fig 1:
The Rhythm of Thought
University of São Paolo neurolinguist Gilberto Freitas discovered in 2015 that the constellations of neurons, which are engaged when certain ingrained ideas are summoned to the mind, have a unique and consistent rhythmic signature within every individual. That is to say, thoughts have rhythm. It would seem to be almost common sense, since we all know the feeling of how well-worn ideas alight to consciousness, a blobby menagerie of images, words and sensations popping up as if from an endless Whac-A-Mole game in the foggy moorland behind our eyes. The rhythm of thoughts is monitored by recording the patterns of electrical pulses between neurons when different stimuli are presented to subjects. A musicologist friend of Freitas, Dr Shannon Garland, was in his lab one day, as Freitas was playing back the recording of one session. Dr Garland commented that the sounds reminded her of Senegalese mbalax music, but as if it were being transmitted from many light years away and all the beats had drifted into the wrong place. She heard distinct, repeating polyrhythms, but layered on top of each other chaotically. Through subsequent tests and analysis, Freitas, with the help of a team of music programmers, was able to create scores corresponding to a set of basic ideas as they manifest for a small group of subjects. If a modern symphony orchestra has around 100 parts, Freitas’ scores isolated up to 738 parts! Of course, no ideas are stable in the mind, nor is the web of associations constitutive of an idea for one person similar to that of anyone else. However, Freitas found that within an individual, the rhythm of how an idea changes and grows is similar to a symphony under constant revision, however always keeping some identifiable passages, motifs and interrelations.
fig 2:
Jakarta, 1473
A prince has his penis surgically removed and gives it as a gift to a mistress. He has her escorted to a cottage in the marshes outside the city where all her needs will be cared for and instructs her to keep his member in her mouth for a week at all times except when eating or drinking. She must keep it slowly revolving, counter-clockwise, and sing the following song, letting the words be transformed by the presence of his sex:
Dari mana, adinda, datangnya linta? ~ Whence, little sister, cometh the leech?
Dari sawah, turun kakali. ~ From the rice field, down to the river.
Dari mana, adinda, datangnya tjinta? ~ Whence, little sister, cometh love?
Dari mata, turun kahati. ~ From the eyes, down to the heart.
The prince has one of his servants listen to the mistress from an adjoining room and write down everything he hears her say. On the third day, the servant wrote down this:
Love is a leech, a rice parasite.
Toss sister in the bay.
Septic sins should be deserted.
Self-contained basket of thorns.
The prince, in despair, orders his mistress’s head to be severed and sewn onto his groin looking up at him with his penis still in her mouth. The servant instead brings this order to the attention of the king who declares a hundred-year ban on poetry and asks his courtiers to devote all their talents towards designing a more inventive penis, ‘one whose varied applications should serve to be so diverting as to prevent any thought of self-castration.’ Although all of the drawings and sculptures that resulted were later burnt by the next ruler, the decade following the king’s edict is widely regarded as one of the most visionary periods in Indonesian art.
fig 3:
Pubic Bone Tone
The pubic bone is the loudest resonator in the human body. In Upper Palaeolithic burial sites in Western Australia prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, human pubic bones in different sizes were found along with a variety of wooden mallets. The bones were worn in certain areas suggesting repeated striking on those points. In tests upon preserved skeletons, not only did the pubic bone create sound up to 40 dB louder than the next loudest bone (the 7th set of ribs), it also resounded for at least five seconds longer. During another set of tests, a peculiar accidental side effect was noticed. If sound is directed at the pubic bone in close proximity (approx. 10 cm), the upper cervical spine (vertebra C1) is caused to pulse against the interior base of the skull in the same electrical wavelength as is occupied by nerve impulses. The effect of this interference is similar to two people communicating by Morse code suddenly encountering extra data in their stream and since they’re unaware of its source, they both, at first, attribute it to the other speaker, and speed up their processing to interpret it until the point at which they recognize it as non-signifying interference and the communication between them is aborted. However, if interference is slipped into the stream but kept right below the threshold of detection, maximum confusion can be tolerated by both parties, knotting around the communication like burls in a tree. Eventually though, the tree will no longer resemble a tree.
fig 4:
Progressive Touch – Full Body Language Reprogramming
Progressive Touch is a choreopubopoetic therapy I’ve developed over the past three years, which routes vocal sound through the pubic bone to reprogramme behaviour and thought at the electrorhythmic level. Fusing elements of Erickson Confusion Technique, Weilgart’s aUI, Toning, Eurythmy, Uzazu, Forsythe Technique and Konnakol with the unpredictable rhythmic structures of Progressive Rock, Progressive Touch overloads neural communication channels to force a reboot of ideas to which subjects have become over-entrained.
