Week 5: Waterdigger
Dedicated to Stanislaw Aesculapian Lem.
In a Borgesian kind of mindset I imagine an I-pod that has all the music that has ever been or will ever be recorded. All possible permutations of sound combinations in all rhythms and melodies, tones and timbre are found in it. From the shortest micro-tune written in mirco-scales and played in one nano-beat to the longest (still playing) epic multi-symphoelectronic terramuzak, this I-pod has it all. How far are we from that I-pod? Turns out, not far at all. A musician that goes by the moniker of Anonymous has already developed the only music that won’t go into my not-so-imaginary I-pod – Silent Music.
At the current rate of music production, statisticians have predicted that 100% of musical possibilities combined with 100% of sound wavelength saturation will occur sometime around June 19, 2011, just a few years away. Experts call this the Cacomoment in music. Though some countries have gone as far as monitoring the number of musical pieces being produced and played at any given time, and some have even placed restrictions on certain forms of new music, most music production continues unabated. And it might as well, since most experts agree that the forward advance of music is unstoppable and must be allowed to reach its obvious conclusion - the Cacomoment. But what happens afterwards? Though the post-Cacomoment is somewhat of an elusive concept not unlike what happens to time at speeds faster than light, most theories describe the post-Cacomoment as all the music, all the time. And this is where Anonymous and Silent Music come in. In the post-Cacomoment, Silent Music will offer an oasis of peace amidst an atmosphere filled with the incessant sounds of all the music all the time. As the name implies Silent Music doesn’t make a sound; it’s music that can’t be heard. Like any innovative creator, Anonymous is keeping secret many of the technical details; however, initial leaks from Anonymous’ studio have resulted in a number of “silent” headphones now flooding the market. Notwithstanding, Anonymous has stated that unlike the headphones which mainly create silence as a negative effect of sound, Silent Music creates silence a priori, in other words, it would create silence even if there was no music in the air. But the principal difference, says Anonymous, between regular silence and Silent Music is that while regular silence is the absence of sound, Silent Music is silent sound, which means that it will continue to provide the other characteristics we currently associate with music, but without making any sound. When listening to Silent Music we will, depending on the Silent Music piece, experience joy, sadness, elation, mystery, a desire to dance or to cheer. In the post-Cacomoment, we will see a flyer for our favorite Silent Music band, go to our favorite live music club, pay a cover, and drink beers while we toast to the awesome Silent Music being played, but we won’t see any performers on stage playing any silent instruments. We will follow the neon lights to the dance clubs were we will twist and shake in new provocative dances while attempting to ‘hook-up’, but we won’t see any DJ spinning any silent records. At home we will sit back after a busy day at work and relax with a cigar and a glass of scotch while listening to the latest Silent Music recording from the Columbia Silent Record of the Month Club.
Exponent of Silent Music and fellow snakester Stanislaw Aesculapian Lem predicted Silent Music. In his book “Imaginary Magnitude” he called for a “liberation struggle in the name of – and for the good of – Introductions.” While Aesculapian Lem refered to book introductions, the same principles apply to Silent Music. As a creator of Silent Music might say in the post-Cacomoment, Aesculapian Lem wrote, “I shall deceive you, and for that you will be grateful to me. I shall make you a solemn promise with no intention of keeping it, and that will satisfy you, or at any rate you will pretend that it does, with appropriate masterly skill… I promise and guarantee a wonderful freedom, and give my word that Nothing will be there. What shall I gain? The greatest of riches: the one prior to Creation. What will you gain? Supreme liberty, for no words of mine will obtrude upon your ear in your pure upward flight. I shall take you only as a pigeon-fancier takes a pigeon, and slings it like David’s stone, like a rock in the path, so that it may fly off into this immensity – for eternal enjoyment.”
In the meantime, as we wait for the imminent Cacomoment, we can still enjoy Waterdigger’s “Piece of Shit Volvo Station Wagon”.
Finally, I hope that Hall and Oates create some silent tunes, cause otherwise I’m gonna miss ‘em in the post-Cacomoment.
