The chicken…

…came off well enough for an experiment in reacquainting myself with roasting. And it was a sweet thing to have people to share it with. I have to get a bit more intimate with my oven. A third of the way through Mansfield Park, which is a good follow up to Tim and Pete. What does it say about me that I feel greater sympathy with the characters and situations in the former than the latter?

I read a passage about someone retiring to their room, and how they spent their time there, and was rminded at how silent it all would be. Again, I’m constantly filling up my time with sound and noise. Waking to the radio, which inevitably scatters the imagery of my dreams no matter how I try to hold on to it. And then I play music all day long, commanding a greater variety of sonic experience than any previous persons in human history. I can access a torent of music. No wonder people in the 19th centurey wrote such copious correspondence – they didn’t have to divide their attentioon all the time.

Our time is one in which previous generations extravagances have becomes our nusiances. And their punishments (see the treadmills in Victorian prisons) have become our luxuries.

0 Comments +

  1. “Maria was married on Saturday. In all important preparations of mind she was complete, being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The bride was elegantly dressed and the two bridesmaids were duly inferior. Her mother stood with salts, expecting to be agitated, and her aunt tried to cry. Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business.”

  2. “Maria was married on Saturday. In all important preparations of mind she was complete, being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The bride was elegantly dressed and the two bridesmaids were duly inferior. Her mother stood with salts, expecting to be agitated, and her aunt tried to cry. Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business.”

  3. Noise and fast pacing make me paranoid and shaken. But, I surround myself with it too much as is.

    An ideal day for me now would be to have a day of half-lit quiet and pay attention to stimuli that I often neglect: light and breeze, incidental sound, the slowing-into-deliberation of my own mind, the actual tactile nature of pleasure moving from internal to external … .

  4. Noise and fast pacing make me paranoid and shaken. But, I surround myself with it too much as is.

    An ideal day for me now would be to have a day of half-lit quiet and pay attention to stimuli that I often neglect: light and breeze, incidental sound, the slowing-into-deliberation of my own mind, the actual tactile nature of pleasure moving from internal to external … .

  5. How about, then, waking up to a Books-on-CD? For some reason I also have a CD of Andy Warhol in a 60-minute loop saying nothing but “Um, yes… um, no…” over and over, which I think would be as good as anything to wake up to. And certainly better than WNYC-FM.

  6. How about, then, waking up to a Books-on-CD? For some reason I also have a CD of Andy Warhol in a 60-minute loop saying nothing but “Um, yes… um, no…” over and over, which I think would be as good as anything to wake up to. And certainly better than WNYC-FM.

  7. I tried to make it through Mansfield Park (confession: because it was name-checked so often in Whit Stillman’s film Metropolitan), but I just couldn’t stay interested. See “Fanny Price is a dip,” above.

  8. I tried to make it through Mansfield Park (confession: because it was name-checked so often in Whit Stillman’s film Metropolitan), but I just couldn’t stay interested. See “Fanny Price is a dip,” above.

  9. I’ve actually looked into the possibility of a cd alarm clock – the problem is that I haven’t found one that fits my design profile. It would be great to find one that allowed me to run my mp3 player with it – or better yet an mp3 based one.

    I would also like to experiment with not using an alarm at all and seeing whether I was actually conditioned enough to get up at a resonable time. I suspect I am, but fear has so far overridden instinct.

  10. I’ve actually looked into the possibility of a cd alarm clock – the problem is that I haven’t found one that fits my design profile. It would be great to find one that allowed me to run my mp3 player with it – or better yet an mp3 based one.

    I would also like to experiment with not using an alarm at all and seeing whether I was actually conditioned enough to get up at a resonable time. I suspect I am, but fear has so far overridden instinct.

  11. I’ve actually looked into the possibility of a cd alarm clock – the problem is that I haven’t found one that fits my design profile. It would be great to find one that allowed me to run my mp3 player with it – or better yet an mp3 based one.

    I would also like to experiment with not using an alarm at all and seeing whether I was actually conditioned enough to get up at a resonable time. I suspect I am, but fear has so far overridden instinct.

  12. If anyone on my friends list was likely to do so, it’s you.

    Your posting inspired me to dig out my CD-R of “classic elecronics and avant garde” (Ilhan Mimaroglu, Milton Babbitt, Henri Pousseur and Ben Johnston) that I made. Neat stuff.

  13. If anyone on my friends list was likely to do so, it’s you.

    Your posting inspired me to dig out my CD-R of “classic elecronics and avant garde” (Ilhan Mimaroglu, Milton Babbitt, Henri Pousseur and Ben Johnston) that I made. Neat stuff.

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