Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1410050119130.5115@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Sickness, Seeks Advice, Wood
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 01:22:31 -0400 (EDT)
Sickness, Seeks Advice, Wood http://www.alansondheim.org/theykeep07.png http://www.alansondheim.org/qqq3.mp3 http://www.alansondheim.org/qqq1.mp3 Help! Here are my symptoms - slight sore throat, always, accompanied by a hoarse voice, wheezing, difficulty breathing. Chest congested and chills, feels like flu, but my temperature lowers slightly, doesn't raise. Muscle aches. Head feels 'thick,' sometimes headaches, migraines. Coughing and dizziness. The exhaustion is terrible; I have to force myself to do anything. My doctor in Brooklyn ruled out psychosomatic, thought it might be a low-grade anti-immune issue. But that comes with its own problems in terms of treatment, and it's probably not correct. I can hardly function some days. It's worse when I wake up or nap. I've had this for years, but it's been getting worse recently. My energy seems low and I'm just frustrated all the times. Writing this to see if anyone has any idea what's going on. It doesn't seem to be connected with depression (which I have), but it adds to it. Sleep broken up as usual. Played two qin pieces today; if I stop playing, my muscle memory will dissolve. There's a lot of memorization involved. I spoke to a friend who plays qin; we discussed how the weather affects it. My older instrument becomes much more resonant; the newer is the opposite. I tend wood, work in electronics. We just received copies of my latest release, which should be announced any day now - Cutting Board, from ESP-Disk, with Chris Diasparra and Ed Schneider, with cover images from the work we've done in the Cave; Kathleen Ottinger and I are on the cover. The titles of the songs are from the elements. There are a number of duets and trios; I also have three solos - electric guitar, qin, and sung lisu. I no longer have the sung lisu, which I traded in; now I realize how beautiful it sounds. But I have enough to play at the moment, and the qin are beautiful. One piece (above) has two instruments played together; the other has one, recorded from beneath, in a rather dry manner. But seriously, if you any idea what might be hitting me (it's been here for years), would like to hear from you; you can write back-channel. My medical care in Rhode Island isn't good, and it's almost impossible for me to see my doctor; instead, I'm shunted to nurse practitioners who don't know what's going on and don't have the time for it. Here at home I feel dysfunctional some of the time, and I shouldn't be; my tests all come out fairly normal, but I haven't had a real checkup for fourteen months and I'm not scheduled for one until December. I don't want to lose the next three months or anything beyond that, I'm worried about my health. The album is terrific, I think, and in November we're having a double release party for both Avatar Woman and Cutting Board. But what if I can't play? At the moment I'm still more or less at the top of my form, but November is a long way away. I continue to work in virtual worlds but haven't been able to see my way towards the purchase of a Kinect and software, which are quite expensive; as a result I rehash the older behavioral/animation files. On the other hand, we do well in the cave and I realized just this week that, being unaffiliated, I tend to work furiously in short spurts when I have access to things, and then proceed later with the files; the last Cave session for example was three hours and I'll be dealing with the files, now, for a week or so, producing new video, audio, images, and so forth. Today, for a second example, we attended a steam engine event in East Greenwich; all sorts of stationary engines were fired off; I made video and audio and these will appear, again, in new work, most likely in MacGrid. I work like this, jerking around, and maybe this too is wearing me down, but the symptoms listed above are always the same, sometimes worse (as now) sometimes better, but, like my tinnitus, always there, so again if you have any suggestions or something similar please do get in touch; I'm at my wit's end (which is an expression, not a geographic topos).