SOUNDS IN MY HEAD:

Ruminations on Highschool Lessons and Response to the Chicago GLASS Conference, Day 3 Soundworks,
2021 “Turbulent Sounds”

When I started high school, history class – we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, justifying the
fun by trying to decide what exactly the intention of the film was – did we want to understand more
about ourselves or history? The film we watched was a satire, and full of accuracies and inaccuracies. I
don’t know what the point was. But our teacher asked us for starters, to look at all the accuracies, to not
take them for granted but instead, appreciate how much we were learning without much effort at all.
And yet, to also, in the same vein, he asked that we continue to challenge ourselves and our
perceptions.

But then junior year was there before I knew it. And in English class, we delved into some of my favorite
novels – the great commentaries on society – first, Grapes of Wrath. Thank you to John Irving, Wallace
Stegner, maybe Hemingway, and of course Steinbeck, for describing the world around them as they saw
it. No one questions the truth of The Pearl. But it’s almost too gripping and horrifying to be anything
other than truth? And I don’t know how Grapes of Wrath captured all the suffering of a family but over
the course of a long, dry, hungry decade, somehow made it a page turner. Somehow beautiful.

Then we moved to dystopia, and when the gripping horrors of reality become too terrifying to be real, to
be allowed to exist by humanity, then we turn to our humor and laugh and assume we are supposed to
learn something from what’s impossible. What shouldn’t be is a lesson and so is what has been. And
from both the past --- historical satire, and from the future and dystopia, what we were learning was, we
had to consider, not so different from reality. To what extent – that’s what I have been struggling with
understanding, for let’s say the past five-seven years? IDK It might have been more conscious
deliberation, and let me know if it’s just the rites of adulthood – parenting, careers, that prompt these
meditations in my mind. And why is it so difficult for me?

I went to the VMFA the other day (OK the other month, geez maybe last year…,) and only to see the free
exhibits! Usually, I’m dragged in there to see the special, traveling exhibit in the basement and then
spend a few minutes afterwards, browsing the permanent collections (and admittedly, getting my mind
blown by a Chuck Close or a ridiculous, ornate sofa, wondering why on Earth a sofa is so important to be
kept forever in the museum.) And here I am, in ancient Mediterranean times, looking at the mask of
Agamemnon, or something amazing like that, and right next to it, these little golden eagle and lion
figurines send me into heartbreak and epiphany about my own shortcomings when it comes to like,
comprehending the history of humanity. I guess I always thought Woman from Willendorf, cave art, and
Agamemnon’s likeness, and the Medieval old baby faces preserved in churches were really the best that
artists could do in the time. That like, at the times of human history’s birth, collectively, people drew in a
childish way. That they got a little better, and finally blew people’s minds in the Renaissance?

Greece was one thing, but this little lion and little tiger were like, BC by a thousand years, and the little
animals were perfectly carved. I just couldn’t understand how they could have been preserved for so
long and be in my humble city today. And in vanity, I was a little sad thinking about how ugly all gold I’ve
ever seen is by comparison to something that is both gold and old. I wondered whether the little lion
was made by a person, and how they had touched more gold than I have ever seen in my life. How they
had seen a lion and been inspired to model its likeness. And why the surfaces of all the gold things I’ve
ever seen look like mirrors. When this was so, I guess the word is rich. I felt like I could see where the
object had been handled while it was carved. And it was truly full of luster.

And there it sat, and on and on I went and wondered. And here I am, still sitting and wondering. For
dystopia, my favorite was always “Harrison Bergeron.” Maybe because it wasn’t a giant novel but it still
opened such an intense and wonderful world window in my mind. The story was like a screech in my
ears. And we were warned when we read it, not to question how it affected our own world views, but to
look at the piece as dystopian, as a cautionary piece about how the world might be, in the future, and to
examine what it told us about society as it really was. To ask what was real about the fantasy world. I
have kept the story in my mind and come so far as to radically assume we are all the most talented
ballerina, tied with sacks of shot around our waist, and zapped with a screeching tone when our minds
begin to be free and to soar.

And honestly, I’m not being radical, but rather, I’m coping with several long slow creeping, and
mundane, changes in my life that have slowly shifted this story and the plight of the ballerina to the
front of my mind. Details in literature that used to make me sneer a little on the inside, like the
“flutterings and spasms” experienced by Mrs. Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have become
the rather mundane phantom sensations I experience daily in adulthood. I went through a phase after
parenthood began, where I was completely sure I had bedbugs. I have a weird fascination with diabetes
and the causes. As in, I heard them listed once and didn’t forget them.

