action she repeats in sequence often, like it's a tic or a learned response to her friend's reactions to her comments, and it's in this repetition that I find my attention drawn and also it's abhorrence.

4

At a Francisco Lopez gig at Cafe Oto. Jennie and I sit opposite where Lopez will perform facing us. The audience is circled around Lopez in the centre with their backs to him in two rows, and in several rows facing the opposite direction on several sides of this. Waiting patiently the gig to begin Jennie and I both note that a man behind us evidently has an awful cold causing him to frequently sniff and blow his nose. We consider moving seats but as the venue has greatly filled our options are now limited so we decide to stay put and ignore it the best we can. Having listened to Lopez extol on how our lack of sight will be more conducive to listening, we don our blindfolds and the venue is plunged into darkness. Lopez plays a complex surround sound mix of crisp electronics, angular rhythmic industrial noise, and amplified natural sounds which shoot, swirl and sweep about us building and demolishing an architecture of fragmented narratives. Initially I'm irked by the intrusion of the man's sniffing behind us, noticeable only really in the silences and quieter sections, or the pauses between pieces. Gradually however, I come to listen attentively to his input, almost anticipating it, and as I do so, I also become more aware of other sounds; the tinkle of glasses at the bar, passing cars and people in the street outside, Jennie breathing, our weight shifting in our creaking chairs, other people with coughs and colds near and far. And it's not without some irony that I also consider Lopez' statement again in the terms that without the visual spectacle of his performance with which to also focus one's listening, my attention may be inclined instead not to recordings but to listening to my physical now, my immediate environment.     


Thursday 25 January 2018

Memory Mix 1

 
Left Ear 

Rummaging through a box of discounted old LP's in a used music shop somewhere in London. Finding an unlabelled record in a crinkled plastic sleeve which is yellowed and fatigued and somewhat stiff, I'm intrigued as what it might be.  Removing the sleeve, I stuff it under my arm, it crunching slightly, as I put it on the record deck. Visibly filthy and covered in scratches, I watch as a wedge of fluff is ploughed out of the groove by the needle as it jumps and rocks on the vinyl. Lifting the solitary headphone to my ear, what little I discern of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" is accompanied by a creaking grinding and the hissing whispers of decades and dust, as if gaseous clouds of the stuff have enveloped the piano in a fog.

Right Ear

Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" piped into the Men's lavatories in Departures at Heathrow Terminal 5. Aside from a quick succession of men at the urinals, familiar sounds of short bursts of hand-dryers and running taps, several voices are occasionally heard, their words indistinct. Cubicle doors are often open and shut with some violence, the automatic flushing shifting in and out of phase. In the cubicle next to mine a man audibly groans and gasps as, presumably, he shits. The long drawn out succession of splashes followed by a brief, high-pitched and squeaking fart. More splashes follow, again and again, each delivered with some force. The man muttering something, I hear him curse under his breath: "Fucking airline food."

Monday 15 January 2018

Reflection 1

Several days have passed since my last post. There were sounds that I listened to, that I could have recorded, wrote about, but something held me back. Reflecting on what I've written so far, I feel like I'm retreading familiar territory - this is my second blog - not just in applying pen to paper, eking out another few meagre words to fill some lines in my book, or for that matter simply pricking one's ears. In so doing I'm returning to a place and time long since passed. Observations was an early attempt to really explore the mixing of auditory and visual perception, using self-written texts and sound. Now in 2018, I'm asking myself why have I returned to this point? why this obsession with this 'auralvision' of ideas, why do they never seem to leave me, satisfy my curiosity, reach a conclusion in my work now or since? (and while a "conclusion" is perhaps unwanted) I keep asking myself if whether the dissatisfaction I feel with regard to my work stems from the pursuit of these ideas? And either way, and given that with another passing year I'm reminded of the limited duration afforded me, should I not pursue work that excites me more, breaks into new territory unfettered by conceptual and theoretical concerns, or even ask whether it's work or research? One's preoccupations have after all a habit of whispering into one's work regardless, but that said I do feel that I need to alter course here, if only to breathe new life into my work and renew optimism into myself. And write again too, but about listening in a different way.

Wednesday 10 January 2018

A young man, talking on his mobile phone

while sat in the injuries unit in A&E,
apparently addressing another how best to 'seduce' a woman they know.

Either oblivious to,
or more likely caring little (from how he arrogantly expresses himself)
that other patients can hear him,
he coaxes his "neo-liberal" friend,
pressing him to ignore any occasion when she may reject him adding,
that "No doesn't mean no,"
he should always persist, "backing her into a corner" to "win through,"
"The result is the same..."

Laughing then - it's unclear whether to himself or with the caller - he adds:
"And if it'll sweeten the deal, you can use that #metoo to your advantage,"
"she's a crazy feminist, isn't she?!"

A sort of sneering laughter follows, as he sniffs,
Looking then with contempt at those around him, he clears his throat, sniffs again.
As at the same time I can feel the other listeners around me listening intently,
in a sort of aura of disgust which has permeated the room,
watching the silence between his words,
suggesting a collective desire for an unpleasant violence to befall him.
I wonder too if this man has sisters, a mother, daughters of his own,
What they would make of his 'advice'? and what might they do to hear him?
Called away then by a doctor, he hangs up without a word and strides away,
The room audibly and visibly relaxes,
As it once had been tense, contracted,
now it swells, excluding that man forever.