In a Borgesian kind of mindset I imagine an I-pod that has all the music that has ever been or will ever be recorded. All possible permutations of sound combinations in all rhythms and melodies, tones and timbre are found in it. From the shortest micro-tune written in mirco-scales and played in one nano-beat to the longest (still playing) epic multi-symphoelectronic terramuzak, this I-pod has it all. How far are we from that I-pod? Turns out, not far at all. A musician that goes by the moniker of Anonymous has already developed the only music that won’t go into my not-so-imaginary I-pod – Silent Music.
At the current rate of music production, statisticians have predicted that 100% of musical possibilities combined with 100% of sound wavelength saturation will occur sometime around June 19, 2011, just a few years away. Experts call this the Cacomoment in music. Though some countries have gone as far as monitoring the number of musical pieces being produced and played at any given time, and some have even placed restrictions on certain forms of new music, most music production continues unabated. And it might as well, since most experts agree that the forward advance of music is unstoppable and must be allowed to reach its obvious conclusion - the Cacomoment. But what happens afterwards? Though the post-Cacomoment is somewhat of an elusive concept not unlike what happens to time at speeds faster than light, most theories describe the post-Cacomoment as all the music, all the time. And this is where Anonymous and Silent Music come in. In the post-Cacomoment, Silent Music will offer an oasis of peace amidst an atmosphere filled with the incessant sounds of all the music all the time. As the name implies Silent Music doesn’t make a sound; it’s music that can’t be heard. Like any innovative creator, Anonymous is keeping secret many of the technical details; however, initial leaks from Anonymous’ studio have resulted in a number of “silent” headphones now flooding the market. Notwithstanding, Anonymous has stated that unlike the headphones which mainly create silence as a negative effect of sound, Silent Music creates silence a priori, in other words, it would create silence even if there was no music in the air. But the principal difference, says Anonymous, between regular silence and Silent Music is that while regular silence is the absence of sound, Silent Music is silent sound, which means that it will continue to provide the other characteristics we currently associate with music, but without making any sound. When listening to Silent Music we will, depending on the Silent Music piece, experience joy, sadness, elation, mystery, a desire to dance or to cheer. In the post-Cacomoment, we will see a flyer for our favorite Silent Music band, go to our favorite live music club, pay a cover, and drink beers while we toast to the awesome Silent Music being played, but we won’t see any performers on stage playing any silent instruments. We will follow the neon lights to the dance clubs were we will twist and shake in new provocative dances while attempting to ‘hook-up’, but we won’t see any DJ spinning any silent records. At home we will sit back after a busy day at work and relax with a cigar and a glass of scotch while listening to the latest Silent Music recording from the Columbia Silent Record of the Month Club.
Exponent of Silent Music and fellow snakester Stanislaw Aesculapian Lem predicted Silent Music. In his book “Imaginary Magnitude” he called for a “liberation struggle in the name of – and for the good of – Introductions.” While Aesculapian Lem refered to book introductions, the same principles apply to Silent Music. As a creator of Silent Music might say in the post-Cacomoment, Aesculapian Lem wrote, “I shall deceive you, and for that you will be grateful to me. I shall make you a solemn promise with no intention of keeping it, and that will satisfy you, or at any rate you will pretend that it does, with appropriate masterly skill… I promise and guarantee a wonderful freedom, and give my word that Nothing will be there. What shall I gain? The greatest of riches: the one prior to Creation. What will you gain? Supreme liberty, for no words of mine will obtrude upon your ear in your pure upward flight. I shall take you only as a pigeon-fancier takes a pigeon, and slings it like David’s stone, like a rock in the path, so that it may fly off into this immensity – for eternal enjoyment.”
In the meantime, as we wait for the imminent Cacomoment, we can still enjoy Waterdigger’s “Piece of Shit Volvo Station Wagon”.
Finally, I hope that Hall and Oates create some silent tunes, cause otherwise I’m gonna miss ‘em in the post-Cacomoment.
Labels: Thursdays
12 Comments:
Wow, and to think, if we can just hang in there a few more years, we can transform into our "invisible blog," one in which no visible text is produced, but which, when viewed, will exact the same feelings of disgust, embarassment, horror, nausea, regret, hilarity, disinterest, inspiration, loss of control, and nostalgic myopia that we have so keenly tapped into already.
This is of course due to the electronically produced word hurtling towards its own endpoint at an exponentially accelerated pace all its own.
