perception
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On Our Din And Roar II: How Noise Is Not Always Bad And Quiet Not Always Good
On my last blog post, I may have inadvertently given readers the impression that I wear earplugs wherever I go, so intent I am in the pursuit of some kind of urban quiet. (One worried family member even weighed in: “When you wear the earplugs, do you miss any cautionary sounds–like the sound of an… Continue reading
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Moving Serenity: On The Resonances Of Scott Jurek’s Eat and Run
At first glance, ultrarunner Scott Jurek is an odd bird: he enjoys running astonishingly long and punishing distances like 100+ miles. But at a second, longer glance by way of his lucid autobiography Eat and Run, Jurek seems to be motivated less by extremes as ends in themselves and more as means to help him… Continue reading
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On Perception And Playing A Polyrhythm
A polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of more than one rhythm. I find polyrhythms endlessly interesting, mainly because they play with our perceptions, especially our sense of what is foreground and what is background. In this way, polyrhythms are the aural equivalent of those optical illusions you may remember from Psychology 101, such as the… Continue reading
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Strange Mechanisms: On Entrainment And Running To Music
“…the music, the words of the mottoes, the steps of the dance, trigger the strange mechanism.” — Jean Rouch in Gilbert Rouget, Music and Trance (1985:181) Yesterday I ran the NYC Half Marathon (in a time that qualified me for the NYC Marathon–yes!). One of the things I noticed along the route was the presence… Continue reading
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Representing Time: On Christian Marclay’s “The Clock”
While I was in Ottawa last week, timing would have it that Christian Marclay’s epic video installation piece The Clock was showing at the National Gallery. I of course made a point of going to see it. The Clock is a 24-hour video collage composed of thousands of film clips (culled from the entire history… Continue reading
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Intangible Things: On Victor L. Wooten’s “The Music Lesson”
New Age : “an eclectic group of cultural attitudes arising in late 20th century Western society that are adapted from those of a variety of ancient and modern cultures, that emphasize beliefs (as reincarnation, holism, pantheism, and occultism) outside the mainstream, and that advance alternative approaches to spirituality, right living, and health” Victor L. Wooten’s… Continue reading
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On Perception, Presence, And The Creative Process: John Berger’s “Bento’s Sketchbook”
“I’m taking my time, as if I had all the time in the world. I do have all the time in the world.” – John Berger John Berger’s Bento’s Sketchbook (2011) is a meditation on the connections between seeing, feeling, and drawing, and how these connections shape how we perceive and make sense of the… Continue reading
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On Motion, Repetition, and Transformation: Robin Harvie’s “The Lure Of Long Distances”
It is not down in any map; true places never are. – Herman Melville At the core of Robin Harvie’s The Lure Of Long Distances: Why We Run (2011) is a disturbing yet intoxicating idea: that you’re not really free in any endeavor until you no longer feel the gravitational pull of wanting to return… Continue reading
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On Practicing Wonder: David Abram’s Becoming Animal
“This whole terrain is talking to our animal body; our actions are the steady reply.” – David Abram David Abram is a phenomenologist and ecologist who is interested in “the qualitative language of direct experience” (289). And since his 1996 book The Spell Of The Sensuous, he’s been on a mission to get his readers… Continue reading
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