fig 5:
Valère Novarina
French playwright Valère Novarina, in a letter to his actors from 1979, expressing his approach to ‘linguistic carnage, articulatory cruelty’:
Mouth, anus. Sphincters. Round muscles closing our holes. The opening and the closing of the word. Attack cleanly (teeth, lips, muscled mouth) and finish cleanly (cut off the air). Stop cleanly. Chew and eat the text. A blind spectator should be able to hear it crunched and swallowed, to ask himself what is being eaten over there, onstage. What are they eating? They’re eating themselves? Chewing or swallowing. Mastication, sucking, swallowing. Pieces of the text must be bitten off, viciously attacked by the female eaters (lips, teeth); other pieces must be quickly gulped down, swallowed, gobbled up, breathed in, guzzled. Eat, gulp, eat, chew, dry lung, chew masticate, cannibal! Oh, oh!
Third Touch: A play for three voices
Set in the not too distant future in a society where fossil fuel has been replaced by text-oil, a substance harnessed from the interaction between language and sex.
DOCTOR
a woman, 30-40, with a low, soothing and richly expressive voice
Mrs. W
woman, late 20s, a bit meek sounding
Mr. W
man, late 20s, a bit cocky
DOCTOR
So, what brings you here today?
Mrs. W
Um, we have problems with touching.
Mrs. W
Yes.
DOCTOR
With all types of touching?
Mrs. W
Uh, no, well we can do First Touch and Second Touch but after that, we’re a bit lost.
DOCTOR
Nothing to be ashamed of, it’s been a shock to all of us. I hear this all the time.
Mrs. W
That’s a relief. Hard not to take it personally.
DOCTOR
Of course. I’ll just ask you a few more questions and then we can get started.
Mrs. W
Ok.
DOCTOR
Mrs. Wehg..,
Mrs. W
Lily, you can call me Lily.
DOCTOR
Lily, when you are on Second Touch, do you face the touch or face through it?
Mrs. W
[Nervous laughter] I face through it, at least I try.
DOCTOR
And your front-safe chest, do you tit-for-sake-of-trust or tit-for-senchwulls?
Mrs. W
Um, well, I never understood the difference.
DOCTOR
This is not an interrogation, Lily, I’m on your side.
Mrs. W
We’ve heard that before.
DOCTOR
I assure you, Mr Wehng.
Mrs. W
It’s Ben.
DOCTOR
I assure you, Ben, the eyes are down in these rooms, you can tremmel them if you like.
Mrs. W
I don’t spectra-fuck walls unless I’m sure my droke’ll come out heavy.
DOCTOR
[Laughs] Yes, down the hall in Contention it’s another story but the transcripts here go straight to oil. So, ‘the more you say, …
Mrs. W
…the softer your car will purr’, yes we saw the ads outside. Well, Lily sure is not short in the text-oil production department.
DOCTOR
[Laughs] All right then, so Mrs. Wenge, one more question. When Mr. Wengen mitigates your lip-to-blanket lines, do you respond by: A, larking his brine; B, bringing the shone of his droke to the red of your mitigate: or C, closing down smell-ports five through 9 while alorning your armananal [pronounced like a slurred ‘arm and anal’].
Mrs. W
Whu! My mother always taught me to give what I got, and got what I give, and Ben has enough got to wake up the morgue, so number A, definitely.
DOCTOR
Ok. Good. Let’s move into the other room.
[Sounds of moving belongings, walking a few steps]
Mrs. W
Wow! I never saw one of these in person!
DOCTOR
Yes! This is a true-towel made of sureskin-cotton, some of the best in the islands and grown in our own air-fields.
Mrs. W
Can I touch it?
DOCTOR
Yes, of course, but let’s wait until we are gaze-locked first.
Mrs. W
Oh, sorry.
DOCTOR
No worries. So, Ben, clock your droke back to soft-height, position one, and put your mouth-gaze at Lily’s voil.
Mrs. W
Allrighty. One sec. [A bunch of sounds of uncomfortable re-positioning of the body] Ok, there we are.
DOCTOR
Lily, now wet your ladle.
Mrs. W
With wet-mouth or text-oil?
DOCTOR
It’s up to you.
Mrs. W
[Makes a bunch of liquidy mouth sounds] Okeedokee.
DOCTOR
Good. Now Ben, go for it.
Mrs. W
OK. Testing, testing. OK. [Lily starts making a soft siren sound going back and forth from ‘eee’ to ‘uuu’ in a slowly rising pitch] I am Ben, runting the market, fouling the shores, staunching the air-fields. Ben, burden of voils, flooder of basements, true-touch abasement. Ben…
DOCTOR
Good, Ben, now Lily, your turn.
