How elastic is music?

Sunday 20 April 2008

Music. Music music music. I dreamt last night I was talking to Marcia Hines. I don't know why either :) But I told her about the album of hers my Mum had when I was kid that I used to listen to. She seemed quite appreciative of that fact in my dream.

I noted my dog before, while I was cooking my late morning breakfast (fried bread with tomato sauce - yum). I was playing Over the Rhine's instrumental piece Willoughby and dammit if I didn't look at him and think, "My dog is a contemplative." He was sitting in the sunlight at the open door, gazing out unseeing at my courtyard, panting - and yes, panting seems some kind of orgasmic canine activity all on its own, but he did seem to be getting into the grooves.

But maybe I'm just projecting humanities onto canines, the way I project names onto inanimate objects. But why should humans get all the fun from music? Why not animals too? Plants respond to music, don't they?

How far does the power of music stretch? It's such a magical thing. Loving for our ears.

Seems the older I get, the more cracked open I get, the more responsive I get to beauty, whether aural or visual. Like I said to Kent before, one day I feel like I will look at a tree and my whole soul will just ooze out all over the ground.

Thank God for music, for nature, for creativity. Music soothes my anxiety down, makes me rev lower, rev at the God frequency instead of the stupid Suzie frequency. Music is my life. My life is music.

Thank you, Marcia.

7 comments

  1. I'm with you Sue about music. And Willoughby is soooooo good. I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of OTR's Live From Nowhere vol. 3. It should be here in my hands any day now.

    Your post made me think of one of myvery first blog posts, actually I think it was the second or thrid one I ever posted. And since that post music has been a normal part of my blogging experience. Here is a link to that first music post.

    http://nthegarden.blogspot.com/2006/06/new-music.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. sounds like Marcia has been speaking some wisdom into your life :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kent - memories, light the corners of your blog. Misty watercooured memoris. Of the way you were on Tuesday, June 27, 2006

    Okay, maybe it's a bit to close to now to be watercoloured yet. And maybe that song really sucks. I don't know why I brought it up, really.

    The Innocence Mission. Their time will come for me, I am sure. Listening to the portions that I have through you, they sound like a meal I would like to eat.

    Perhaps the next batch of CD buying that occurs, I shall indulge in some. The day before yesterday, presuming that I was going to be working a full day's overtime, I ordered 60 bucks worth of secondhand books from www.bookcloseouts.com. Yummy yummy yummy, books in my tummy.

    But then I only did four hours overtime so oops! Poor again :)

    Kel - I wonder from a Jungian analysis point of view what portion of me Marcia represents? I think I'll chat to Maggie about it tomorrow :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to release an album: My Dog Is Contemplative. That's brilliant. My dog...um...recycles. Not so much a catchy title. Isn't it amazing when a song just opens a window to somewhere that you never thought existed? Something so transcendent that the air you breathe feels thinner?

    Occasionally, I have those moments. Listening to Zepp's Houses of the Holy while cooking dinner with a glass of Merlot usually gets me half way without trying.

    Never a big OTR fan. Maybe I listened to them when it wasn't the right time. I do have Innocence Mission "Yellow," though.

    The dog knows. The dog knows.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Chris :)

    Yes, the dog knows :) My Dog is a Contemplative is an album that I would buy sound unheard :) Yes, I love it when those transcendent windows get opened up when you weren't expecting it. The rarefied air is *almost* too much sometimes when you're not expecting it.

    I don't have any LZ in my possession. I should at some point because one of their songs is in my Top 100 (All My Love). Can I come over and drink your merlot, eat your food and listen to some music (what's for dinner?)

    The dog does know. I know the dog knows. You know the dog knows. I know that you know the dog knows. You know that I know the dog knows. But does the dog know that the dog knows?

    That's why I want to be a dog. 'Cause they know, but they don't know they know :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. You should read the philosophers dog by raymond Gaita. That book takes around three hundred pages exploring the topic of contemplative dogs.

    Sounds like a useless exercise, but its a great read. Yes its the same raymond Gaita that wrote rommulus my father

    ReplyDelete
  7. Monk - I have been wanting to read some Gaita ever since I saw Romulus My Father. He's a beautiful man (great movie, too. Eric Bana's performance is wonderful). Thanks for the tip :)

    ReplyDelete

Newer Older