I’m battling my instinct to be a hypochondriac, apparently. And I think it was because I happen to be the
type who found, when I lived on my own and made my own food choices, that I had a big, huge problem
with sugar. I don’t know if I just didn’t know how much a person was supposed to eat, didn’t feed myself
enough, and then crashed and craved big helpings of sugar. Or perhaps if I drank too much coffee and
had to compensate for the quick rush with foods that acted the same way. Or sometimes, whether sugar
was my kryptonite, or for a reference I understand better and feel better using – if sugar was my self-
destruct button, my own little non-lethal means of destroying myself. Did I not have enough from my
relationships in my life, and turn to sugar because it was a comfort, and why would I stay up all night
lonely and upset, and then go eat donuts until I was sick to my stomach and my ears rang?

Now, that happens more and more often, from littler bouts of just having a beer too late in the evening
after a day in the sun. It’s mundane now I know it happens to so many people. And a little voice in my
head marvels, thinking of all the rockstars or roadies, or factory workers who might not recognize their
body reacting to the stuff they put in it because they think it has an environmental cause! But these are
little events and people in the field have probably mastered the tricks of this kind of creeping illness.
But, when I heard that ears ringing is a symptom of diabetes – I’ll just say I was fascinated by that fact,
and kept it in the back of my mind as well. And every so often, now I’ll tell you it’s beer that sets it off.
Like, I have two beers and my ears ring.

And I’ll tell you what else – now that I really drift back in my memories, to that junior year, when my
parents left me alone for the first time and I got drunk for the first time with my friends in my basement
– I had one Budwieser and my ears rang after just a few sips, and I always thought it was just that brand
of beer… but anyway, maybe it was all the malted delicious calories. Now, my tolerance must be higher,
but I always know, deep down, the ear ringing, every once in a blue moon, has something to do with my
nutrition. And I’m thankfully always happy thinking about it, knowing I’ve learned something from one
of the hardest and most private and hidden struggles I’ve gone through, pathetic as it was that donuts
were my great depression.

So at night I go to bed and my ears occasionally ring. So what? Well, something else exciting I’ve been
through is a power outage. After hurricane Katrina, my family had no power. Recently, I argued with my
mom, because I thought it had been two weeks – at least a week! I know we bought dry ice from Kroger
twice! Or maybe it was just once, and as soon as we got home the power was back? The second time…?
I know we were in danger of losing our frozen food, and weirdly, I got used to the candles and
flashlights, a stuffy house, and I’m only bringing this up because my friend was asking about 1 hr per
week blackouts to reduce global carbon emissions.

My gut response is that I know lots and lots of people will need special passes for health reasons – to
run their dialysis or their oxygen, or to keep their A/C on because they have trouble breathing, and just
yesterday I saw a commercial on TV for generators that store enough power to get you through a
blackout (this is interesting news indeed.) But here’s what I learned most from the power being out – it
wasn’t to get used to cold showers (It was summer-time and I was just a kid --) it was that I enjoyed the
silence.

I will remember forever the moment when the power came back on. My family was all sitting in the
living room with flashlights and we were getting ready to read a story when all at once, it sounded kind
of like a computer starting up. I heard a beep tone, heard what sounded like a fan starting, and then the
lights cut on and our house was back to the normal state of convenience and comfort that I have been
used to for my entire life. And we all joked and wanted to turn the lights back out, and we did – to finish
the story. And we joked that it was so much nicer without the power. And I’ll tell you what: I wouldn’t
trade my life and I love it the way it is. And I’m grateful for it. But once that power came back on, turning
the lights off didn’t come close to bringing back the way things were in the few moments before. The
little things – the white noise – all came back. And guess what? It was a perceptible and comparably un-
fucking-pleasant buzzing noise.