Mrs. W
[Ben does the siren sound now, softly going back and forth from ‘ah’ to ‘uuu’] I am Lily, chamber of causes, blanket of lips, manger of pauses, ranger of lipids.
DOCTOR
Yes, and locate your got.
Mrs. W
[Ben increases the emotional intensity/diversity of his siren, but still at a low volume] My got’s the go-to for surgeons, the went-to for inverts, my got’s the royal basement of touch-soils, the holy cellar of forensics.
[Ben and Lily do their respective sound sirens together for a moment]
DOCTOR
Great. Now Ben, step up your droke to the ledge of her voil and remove every single moral impediment from your facial mesh.
Mrs. W
What do you think I am, some kind of robot?
DOCTOR
Sorry, remove every single moral impediment from your facial mesh except for the dry moral hope-cloak.
Mrs. W
OK, done.
DOCTOR
Now, Lily, are you ready to leave the bridge of Second Touch?
Mrs. W
I think so.
DOCTOR
Shuttle his hope-cloak to the sides of your eyes, and do fuck to the words of our faith. Go, Ben!
Mrs. W
BLOODSTICK
Mrs. W
[The following sounds Lily makes should be stretched out for 3 or 4 seconds like increasingly painful cries/grunts] Hehhnn!
Mrs. W
BODY HOSS
Mrs. W
Orrnn!
Mrs. W
BOMESWISH
Mrs. W
Ahllll!
Mrs. W
BETHWINE
Mrs. W
Greee!
Mrs. W
BROOKLIME
Mrs. W
Errrrrm!
Mrs. W
BWOYLEN!
Mrs. W
[And this final one for 6 seconds or so, like some sort of demon] Freych! [Breathe in and out quickly now, as if she’s just been running to escape a terrible evil.]
DOCTOR
Yes! Now third touch! Fog your droke and voil and make hay of the air.
[Ben and Lily breath out a softly voiced ‘haaaa’ for 7 seconds.]
DOCTOR
And Third Touch! Hand to hand to hand!
[Sounds of chaotic commotion, things falling, breaking, smashing, scraping for 10 or so seconds.]
DOCTOR
Congratulations. You are now at third touch. How do you feel?
[Silence]
DOCTOR
Ben? Lily?
Mrs. W
Um, I don’t want to step on the wrong toes here, but I gotta ask, how much text-oil is generated from third touch?
DOCTOR
That’s totally dependent on which glosses you’re wearing.
Mrs. W
Sure, sure, but on average?
DOCTOR
I really can’t generalize. What glosses are you wearing today, Lily?
Mrs. W
A woman never tells. [Laughter all around.] Um, well, pretty much the standard for my age and profession. You know textbook stuff, for basic getting by. We run a small spot-cleaning shop near The Climb and get a lot of business these days with all the blood-fogs from the protein-ink plant, so my glosses are mostly on all the new fabrics and semi-livestocks. Also there’s a big population of No-Mouths in that area, so I’ve got the full array of blink codes to deal with them.
DOCTOR
Fantastic. And you Ben?
Mrs. W
I wear all those glosses too, but I also moonlight as a Data-Hoser, so I..
DOCTOR
I’m not familiar with that.
Mrs. W
Oh, it’s just been around a few months, I have a road stand with an anti-data hose and just wash my clients off as they’re leaving work. But you need to tell the good data-mites from the bad, so I gloss up on all sorts of trade-specific stuff to know how tight to draw the Neglect Fence for each person.
DOCTOR
Super interesting. I might give you a call for that. Anyway, Lily, to answer your question, based on those glosses I’d guess around 9 grams of text-oil for you guys today.
Mrs. W
That’s it?
DOCTOR
That’s a very respectable amount. But, well, if you two wanted to be a bit more ambitious, I could take you to Fifth Touch.
Mrs. W
Yikes! Really?
Mrs. W
What about Fourth Touch?
DOCTOR
Fourth Touch is exactly the same as Third except that the true-towel is taken out of the gaze-line of your armananal, so it’s just a little more text-muscle required in the ass.
Mrs. W
[Pleasantly surprised] Oh, that’s nothing then.
DOCTOR
Yes, it’s more of a formality held over from the early charters.
Mrs. W
Tell us about Fifth Touch then!
DOCTOR
Sure – follow me.
[Sounds of walking, doors, descending stairs, muffled screams.]
Mrs. W
What the hell is that?
[Muffled screams continue]
DOCTOR
Oh that’s just the Doctor’s lounge, we have safe-scream baffles there but some sound always sneaks out under the doors.
Mrs. W
I see.
[Walking continues]
DOCTOR
Here we are. Now this is a senchwull-free zone, so you’re gonna have to leave your droke and voil in the tray there.
Mrs. W
No problem.
[Sounds of two mushy thumps on a hard surface.]
