anathematas

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June 15, 2008

Sound Noise

A witness to evil, a voice for the silent, and a timeless symbol of resolve now sings to us across the decades. The editors of TIME played your voice for me, singing an old song, adding annotations, photos, maps, and quotations. You sang without the instruments you loved, without anyone else's vocals to cover yours. They played your voice and you sounded so beautiful; everything that you were, captured and summed up. I cleared the supper dishes, wiped down the table, swept under the table, put away food, made lunches for those who took a lunch, dried and put away dishes, set the table for breakfast, and wiped down the dish drainer, counter tops, and stove. Close your eyes (oh yes, and sit down first), take in a couple of breaths and feel yourself start to slow down. Ask your intuition a question – it can be about where to move, what direction to take in your new life or whether you really, after more than four decades, have an independent voice?

Advocating for conservation, historic preservation, responsible growth and much more died on Saturday, leaving a silent void in the dark below. I squeezed my eyes shut; but your voice went on, every word seeming to drill into me. “We must leave the Apiary tonight, and go into the West,” said the voice. “And if our hearts are true, the voice of silence … the voice of silence will speak in stones.” Love, Love is real, and there are no longer dreams. Love is a dream, and there is no longer reality. The law of non-contradiction is a contradiction. Is there a way of getting this silent voice to wake me up tomorrow morning?

When you got up and went to vacuum out your car, I didn't go help you because there were HORNETS in the garage and that is not cool. When your mom came over though, I helped her make dinner, and then your dad came over, too. It would be interesting to test out this practice in the face of the current recession, when high gas prices have quieted the streets by a decibel or two and reduced the number of restaurant-goers. Noise costs us in terms of health, but you were soooo into music, beyond what was typical of our peers. I guessed you were seeking sensory sound. Noise. We craved noise as we progressed through Occupational Therapy, until we became Sensory Defensive. You’d put your fingers in your ears. A silent protest! You said, “Yes, I'm protesting the political process in this country of ours and my voice shall only be heard in the pages of my journal! After Bush stole the election from Gore, I decided not to vote in an election until I could create a vacuum that sucks in people with principles who have a strong wish to help others.”

Power trippers, those who use bluff, bluster, threats or power to get their own way at home and work, can sense fear or sorcery. My version of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is not very good. You and your compadres get into lots of drawn out duels before you finally get down to business. You seem to have the ability to move forward after your moment in the sun. Some though... like that guy who discovered the band Rush twenty-five years ago, he apparently decided that very day that he would play them so loud as to eventually cause a permanent loss of hearing. He is much too noisy and much too high, an exposition drawn out to about eighty-five sounds beyond the range of normal conversation. Measured for a level of moderate noise, a simple system can be an effective expander, where the threshold of sound is set by first analysing a section of noise. For this reason it’s best not to clean up your originals. This is the shape of the impression of each repetition of the mantra syllable. These string together in my mind, as if there was a nickel 10 feet in diameter and one foot thick, bouncing and rolling down a straight path on a grey sphere.

Why am I silent on the issue of local authority? Do I have any grounds to criticize? Remember when we noticed that there were some civic organizations made for protest? I replied to all your questions, my friend. The first time you played my new instrument, you didn't want to leave it. I always wondered what it was that makes that noise, you said, let me take it home with me. To date the noise of my truck hadn't bothered you, but today it did. Again, you tried to high tail it out of here. Again I was able to change your mind and you came back. You sat in my lap right next to the truck while I massaged you and then I went inside to wash dishes for 10 minutes. You discovered that the vacuum cleaner was full and you left me inside while you ran outside to empty it. You came back inside to discover me sitting on the bench, tearing up teabags and sprinkling the contents everywhere. Go vacuum, then take a break and have a snack, maybe lie down for half an hour. I’ll do some more dishes, take out the trash, dust and polish, get a drink... I feel more productive this way. So, the floors are vacuumed once again today and ready to be mopped once I get lunch done and we’ll go outside for playtime then down for nap. But, for the record, we’re both pretty glad the vacuum beast is back in its cave for the moment. Sitting at our kitchen table about six years ago, we both asked each other, simultaneously, “What if we could split the wind blowing over a roof and create a vacuum to suck the roof down, instead of up?”

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