Vitamin supplements for your sonic womb

Written July 7, 2008

This blog serves as an organizational force for me today. I'm having trouble concentrating this Friday, so I want to hash through some stuff I've been reading and thinking.

I have been listening to a lot of minimalism (La Monte Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich), avant-garde (Varèse), and Furniture Music, or Musique d'ameublement (Satie). It's allowed for a very quiet and concentrated setting…that's why Ted Leo is necessary in the car and Can is very necessary other times. Speaking of which, I've looked everywhere for Tago Mago, but can't find it. I just may have to buy the thing.

Thinking a lot about territories and territorial actions. For example, I had dinner with my mom and brother Zach last night, and Zach was telling a story about my dad's cologne(s). Dad was mixing two colognes together (never mix colognes! never mix colognes!) and my brother told him he smelled like shit. Zach: "I really did…I told him he smelled like shit. He just sat there." That Christmas he got my dad some new cologne, but my dad said he liked his own better. Territories. My brother, through the gift, was trying to replace my dad's scent, which was his mark. But in doing this Zach was manipulating Dad's territory. It wasn't about the nature of the scent, it was about choosing for himself. Once my dad started dating his new woman, he stopped wearing the shit…he'll accept suggestions from someone he's sleeping with, but he "knows better" than his son. I think about how often my parents have given me gifts related to clothing or accessories, and how this was half kind gesture (they thought I might like the stuff) and half unconscious suggestion. This solidifies the idea that too often, a gift is an assumption, especially from people who don't know you, or your parents. This is not to diss gift-giving…to use Maude Lebowski's phrase, it can be a "zesty enterprise" but sometimes it's more discomfort than pleasure.

It's dark and rainy, and I'm listening to Satie's 3 Gnossiennes for solo piano. I also found the sheet music free online, along with Bach's Goldberg Variations…all 46 pages. I'm stoked. Let's hear it for free printing privilege.

Satie's Furniture Music is in five short pieces. A few titles are "Curtain of a Voting Booth," "Tapestry in Forged Iron – for the arrival of guests – to be played in a vestibule," and "Phonic Tiling – Can be played during a lunch or civil marriage." They make me think of playing Zelda on my cousin's Nintendo Gameboy and the repetitive music of a villager's dwelling. I'm reading in a book called Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong that Muzak was created shortly after the "death" of Dadaism. Satie wanted to create "furnishing music"…but what door did he open? Eh, as if he opened a door. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else, and there were more than enough neutral-sounding string quartets way before Satie's time to furnish anyone's vestibule. The author of the book, Joseph Lanza, says Furniture Music debuted in 1920 during intermissions of a friend's play, and it coincided with Paris' shift from a market economy to consumer culture. The creator of Muzak, a military technocrat named George Owen Squier, devised a system in a few years later that transmitted canned music through an electronic wire into restaurants and typing pools. As Lanza writes, creating the optimum work womb. Here's an interesting factoid: "Seeking a catchier name than Wired Radio, Squier played word games with music and Kodak" to settle on Muzak. Isn't that creepy?

Fast forward then – the Sony Walkman. The iPod. The personalization of music deserves more thought time. Mixed tapes. This goes back to the ideas of territories and Deleuze and Guattari's refrain, at least in my banal understanding of it. I need to read the chapter again. I remember fighting with my brother over the house's CD player. Territories.

Ever since I started working at the news bureau full time, I've been experiencing mild dyslexia and typing inconsistencies…I'll repeatedly leave off the last letter of the same words, listen to a phone number and mix two digits up, etc. Little farts of concentration. It's strange (or maybe not so strange).

I'm right by the door, so I'm a firsthand witness to traffic flow. I can now recognize who is walking down the hall by the rhythm of their steps. (once again, Deleuze and Guattari [everything is reminding me of stuff in this book] and the masochist, "thus at the mere thought of your boots, without even acknowledging it, I must feel fear," fetish, etc.) Sometimes I turn around expecting a hello (and usually get one) but there is one person who never says hello. When I hear her say hello to the guy down the hall, I'll turn around anyway and watch her walk by, silent, ignoring me. It's nice to be validated; not in the normal sense of the word, as in a passive-aggressive "I work here too" but validated in my expectation that she won't say hello. Door opens, hello to the guy, whoosh of silence by my door, relief -- I am still myself.

Territories! Allow me to invade yours. Here are some listening suggestions (all minimalist – ignore the repetition and think about the transformation of structure and sound):

Hype Machine
Philip Glass, Piece in the Shape of a Square

Steve Reich, Pendulum Music (or check out his "Music for 18 Musicians" on my profile)

Seeqpod
La Monte Young, Well-Tuned Piano

Erik Satie, Gnossiennes – 1, Lent (not so minimalist but nicely bitter; you can also find some furniture music)

Sponsored by EnterTo.com the first REAL spam free email

Click Below to discover and share content from anywhere on the web

Cochlea:Animal

Vitamin supplements for your sonic womb