Elements & Embodiment 039
Photo by Sydney Rae
In my last newsletter I shared the slowed down sound experience of Faint Signals. Good reader, I have more sound discoveries to share!
Soundscapes for Wellbeing is a BBC project that lets you arrange and mix archived sounds into soundscapes and then listen to them as you go about your day. The archived sounds are from all different categories including natural, mechanical, human, animal, and more. And they’re from all different parts of the world too. The mixer instrument lets you arrange and layer these sounds in different ways. But the best part is that you can loop some sounds, and you can also delay the start times of each individual sound file. This means you can sequence the individual clips and control the overall progression of the soundscape.
For instance, you you might take this 3:11 Bird of Paradise call and loop it up to repeat. But underneath you might cue up this 10:23 of snorts and scuffs from a herd of 300 buffalo walking through the grass. Throw in some church bells recorded in Czechoslovakia for tonal variation, and you’ve composed a nice aural environment for youself.
The other neat part is you can share your soundscape mix with other people. Here’s the one I made last Monday morning and listened to as I worked. And here’s what part of it looks like in the mixer.
Give it a try. If you do, send me the link to the soundscape you compose so I can put it in rotation this week.
Still with sound: Here is a delightful 10-minute film about Dutch record collector, music producer, and DJ – DJ Marcelle. The film is mostly DJ Marcelle ambling through her vast record collection that seems built into the architecture of her house. The best part might be when she pulls out a record that plays only the sounds of Russian chickens clucking.
And on with film: Kedi is an intimate film about seven neighborhood cats in Istanbul. There is Sari, The Hustler; Bengu, The Lover; and more.
The film’s site has a page profiling each of the seven cats who star in the film. The profiles detail each star’s “profession,” character traits, and nicknames given by the humans it encounters during its daily routines. Each cat also has a rather personalized sketch, like this one for Duman, The Gentleman:
Duman lives in one of the poshest neighborhoods in Istanbul and has somehow made his alliance with the people who run a very fancy delicatessen. He knows better than to march right into the shop, so he waits patiently outside, staring down the waiters until they prepare him meals - frequently of smoked meats and specialty cheeses. His signature pawing of the window to get their attention is a sight the patrons have come to expect even if they’re on serious business lunches. Though with the efforts of the restaurant’s management his previously plump grey and white figure has now leaned, he still forages the dumpsters, proving no matter how fancy a cat may get, he’s still a street cat.
You might not be the cat person that I am, but hear this wisdom from the film trailer:
It is said cats are aware of God’s existence. While dogs think people are God, cats don’t.
Status Board
Reading: I started The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It’s riveting. I can’t wait to see where it goes. By “it,” I mean both the book and the literal underground railroad train that Cora and Caesar took away from the Randall plantation in Georgia.
Writing: I’m working on an article with two colleagues about the rhythms, networks, and hierarchies of teacher-led organizing spaces. This one has stretched on for quite some time, but that’s fine. There’s no rush. One of the last wrinkles we are ironing out is making sure the earlier dichotomy between physical and digital space is no longer in the article. Because it’s just space.
Teaching: Up this week in Readings in Young Adult lit was All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. This novel has taken the place of To Kill a Mockingbird in some high school English classrooms, and for good reason. Here are some of the discussion prompts from the second half of the week, all through the course focus of anti-racist teaching:
*How is the basketball team and practices an extended metaphor for broader racial justice efforts?
*What do we learn about Rashad’s trauma, healing, identity, etc. through his art – woven through the novel?
*How does trauma and healing circulate through/among the members in his family?
*How does the guilt, loss, loneliness, etc. in his family relate to his letting go of whiteness?
Listening: I’ve been spending more time in the music studio these past few weeks hanging out with records. One result is a mix of vinyl releases – mostly all records pressed, made, or bought in Detroit – I posed on my Soundcloud. You’ll hear music by Kyle Hall, Norm Talley, DJ Holographic & Alex Wilcox, and more. But watch out for that Gustav Brovold techno heater at 33:20. Big ouch!