The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

December 17, 2013


~~ Easy Listening ~~


http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1244 (best)
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/easylistening1.mp3
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/easylistening2.mp3

Alan Sondheim with his Wonderful Guitar, Jennifer!

For your Listening Pleasure. The first selection has a Calming
Influence on the Woes of the Day. The second picks up the Pace
a bit, presenting Wonderful Tapestries of Melodic Harmonies.
Do Sit Back and Enjoy the Experience, no Noise or Hard Rock
here!

So what happened to them?
 	They moved from the city. They moved to another
downtown. They bought a place. They live there.
 	What do they do there?
 	They're living off capital. There aren't any jobs. They
sit there. They do their own work.
 	Friends?
 	Sometimes people stop by, usually one at a time. He
explains it as a kind of filter.
 	Filter?
 	A high-Q filter. Nothing really disturbs them. They stop
by and leave. He says it was different in the city, low-Q. There
was a lot of background. It was more active. The background now
is passive. A lot of silence, gray skies. A lot of shadows.
 	Music?
 	He's thinking of stopping. They play by themselves for
themselves. It's an odd situation. He feels he's practicing for
nothing. He always thought of audience and people. He sits
there with some instrument or other and plays, runs scales,
things like that. For nothing.
 	How do they survive?
 	They have some money. They'll run through it. He doesn't
really know. He's depressed. He feels he has no structure.
There's no reason to do anything. There's nothing required.
 	Good works?
 	He feels his good works are his arts. He's losing his
arts. He sees no reason to continue them. Sometimes he looks out
of the window and thinks of jumping but he figures he's already
jumped. That thought accompanies him. He dreams like that. Of
being lost, returning nowhere.
 	And she?
 	He's the one writing this. She works brilliantly on arts
and craftwork. She's less depressed. He would do anything for
her. She practices music less. He has a hard time practicing.
Neither of them really see any reason to continue. She
encourages him. He wallows.
 	He sounds awful. All of this revolves around him. He's
waiting for the flood to come. He's self-absorbed and self-
hating. He sits there and types this. He feels a circulation of
spirits. He can't get into anyone's head. He's full of self-
pity, loathing.
 	He's lucky to be alive.
 	He doesn't feel that way. He's a remnant. His tinnitus
grows worse. He hears the world through himself. She has
infinite patience and kindness.
 	They're enduring the world?
 	She doesn't feel that way; he does. He wants to do good
acts but he's caught. The music is disappearing. He writes dead
theory. He's trapped. It won't last forever. He can't speak for
her. He can't write for her. He can barely write for himself. He
thinks language is painful. He writes only for himself. The net
is distance flesh. He takes vows of silence. He breaks them. He
thinks of his addictions.
 	They'll travel. They'll move from place to place.
They'll leave things behind. They'll have disappeared before all
appearance. Their words are vanquished. Their thinking is the
world's murmur. The world is disappearing.
 	At one point he thought mathematics, physics, would save
him. That there are hard obdurate structures, that even though
he lives in isolation, their beauty is eternal, classical. Now
he thinks there are limits, that cosmology has reached the fuzzy
realm of the deeply unknowable. The multiverse interrupts his
sleep. Particle schemes transform into nightmares and cartoons.
 	And she?
 	She thinks differently, networking, family, art, skein,
fabric of existence. She puts up with him. She doesn't see it
that way. They're four stories up in a building fronting onto a
main street. There's almost no traffic. The street is narrow. On
the other side are federal offices, Homeland Security.
 	They look into the windows of Homeland Security?
 	They're preserved forever. They look out of the windows
and move about. They look into the windows. They look into the
windows of Homeland Security. The television and radio are on.
The computers are on. That's what they do there. They live.
 	This is it? This is what he writes about? This? Just
this? This privilege?

On Titan

On Titan lights and lakes are growing
On Titan nights are long, it's snowing
On Titan, On Titan
On Titan, things are strong and waiting
On Titan, wings and fakes are baiting
On Titan, On Titan

On Titan things are humming
On Titan wings are flying
On Titan lights are coming
On Titan nights are sighing
On Titan, On Titan

http://www.alansondheim.org/Titan.mp4

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