Ever since that moment when the power cut back on, I guess I have changed only a little, because I don’t
think about it often. I haven’t traveled to Guatemala and lived in a hut for a week like my sister did. But
once, I turned off the DVD player. I was probably a mopey college student home on summer vacation,
and felt like sticking it to no one by leaving the T.V. on on DVD mode, and walking out. But I turned and
looked at my dog sleeping faithfully on the carpet, and I heard the buzzing sound the T.V. made while it
was on, even in its idle mode. I didn’t and truly don’t 100% know how T.V.’s work, but they do happen to
be kinda noisy. I frankly don’t know how or why electricity works so well and so reliably without
exploding or burning people or breaking or jumping right out of those wires all the time and striking
passers-by. And I frankly don’t know how or why magnets work or many other things. Is my curiosity
about the world delayed? Shouldn’t I have asked these questions as a kid? But I’m just getting started.
The point is, I looked at my dog, and I turned the TV off and I felt bad for him, because his ears are so
much better than mine and hear much better at higher frequencies. This buzzing has to register better
for him. Do you have the kind of job where you get to turn your laptop off at 5 and exhale as the sound
of the internal fan finally quits for the day? These are the mundane. These are the humdrum.

I feel bad for myself sometimes when I go to bed at night, finally relaxing after a long day of being
completely distracted by all kinds of random and frustrating odds and ends, and then the buzzing takes
up in my ear. I can hear it now if I stop and take a few breaths and listen with my heart. And sometimes
it happens after a few beers. And when I feel bad for myself, I feel bad about the state of the developed
world at large. Wondering how many Harrison Bergeron’s there are out there, how many ballerina
dancers who just can’t quiet the power grid for a few moments and relax completely.

I wonder how many people out there haven’t had a great experience outdoors, appreciating the silence
of a night by a calm river, or the actual desire to quiet the rapids, or the crazed feeling given by the
constant overpowering sound of a stormy coast on the ocean, or the kind of creepy disturbing
midmorning sounds of swarms of bugs waking up and starting to hummmmm all at once. I missed the
quiet when the sound of the power came back, and it wasn’t for long, but it changed me.

And now, I just laugh and wonder about my poor dog, and whether he’s the real Harrison Bergeron.
Whether he likes the sound of the electricity less than I. Whether he is coping with the sound emissions
and whether it handicaps him like a racehorse. In a society currently obsessed with improving the
quality of life of household cats and dogs -- in a dog loving culture, where are the concerns about the
little things, the things we can’t see.

The dystopian literature helps me be more critical of my own society, and the scare factor in these
stories is usually the inability of those described to change their situation. There is the dreaming state,
the external locust of control, the overpowering system of government that is seeking power and
control for its own sake. But when I question why this is good/bad, I’m not reading deep enough. When I
look at how someone in my own world might have these feelings in the here and now, I’m thinking
critically. And when I translate the text to still be quite literal and apply to me in suburbia today – am I
being too casual and humorous with the text? Am I failing to appreciate its genre? Or does genre kind of
blind me to the possibility that the author is criticizing the present, not a dystopian future.

With the sound of power and then diabetic ear ringing – is there irony in these two symptoms of the
modern era in developed nations. Do I become less aware of my blood sugar causing my ears to ring
because I hear the ringing in the walls all the time. And do I subconsciously allow my state of health to
slip by having a battle between symptoms and the everyday environment. Do I eat more sugar to cope
with rumination and life in suburbia?

One of my fave scientific studies about monitoring brainwaves indoors and outdoors, observing fewer
states of rumination in those who were sitting outside. Now, on the one hand, my fight or flight might
be more activated outdoors instead of in the safety of my own shelter, the study suggested that the
open-ended sounds of nature, with no patterns, no regularity or repetition, might be effective for
someone who wanted to avoid depressed thoughts and rumination. It’s more interesting? Yet not quite
on the level of experimenting with skydiving. And by comparison – indoor noises which include the
sounds of appliances, the ice maker – the white noise – this is all more regular and on a closer loop feed,
with less variation, than the outdoors.

Now, in mid-April, I attended Chicago GLASS Spring Sound conference, “Turbulent Sounds,” and one
sociological researcher, Whitney Johnson, has put together a “Soundwalk” study, overlapping some with
therapeutic methods, in which participants are asked to take a 15 minute walk, listening to music. The
music is designed to take a listener 7 minutes in one direction, and after 7 minutes, they are instructed
to turn back and retrace their steps. After 7 additional minutes, the listeners are instructed to observe
the music, take note of their feelings and experiences on the walk, and to see whether their walk home
took them less or more time. The intentional listening experience is supposed to maybe take our minds
off other things, teach us healthy techniques for getting exercise and meditating, or just to show us an
artist/sociologist’s perception of the world.