In fact, these same "experts" to which you ascribe also have proven with their research that the totality of experiences associated with the entire memetic construct known as being "human" will, in and of itself, reach what is known as the "Caca-moment," whereupon the complete and total bullshit for which we are the undisputed masters will spew forth which such unrivaled ferocity that it will create a cyclonic meteorolgical conflagration during which which we will be forced to render the entire concept of "mankind," and "humanity," completely meaningless.
Of course, there are those, such as myself, who will argue that we have already been living in an era of complete bullshit saturation for some time now, and thus we are virtually unable to "see the forest for the trees" as it were. Our ability to take a subjective gander across the seas of malarkey have been transformed, devolved, retarded, and worst of all, Shanghai-ed to a place well beyond our comprehension.
But hey, at least we had Paris.
Hello Carlos my old friend. I've come to talk to you again. Because a vision softly creeping, oh I forgot to tell you that you left your seed here while I was sleeping. Ew, that vision is planted in my brain. Ew it still remains! Within...THE CACOMOMENT!
I'm really into your sounds of silence. I want to un-write the first critique.
Signed,
Can't Wait for the Cacomoment.
Dude---! Would Silent Music also lead to a silencing of the cacophony of the mind, Yogash chitta-vritti-nirodhah (YS I:2)? Why have I been doing all of these god-damned yoga postures for all these years?
I thought the yoga postures were so that one could properly digest the granola (wink).
And like the Clash said "Rock the Sanskirt".
There's a concept similar to the Cacomoment that deals with the rate of technological and knowledge advancement. It says that the rate of major technological advances is increasing at an exponential rate such that it will reach a mathematical singularity at which point superhuman artificial intelligences will take over and basically make the world completely incomprehensible to us mere humans. Kind of like how things like blogging and podcasting are completely incomprehensible to our grandparents. But the rate of change will be such that no humans will be able to keep up. Various people have put the date of this technological singularity at somewhere between 2010 and 2060. It's a pretty interesting theory. You can read more about it here.
Clay, Lem also wrote an introduction to a book on Bitistics which I've only read his introduction since the book is not yet written. But Bitistics is the analysis of automaton generated literature, a large subset of which is generated independently of human imput and changes at a pace faster than human cognition can keep up with so that we have no chance of ever understanding it. I imagine it looks something like John's Caca-moment (or most chat room streams).
I, for one, await with much anticipation the era in which I can walk into a department store and not hear music. Maybe this will even extend to all sounds in public places. Maybe even to those screaming kids who are always chasing each other at laundromats. To quote some other jackass (one that is not me): Bring it on.
Carlos - did you write this piece all by yourself or did the guy on the Waterdigger myspace page help you just a little bit?
Anonymous is plagiarizing Paul Simon just a little bit.
Clay, the unfortunate thing about your technological singularity moment is that it is coated in a sheen of horseshit so thick as to be rendered almost completely inperceptible. The gap between what we see in the now as artificial intelligence, and what is hoped for by eager-eyed nerds, is not only artificial, it is also quite possibly beyond the realm of intelligence. In fact, the entire field of A.I. as it relates to this very important, and unavoidable, issue is actually somewhere akin to the believability factor of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, or a Bigfoot "scientist."
i think of the "robots will take over the world" argument as sitting somewhere near the "pulling out will stop pregnancy" theory. That is to say, maybe, but probably not. Your concept is a little easier to wipe up though, that I can't argue.
There's just a born-again-Christian level of faith needed here to believe with any real promise that this sort of moment is even possible at all. And we all know where those guys are leading us.
Kilian, all I can say is this, furthermore I will add, and finally conclude, but not before various interuptions of the such as variety taht will say in the style of this one more time: Waterdigger's “Granny is Better”.
And John, did you actually read any of Clay's link? I thought it was just meant to be looked at. Sort of like a digital Jackson Pollock painting in 3-D.
Carlos -
Thanks!
Kilian
P.S. As per usual, I am in Clay's ether for a few minutes and my head hurts. Be in H-town December 30th you absinthe brewing son of a- and bring your horn thingy!
This is a correction to the above comment since the links were messed up. Here's the link to the 2nd Waterdigger song Granny's Better.
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