andrew.defreitas@gmail.com
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
-eyes>closing>in>sequence/-people>slipping>through>doors-what>can>I>do>from>this>lane/-only>as>long>as>I>can>remember//
;
Pulled away from the curb on my bicycle, having just written down those words which for various and probably uninteresting reasons (unless you think of dreams as visions) were accumulating and repeating themselves endlessly and involuntarily in my thoughts ever since the film ended. I was afraid that they would continue to do so and that the collection would be too much for me. Now, I thought, that they were written away, I am free to forget them, putting an end to the ridiculous, overwhelming collection of simple, immaterial signs. Once more the list recited itself, and as it did I noticed another line I had not noted down on the curbside, (and forgive me for what a crappy phrase it is, at least appreciate my honesty in admitting it here, remember I did not choose these words)
-keep>on>pedalling//
And so my memory had failed me. How do all those great writers do it? How do they record in such a manner that it recreates those fleeting moments when it is as if you have discovered in time and thought, a distinct melody, but one which you know in its entirety just by looking at it- you don't require any more time than that instant in which you possess the tune in its whole form, like you might an object in your hand. How do they reproduce in such a likeness that we can feel an affinity with what is written, or rather what is described? Not so much that they describe a particular experience of your own, more just that it is as if they have been able to transcribe (as if on paper, a musical score) one of those melodies, or tunes. But I worry that perhaps these writers (or even things without such distinct authors, like a great film you watch before you know anything at all about it) are not accurate or honest records at all. As disheartening as it is to imagine it, they could just be complete fabrications. What is even scarier is twofold:
1-that this makes sense, as even if a musical score is transcribed accurately from an improvised live performance, there is always something lost when the piece is re-performed, when the instruments are played and the score recited. It could never be the same song even if it is the same melody.
2-Let's say that these fabricated scores are the ones we admire and even idealise (an act to which, I confess, am guilty). Maybe this even changes what we listen for in the future, meaning that the electric speakers through which we play the melodies we admire drown out the most natural of songs.
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1 comment:
So my thoughts exactly. No one will ever know what we truly have experienced. There is no way (short of some futuristic kind of brain mapping) that (I have found) to solve this. Frustrates me endlessly. But gives some kind of value to our personal experiences don't you think. A privacy that makes them ours, no matter how much we want them to be shared by others :-)
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