Tuesday 9 January 2018

Foreign students, talking amongst themselves


so free, easy, comfortable
with their words for themselves.
Their world in their words,
their voices relaxed,
not loud, not quiet,
their privacy assumed? assured?

Listening in
I wonder who else must do the same -
surely someone recognises?
surely someone understands?
surely someone knows?
And like me, smiles to themself
to be privy to a word here and there?

Or simply they hear the smiles
behind the words?
Always the same
despite the language -
accent, dialect, delivery -

What does any group of people talk about happily?

Monday 8 January 2018

A child screaming; inconsolable


Scream against fear,
Against hate,
Against prejudice,
Scream against pain,
Against violence,
Against abuse,
Against poverty,
Scream against cruelty,
Against this world

Scream against pollution,
Against the destruction,
of forests, oceans, air
Scream against the horror,
of concrete, metal, plastic

Piss and shit yourself
And scream against it all
Cough and vomit up your food
And scream against them all

Scream and scream and scream
Against them that plug their ears, scream
Against them that close their eyes, scream
Against them that shut their mouths, scream
Against them that would silence you, scream.

Never stop screaming.

Friday 5 January 2018

A supermarket checkout in a station


Amid the general bustle,
both inside and immediately beyond the continually sliding doors -
Hundreds of shoes
on polished stone,
Rail announcements
on a booming tannoy,
Distant traffic outside
stopping, pulling away -

I attune my ears to two similar sounds:
The bleeps from the barriers
as hasty passengers swipe in and out
or thrust tickets in and grab them;
And that of the till scanners,
as I leisurely pass my items of shopping through,
the bleeps here pitched just a little lower.

The first from the barriers from afar are chaotic,
progressive, repetitive,
sometimes one or two in quick succession,
sometimes several all at once.
The second from the scanner, close, deliberate,
and occasionally accompanied by others to my left and right,
or a mechanical voice intoning some instruction.

Listening to this duet of both bleeps,
I play my till scanner, improvising,
delighting in this distraction while I shop.

Thursday 4 January 2018

A young man carrying a huge stuffed toy

A lurid luminous yellow banana
which he clutches under an arm.

I spot him on the train platform (with my anti-banana radar!)
evidently trying to remain as inconspicuous as he can,
His eyes furtive,
shifting the toy from one arm to the other often,
And, as he does so,
the squeak toy inside is activated,
first in squeezing, then relaxing.
Issued forth it's absurd cry
closer to that of anguish,
despair, or pathetic melancholy?
This banana is clearly very sad.

Shuffling onto the packed Tube train at rush hour
I watch the bemused passengers
smirk and giggle, curious.
As with every movement,
and each additional passenger
to the cattle-truck crush,
the banana weeps wails and laments,
It's carrier long-since amused,
Staring silently ahead,
humorless, devoid of even a smile.

Wednesday 3 January 2018

A man wearing headphones, in a gallery


Sauntering between paintings
of Abstract Art.
Percussive music blaring,
bleeding from his ears.

Oblivious to this
And indeed, the annoyance
of others around him,
he nods his head in time
while pondering each work.

Observing him
And casually listening in,
I can perceive only the repetitive electronic rhythm
punctuated with crisp hi-hats
and an infrequent snare.
Amused, as other viewers
are softly repelled,
moving further and further away,
each without saying a word -
I recall as a teenager
how my aunt coined the phrase
"Washing-machine Music,"
to describe the loud techno I would listen to on headphones,
and the inevitable leaking of sound that would occur.

Tuesday 2 January 2018

A schizophrenic woman, talking


And talking, loudly to herself
As she sorts various plastic bags
Filled with other plastic bags
In and out of one another.
Conversing either with them
Or someone unseen.
Her voice breaks off occasionally
As she discovers a new bag, untarnished, unused
Hidden among the old.
Laughing (with delight?) now
Repeating one or two words inaudibly
Then laughing again, louder still.

Our eyes meet for a moment
And I could believe
She were addressing me
If it weren't for her eyes
Glazed, unblinking
Her voice unfaltering
Her monologue uninterrupted.

With each word of hers
I feel the potential of my own words,
My own voice, both inner and outer
Being tamed, silenced, slowly
Retreating inside my quiet self
Like a different species of animal encountering another.

Monday 1 January 2018

The City; early morning, New Years Day



Stony quiet everywhere.


I can hear my footsteps
Scuff of sole with each step
In time, regular, hurried
My breath now oddly audible
Both feet and lungs marking my presence
A reminder of my living body, living


The monoliths silent, motionless.


Gusts of wind in certain streets
Obliterate me momentarily
Then fade or drop suddenly
Then my sounds return to me

Out of sight somewhere, a woman guffaws, stops
And then turning a corner
A sheaf of paper flung against the kerb
Slaps and flaps furiously, noisily
Trapped on something
As I move on