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27 juli 2021

I am starting to feel like - I want to...

I want to find out what I do without effort and delve deeper into that. In previous posts, I've told you that it seems like it's not the actual producing part of the music I enjoy.

Well, I need to be very clear here - writing things in print often turns things real for me, weirdly enough. When writing a message down, I tend to go over it again and again - in this process it seems to create a new reality onto itself.

Perhaps that's why I'm often so worried about the initial parameters, sketches, or initial framing of a work - in this is already contained so much. Ergo, if I catch these observations about myself in a bad light, am I then rewriting myself more negatively? Repetition legitimizes.

I wonder if I can create spatial depth in writing as I can do in a mix. Juxtapose soft sounds far in the distance with sharp language right in the foreground. Tracing lines from a few feet away all into the stratosphere. Create a circling motion of water around the reader's ears, shaking their feet with large amounts of low ruptures. Clouds in the distance emitting soft rain, with my computer buzzing softly, speaking back at me.

What were we talking about? Let me read again - ah, work without effort. I'm not sure work without effort is even worth striving for. But, what I think I'm pointing at is to find an activity that is self-replenishing, at least for the most part. In the end, you and I will both die. I too have tried to find ways of escaping that, and it seems there are a couple of ways to do that.

You create a work that outlasts you
You procreate and let your bloodline outlast you

I'm not sure if there are others. There probably are. These are the main ones playing in my life. Let me know if I missed some crucial ones. Anyway, I started talking about death since that is the only certainty - and taxes I believe. (haha!)

So, yeah - finding a particularly good-looking stone that you'd like to push up until you die. If it seems like I'm cracking life too much, I might be. I find it difficult to see bright sides sometimes - but yeah, things are looking fairly grim beyond the pool of elusive niceties. What do you think?

I think I'd like to be able to play with words like Joyce or Borges. Their sentences have such a joyous meter to them, they're funny, mysterious, with just beautiful words. I want to read you some of Joyce's Ulysses translated into Dutch. Maybe if I rewrite some of his stuff, it actually gives me a sense of what writing these words feels like.

Ahem.

"Stephen Daedelus kwam naar boven, volgde hem lusteloos tot halverwege en ging op de rand van de geschutbank zitten. Hij bleef naar hem kijken terwijl hij zijn spiegel op de borstwering neerzette, zijn kwast in de kom doopte en wangen en hals inzeepte. Vrolijk ging de stem van Buck Mulligan verder. --Ik heb ook een gekke naam: Malachi Mulligan, twee dactylen. Maar Helleens klinkt hij wel. Huppelen en zonnig als de bok zelve. We moeten beslist eens naar Athene. Ga je mee als ik die tante van me zover krijg dat ze twintig pond dokt? Hij legde de kwast opzij en riep glunderend: --En of hij meegaat! Die schriele jezuïet!"

Ok, so. I feel joy even copying this - if I had to describe listening to music, it would be an almost religious experience - really - music listening can export me to heights I've been using other substances. This writing experience, however, gave me a warm glow. The writing itself. I don't want to lay too much emphasis on this, but it's just a small noteworthy observation.

Alright, so what I enjoy about this passage is the juxtaposition of fancy words and vernacular. What the hell does "dactylen" mean?

This is what I found on Wikipedia; So apparently these are Dactyls, a mythical race according to greek mythology. Fine, ok, sure.

So anyway, my experience as a novice reader is, first I'm puzzled - but only in a small portion of the text - then, two lines later, he goes full vernacular: "...dat ze twintig pond dokt?" This just brings a smile to my face. It's like cooking with words. It's a ride of these different tastes - god, it's so cool!

I mean, this undulating sensation which seems to mimic life, I'm finding this in almost every art I find. Cooking, music, wine tasting, sex, design, visual art, typography. All these enterprises are specifically catered towards the human experience. Quite a juh, doi moment, but it seems I drift towards these things even in disciplines outside of music. Do you know Ryoji Ikeda? I guess he's the only example that comes to mind displaying the opposite. But even still, he emphasizes our lack of coping with huge amounts of information. Is it possible to step out of the human experience? Hello, Kant. Aquinas tried maths, but even that's like - a human thing in the end right? Send me your thoughts.

Love,

P.M.