Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Shuffle
According to an article in today's NYT, old age is getting to sound better and cheaper than ever. Those albums I've got squirreled away in nooks and crannies in our house? Not needed! Thoughts on getting modern and upscaling to an iPod? Unnecessary! Intense "discussions" with the ever-loving wife as to my investments in my non-convertible (but highly playable) CD's? That's all in the past! I can sell off my stereo equipment and any other electronic playback items. As long as my head stays on my shoulders, I can carry my own music box wherever I go.
According to one Dr. Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at St. Cadoc's Hospital in Wales, somes folks are victims of musical hallucinations.
"Dr. Aziz believes that people tend to hear songs they have heard repeatedly or that are emotionally significant to them. "There is meaning behind these things", he said".
He goes on by saying "(he) suspects that musical hallucinations will become more common in the future. People today are awash in music from radios, televisions, elevators, and supermarkets. It is possible that the pervasiveness of music may lead to more hallucinations. The types of hallucinations may also change as people experience different kinds of songs."
So, all this music-listening that I've been doing over the past 30-40 years has served to provide material for storage somewhere deep inside the gray matter. It's all sorted and waiting for the shuffle sequence to begin. And when it does, I'll be ready. I'll even buy some headphones to wear so that folks don't think I've gone completely 2 pills short of a prescription. Of course, if they bother to check to see where the headphones are plugged in, they may still start suspecting me of something.
According to an article in today's NYT, old age is getting to sound better and cheaper than ever. Those albums I've got squirreled away in nooks and crannies in our house? Not needed! Thoughts on getting modern and upscaling to an iPod? Unnecessary! Intense "discussions" with the ever-loving wife as to my investments in my non-convertible (but highly playable) CD's? That's all in the past! I can sell off my stereo equipment and any other electronic playback items. As long as my head stays on my shoulders, I can carry my own music box wherever I go.
According to one Dr. Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at St. Cadoc's Hospital in Wales, somes folks are victims of musical hallucinations.
"Dr. Aziz believes that people tend to hear songs they have heard repeatedly or that are emotionally significant to them. "There is meaning behind these things", he said".
He goes on by saying "(he) suspects that musical hallucinations will become more common in the future. People today are awash in music from radios, televisions, elevators, and supermarkets. It is possible that the pervasiveness of music may lead to more hallucinations. The types of hallucinations may also change as people experience different kinds of songs."
So, all this music-listening that I've been doing over the past 30-40 years has served to provide material for storage somewhere deep inside the gray matter. It's all sorted and waiting for the shuffle sequence to begin. And when it does, I'll be ready. I'll even buy some headphones to wear so that folks don't think I've gone completely 2 pills short of a prescription. Of course, if they bother to check to see where the headphones are plugged in, they may still start suspecting me of something.
Comments:
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
You just have to stuff the wire in your pocket, everyone'll think you've an iPod in there.
Musical hallucinations, huh? Does this refer to those infernal continuous repetitions of Bee-Gees motifs that haunt our waking days? Or of any chintzy teletubby tune we happen to catch on our way out the door, but which remain and linger and attack for hours afterwards?
Those are no mere hallucination: they are viruses, air-borne pathogens sometimes as deadly as ebola.
And now, just when you're growing older, losing your hearing, answering "WHAT?" or "PARDON ME?" to every shadow of utterance, now we are to be condemned to auditory hallucinations? How cruel: the curse of deafness made infinitely worse by auditory hallucinations of the "A-ga-doo, doo, doo!" strain?
Terrifying.
Musical hallucinations, huh? Does this refer to those infernal continuous repetitions of Bee-Gees motifs that haunt our waking days? Or of any chintzy teletubby tune we happen to catch on our way out the door, but which remain and linger and attack for hours afterwards?
Those are no mere hallucination: they are viruses, air-borne pathogens sometimes as deadly as ebola.
And now, just when you're growing older, losing your hearing, answering "WHAT?" or "PARDON ME?" to every shadow of utterance, now we are to be condemned to auditory hallucinations? How cruel: the curse of deafness made infinitely worse by auditory hallucinations of the "A-ga-doo, doo, doo!" strain?
Terrifying.
Hopefully it won't be John Cage's silence becasue that might really screw you up.
Post a Comment
# opined by 
: 1:32 PM, July 13, 2005
: 1:32 PM, July 13, 2005 << Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
