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Can't resist the temptation to treat cris's post and its multi-level questioning as a template questionaire... dammit, I'll find a way to mention my favourite colour, flower, music etc... and gosh, I hope others pick this one up and say how they see it! On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, cris cheek wrote: > Where does the 'writing' lie? On the page, in a pen, over a keyboard, in > the air, under a book, on a sheet blowing along the street, on a billboard, > from a radio, on the tip of a tongue and so on? - it begins with input, in all its numerous forms: weather, streetsounds, breathing, music, reading, other peoples' speech. It lies in notebooks, odd pages and wordprocessors, "weathering" - its original context being lost, as it gets transcribed and mistranscribed, waiting for a new context. What happens then is more varied... > Do you always only write 'in the quiet of the house? What is this quiet? > How is it distinctive? What is being curated there? - nowhere is completely quiet; other sounds always join the process at the transcription process. Traffic, gasfire, others' breathing, computer hum are in there. I can't write on trains these day, but whole stretches of "early work" written on one of those 2-coach trains between Durham and Newcastle, had that click-clop, click-clop track rhythm running beneath it. "Curated" is a strong word - think of me as the bed-and-breakfast organiser who offers temporary shelter and sustenance to these sounds, words... > Is the act of 'writing' not itself a 'performance'? If it is, I would > assert that it is, then whose egotism are you receiving when you are > writing? - yes, writing is performance, with all its infinate possibilities and a path to be taken. All those other possibilities - Borges would agree - are still there... but I remember from my short inglorious career as a violist, the feeling of disappointment, at realising a score one way, writing out all the others. I'd like to think my ego is mediated through all the other consciousnesses which have made the elements of the work before I got on site, but I'd be kidding myself if I didn't, ultimately, say Me! Me! I made it! Book me for it officer I'm guilty as charged, the others were unwilling, often unknowing accessories. > What are our ears listening to? What rhythms are we living? > Surely they are many and more various than simplistic notions of the > machine. Do you walk, have you ever been in a car, heard drum and bass from > a high street shop, listened to the flock of conversations in a public > place, been barked at by a dog, discussed melody with a robin, ever > attempted to notate waves brushing up a beach, run a bath, answered the > phone, used a modem - of course you have, probably all and many other > such and other such. - I, I can't add anything here, except other examples. Listening to conversations in a language I don't understand. To plumbing noises. Pencil put down in anger. The street at night (different to day). Thanks, cris, for the rhetorical question... > 'perfect' - what's that? especially when it comes to 'ears'? Who's > measuring? From what cultural and ideological viewpoints? What is being > edited out? What is being edited in? - no, not perfect - only resolved to go on as far as this one instance of text - usually that which allows me to give back most in the next - oral - performing. It's little enough in return for all that input. For my part, nobody measures but me - but "my" "audience" - well, they have their own measures - and their own feet, to vote with. I used to be a controlfreak, tweezers in hand, a peck of this to an ounce of that, I still edit, adjust, but allow other circumstances to guide that more. Today it's spring sky blue, any umbellifer, and the Bach Cello Suites (YoYo Ma, despite the hype, tho I could settle for Tortellier again). RC %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%