Monday 10 January 2011

Species of sound.



There are two members of the household who really appreciate 'free jazz'. I want to like it very much, but it makes my brain retreat to a small recess at the back of my skull and I cannot really function. Mark love's it, especially when cooking.
This is a film of the other one who loves it. The usually silent feathered-being launches into a wonderful repertoire that Messiaen would have found inspirational.
The other two sounds today issued from the IRM machine surrounding me at the Clinique Montreal. They warned me that it would be loud, and clamped clinical white padded headphones to my head so I could enjoy some carpet adverts in French.
It's an odd thing to be confined in a white tube with huge pulsating noises firing from various directions - a cross between a secret rave in a small operating theatre and some sort of very squeaky-clean torture.
Tried not to imagine they had all left the room and the machine was in fact out of control. The squeezy rubber 'bulb' I had been given to hold in case of distress became an object of increasing fascination . . . just one little scrunch, would anyone appear?
In between the crossfire of sounds there was the possibly worse sounds of French 'popular' music - breathy women singers and voice modulators. I think Wagner would have suited the occasion, or perhaps Dolly Parton, so one could take one's mind off the present and consider how extraordinary it is that she can keep from falling over with her unusual weight distribution.
Back at base now. Current noises are Debs recording a song called "on the edge of madness" and Ezra eating with his mouth open, while watching Carry on Doctor featuring Kenneth Williams making that wonderful 'neeeiieer' sound.

3 comments:

  1. Dammit caught sight of Mark today and didnt get a chance to interrogate him. How are you? Whats this machine thang all about then??

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  2. Totally fine for the moment thanks...it was to do with horrid face pain mentioned a few posts back, but the scan was booked anyway. Bit like when one takes ones car in, and one says..well it was making this awful noise.....

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  3. grr this site dosnt post up the comments. I know I wrote one and it says, VB said.... and then dosnt say what (though I happen to remember); and there is a response, which was what I came to look for, but it dosnt say what it is. Will you email me, Kate? xxxxxxxx

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