unpolished thoughts 12/18/2018
I listen to the sound of the words in my head that appear before my eyes on the screen as I type them.
I don’t type that well.
So if I said the words I was writing aloud, my speech would be abnormally slow. The tempo is also much slower than my thinking.
So in the gap between imagining and writing the words, there is often time to think. This might be the source of the sentence that follows, the next idea that becomes linked.
Yesterday, I led a class exploring the interaction between movement and story.
We observed the movement of mind in relation to the movement of body. We tried on fictional stories to observe the effect on the movement. We moved in new ways to feel the possibility of new stories.
For some, it was a distraction to keep track of the story while moving.
Sometimes we move to escape our stories. We hear the mental chatter and move as if to leave the mind behind.
Perhaps we succeed. Or perhaps we simply deafen our ears to the voice that continues talking about anything and everything.
I hear that voice now in the spaces between these words. It comments and complains about what I say, even as I say it.
I’m tempted by the sound detour, the invitation to drop the effort to create a meaningful message.
Years ago, in college, I wrote page after page of nonsensical texts. In a 45-minute performance, an ensemble of 10 readers read these texts aloud simultaneously, a bubbling soup of words without logic. A musical hubbub of language.
One of my teachers compared the performance to Sisyphus pushing his rock again and again.
Who gave me permission to do that?
No one did.
But because I studied music I was given a space and time to create a performance, and this was what I did.
I also led an orchestral piece for 16 musicians with new invented conducted techniques designed to interrupt the ensemble’s ability to play the music accurately.
Then there was a sextet: bass, trombone, saxophone, viola, flute and clarinet – playing over a backdrop of electronic sound that came and went like waves.
There was also a septet, a quartet, and a solo vocal performance.
That was the first time I presented my imaginary language, Beeayboll, a language made from sound, without meaning.
I felt like a hero that night.
Where have I wandered today? What are these words for? What do they connect to? Would it be better if I kept them to myself? What do I gain from putting out this nonsense to the world?
What do I gain by hiding it?
I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I feel the weight of imaginary expectations.
Still, this is me today. This is the thing that I made.
I don’t always make sense.