And I haven’t done the soundwalk yet. It’s available on a link in the appendix. Be a part of science!
Participate! Johnson suggested that at the heart of the project is an interest in rhythm and its effect on
mood and behavior. I imagine that that like the other soundworks shared by panelists that day, the
music will be freeform, and maybe a little on the tuneless side like the long mellow flutey stuff you hear
in a counselor’s waiting room. Unlike the other artists who shared that day, this researcher wanted to
focus on the human response to the music. The other artists were highly interested in beyond-jazz
improvisation. Their soundscapes were responsive to the environment, whether it was out on a river
next to a power plant or in an old radio station in a very small town in the heart of the Midwest. Or an
ode to the Blue Ridge Mountains made longingly by a new Chicagoan it was the changes of the day or
the inspiration of history that prompted the sound creations. And like the natural world, the ‘scapes
wander on an imperceptible unit of measure, and without like, tune or melody or frankly sometimes
notes at all. I like the way this sound art mimics the vast patterns of nature by being more free and by
transforming – the digital instruments have lots of range as far as the types of sound they can make. I
think the sound art challenges us to appreciate more complex patterns than we otherwise might expect
to hear when we engage with “music.”

Sounds of nature vs. sounds indoors gets me thinking about some of the medicines we take, in their
amazing time-release capsule technologies. Like a power surge and flicker, I can slightly feel a wave of
medicine being released and it’s like I’ve swallowed a radio and it’s sending a faint and ubiquitous signal
from within me all the way through my cavernous insides. I savagely think about leveling up on a video
game as every wave washes over me. It’s a scientific-precise wave of ones and zeros digitally defining
the edges of my existence. It’s a dose administered by an invisible hand, a hand of a clock that was
wound and set by a distant and doorless pharmaceutical company.

And as I savagely level up, I statically, savagely stay in the same plane, on the same grid. As the power
lapses and surges, as I hear the most barely discernable fluctuation in sound output, as I see the faintest
flicker – my lightbulbs and appliances are fixed like the ballerina, to glow no more brilliantly, no matter
the power output. My home isn’t moved by the rush of electricity through it’s wiring, and it does not
blaze in a gust of wind or chill as a sun goes behind a cloud. I’m in a bubble, it’s true. Or an extra thick
membrane.

Would I need the technologically advanced medicine if I could listen better to my body’s health signs? If I
could be rational about my thoughts all the time without fail? Why do my rational times with myself
come so few and far between?

Idk, I guess I want to get outside more. Expose myself to the uncertainties of life all around me, and soak
up the sun and fresh air. To listen to the sounds of the natural world around me a little more. To
experience a night slept outdoors. To hear rain and watch the way the sky changes in a dramatic and
unique but dependable manner. To take the time to engage with my pets in their space. To listen
deeply. To speak honestly with my heart, and my actions, and to be joyful! To not write dystopian stuff!
Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex
activation
Bratman et al.
https://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567

7/14/2015

Home electronics might drive your pet nuts

Cooley
https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/is-technology-driving-your-pet-insane/

4/4/2018

does anyone ever think they can 'hear' electricity?

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1668835-does-anyone-ever-think-
they-can-hear-electricity

1/26/13

William Wordsworth
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth

“The poem concludes with a meditation on the power of nature to prevail against the false and
superficial “dreary intercourse of daily life” that Wordsworth associated with city life, especially literary
life in London. In the preface, Wordsworth characterized those forces as acting against the elevation of
mind in which the poet specializes, and he identified them with urban life…”

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey...

Wordsworth
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45527/lines-composed-a-few-miles-above-tintern-
abbey-on-revisiting-the-banks-of-the-wye-during-a-tour-july-13-1798

“the hum- the still sad music of humanity”

 Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Keats
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

            Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
            Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone…

Soundworks
W. Johnson, A. Wood, A. Robinson & C. Henderson, The Slo Radio Collective, and A. Mizner

https://sites.google.com/view/glassconferencesp21/soundworks?authuser=0

4/15/21-4/17/21

Earth Hour: WWF calls for global blackout to focus attention on climate
change
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/world-all-news/162083/earth-hour-wwf-calls-for-global-
blackout-to-focus-attention-on-climate-change/

3/27/21