DOCTOR
And Ben, I’m also gonna have to ask you to rip your tits off a few times until the static settles down.
Mrs. W
Yes, ma’am. [Sounds of Velcro unfastening and refastening four times.] Is that good?
DOCTOR
Perfect. And Lily, excuse my Estonian, but can you dim the glosses near your gaffe-tongue?
Mrs. W
[Totally mortified] Wh.., I…, I had that removed like everyone else..
Mrs. W
[Softly, trying to protect her] Lily, don’t, just..
Mrs. W
[A sigh of resignation, followed by a horrid gurgling squeal, and then a polite clearing of the throat.]
DOCTOR
Ok, let’s enter. [Sound of a door opening]
Mrs. W
Holy fuck!
Mrs. W
[Gasps]
Mr. W
Holy fuck!
DOCTOR
Yes, that’s a double-true towel, the purest in the entire Split.
Mrs. W
My fucking god.
DOCTOR
[Firm] Mrs. Wehenge, please do not touch it.
Mrs. W
[Overcome] Oh, sorry, that’s just a lot of towel.
DOCTOR
Please, Mr. and Mrs. Wegnenen, sit here, armananals causal-cornered, and face-mesh at full scorn. [Sounds of discomfort.] Good. Now the towel will start to steam and the fibers will vibrate proportionate to your combined un-run of self. Okay?
Mr. W & Mrs. W:
M-hm.
[In the following passages, PARASOUNDS means the sound designer should make sounds that are almost recognizable, but not quite. Each time a different evocative sound sequence, in a variety of lengths, rhythms and intensities, using a series of everyday objects close to the microphone. Similarly, PARAEMOTIONS means the actors should make ambiguous vocal sounds – breaths, gasps, strains, cries, quivers, etc. – conveying a strange, unidentifiable mixture of emotions.]
DOCTOR
Now, Ben, put your was-to-have-meant-it neck in the downstroke of Lily’s not-to-could-not-place-it neck.
Mr. W
[PARASOUNDS] Ok.
DOCTOR
Lily, think of all the pet names, little nothings, oaths and curses you’ve used to qualify your husband, and for each of those, pressure the towel to seal the mind-holding-stone through the skin-length of those notions.
Mrs. W
Ok. [PARASOUNDS]
DOCTOR
Ben, think of the griefs you’ve laid or waylaid at the shores of your wife, and for each of those, strain the white tendrils of the towel with the ending-doing of your lip.
Mrs. W
[As if that’s a big, grave endeavor] Whu.. All right, I’ll try. [PARASOUNDS interspersed with slight PARAEMOTIONS] Ah, shit! [As if he failed.]
DOCTOR
Don’t worry, Ben, try again.
Mrs. W
Okay. [Exact same sequence/pattern of PARASOUNDS but with slightly more intense interspersed PARAEMOTIONS] Oh, ok! [He did it this time.]
DOCTOR
Great! Now, Lily, think of the objects you’ve misjudged, that have come between you, Ben, and the Communicum. Think of the impossible assurances, the impossible leavenings you’ve attached to or expected from these objects, and as you thumb through the pages of Ben’s face, slowly hum the song of the voil to the droke at their first dance, the dance of dropped hints and calcified hands, [Lily starts humming] the dance of waiting alone in the temporal eddy and everything is an instrument, everything speeds the faulting of the face, [Ben starts making PARASOUNDS] like a cackling spitting earthquake, embarrassing the explosions in our muscles, text-oil in a crapsack, text-oil that counts the body, frees the frogs, the opera of the jungle, [Continue humming, PARASOUNDS, now interspersed with PARAEMOTIONS], the fever of premature empowerment, armananal dead to begin with, the Split that was, the Split that shouldn’t, the gone-undergown of perfective markers, the gone-undergown of lost-gloss obligate, the gloss of the name, gloss of the purpose, gloss of the root-salt, gloss of the tooth-trade, the gloss of Logos Spermatikos inflected for the multiform! It’s a bitter sound, Lily, a bitter drum, a bitter leveling that puts the bed back together or strangles the towel, a bitter crowding of the face, leeching of the gaze, a tamper of the manifest, tamper of the dynamon, [speeding up, and crescendo of PARASOUNDS, PARAEMOTIONS] what could possibly go wrong, what could possibly go wrong, what could possibly go wrong, what could possibly go wrong!!
[Stop PARASOUNDS, PARAEMOTIONS. Gasps for breath, sounds of soft crying.]
DOCTOR
Yes, Lily, yes, Ben. [Breathing and soft crying continues.] Fifth Touch. [Pause]
That was 17 grams of text-oil.
[Breathing and cries subside. Long pause]
Mrs. W
Thank you, Doctor. But, um, I think we’ll stay with Third Touch.