Klarinet Archive - Posting 000218.txt from 2010/11

From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Jennifer's question
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:57:37 -0500

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org> wrote:
> On 14 Nov 2010, at 19:30, Keith Bowen wrote:
>
>> ... but whatever, there was no intention to hurt you, Jennifer.
>
> Absolutely not.
>
> Does 'spozed' have a bad connotation to you?

I suppose it might. I can be a bit of stickler for good grammar and
spelling. I think that it mostly just caught me at a bad time (after
all, what is "good" grammar?). I remember as a kid I had a lot of
pride in knowing and being able to use English according to certain
rules, (though I never excelled at the sentence structure exercises, I
did do pretty well). So I guess I might have been in a child-like
mode that some have observed here. In any case, the grammar I pride
myself in is just a system that is, I think, widely accepted. So it
probably stems from a sometimes clingy tendency to stick to structure,
e.g. a system that I am comfortable with. Then there are the times I
don't like the system and will shift away, letting things slide, or
using it creatively. Your use of 'spozed' fits into that latter mood
and seems to mirror my expression of skepticism at the possibility of
designing for example two woodwind instruments to center precisely 3
Hz apart.

Could be characterized as a binary, somewhat Jekyll-Hyde situation,
but with a gradation between and with few extremes. There might be a
few energy wells in there where specific modes sit. In the binary
system, one mode finds such things as grammar fascinating and the
other wants to drop and abandon it. Or perhaps the other makes me
feel bad for having such pride.

This also fits into some John Denver recordings I've been listening to
lately. There is a sort of trance-like state I will shift into. I
think it started developing around the time I was reading the Sandman
comics on the floor of my apartment between graduation and my first
job. It has become most pronounced since my job was eliminated and I
had settled in to being almost a full-time home-body. There is less
sensory stimulation that I am exposed to (in part, by choice avoiding
TV and by the nature of my situation, not having had a job). There is
the overall feeling that Annie's song evokes, which when experienced
in real life can be quite overwhelming and drive other thoughts out of
one's mind. Memories or revisitations of such feelings can be
trance-like. Especially if there is an interesting problem that has
been presented with such feelings. Then there is the third verse of
Annie's Song is played with a bit of echo, which strikes me as evoking
a sense of memory. Annie's song is nice because it has a sort of
operatic quality. Another song, Dreamland Express, has that trance
like state to it, though of a more basic, perhaps seedy and sexual
nature (sort of enhanced by the over-the-top cutsieness and the type
of guitar sound used). The ability to fall into a trance-like state
seems like a situation that develops when one is not working with
things mentally (e.g. no job, no school, no math, no biochemistry) I
sort of shift into an animal sort of state of pure feeling, not
thinking verbally. It has happened (in a different way) a couple
times recently on the bus to work, where someone says something
relating to or is a variation on something I've written here. It sort
of triggers associated memories and that memory sort of occupies my
whole brain. The feeling happens, then the verbal and other thoughts
follow. Without asking the person directly whether they have been
reading the Klarinet list, I can't say that they have come up with the
idea in parallel or were inspired by something I wrote.

I have had a few people suggest that I try meditation. I haven't done
anything formally, but I have been sort of clearing my mind by
avoiding things that I don't like (more than usual) and working on a
relatively narrow set of things now. Thus, I do not have the volume
of material in my mind as I did when I was taking four classes a term,
working in the lab, participating in student organizations and playing
in ensembles. When I was doing that my mind could be quite cluttered
and it can take a lot of effort to write continuously and coherently
on one topic. I still have clutter, but it has shifted from a lot of
verbal, chemical and mathematical stuff to feelings and verbal stuff.
I developed rather severe depression in the last year of school (one
reason for trying meditation). As a result, I have been paying more
attention to how I feel at one given time or another. Mentioning my
sensitivity to this bit that I wrote was a bit of an impulse, but also
something that has bothered me from time to time in the past. Peter
Gentry's succinct summary made me rethink what I wrote such that I
wanted to rephrase it as a stripped down version.

> I sometimes use it in what I think of as a sort of tribute to a man calle=
d James Herndon, who wrote a lovely book called, "The way it spozed to be" =
which had a big impact on me when I read it many years ago. =A0(It was abou=
t his experiences teaching kids English in a quite dysfunctional school in =
America.)
>
> As well as being quite a nice word, I think, it has a slightly tongue-in-=
cheek quality, as though to raise an eyebrow at whoever thinks of themselve=
s as constituting the Authority behind the 'spozed'.

Right. What is good grammar, after all? There is a wide variety in
syntax within English and other languages. I agree with your sense of
a tongue-in-cheek quality, though it was not how I was thinking at the
time. So now I wonder what I was thinking and I guess it must have
been some sort of opposite of pride.

I value distinctions and knowledge and don't want it lost, but there
are only so many hours in the day and sometimes I just have to let it
go, even though it makes me sad to have lost it in the meantime. I
hope others keep it going. So it was a bit of fear of losing
something interesting that expressed itself as pain. Sometimes the
only hope for keeping something is to let it go.

> Actually, I found your question interesting,

Thank you.

> [...]and it gave me pause.

Perhaps the hurt was a bit like the initial discomfort I had looking
at the Martin Frost Mozart Concerto recording Dan Leeson posted a
while ago. I couldn't watch it through the first time. It took a few
tries to appreciate it and figure out how to do it justice.

Sincerely,

Jennifer

Annie's Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DuGi490LmaP8&feature=3Dmore_related

Dreamland Express
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DFtTm8wqz-gw
_______________________________________________
Klarinet mailing list
Klarinet@-----.com
To do darn near anything to your subscription, go to:
http://klarinet-list.serve-music.com