This one is about language. It was conceived when the we first saw the this sentence on a wall on the beach. Written all in consonants with no punctuation or vowels. BKNDNDTKCRNDTKYRDGSCRP BeKiNDaNDTaKeCaReTaKeYourDoGsCRaP. Something like that anyway. Later I read about early language translation being difficult because they didn't use vowels or punctuation and everything was all one sentence. Ancient stream of consciousness which made perfect sense, and probably why some of the texts sound so weird when rendered into contemporary languages, in this instance I'm including everything with punctuation and vowels as contemporary. Well that's been rattling around my head for a long time and it finally jelled yesterday. A helmet thought really. Any way where it went was............
A really long time ago, and I mean really long and two or three agos the most consistently important things to listen to were things that were going to kill you. That is still true but people aren't very good at believing that now. (But I digress, I'm going to do that alot and use Parenthesis alot and make up words 'cause I can and fuck anyone that doesn't like it! Actually don't fuck them, 'cause fucking can be a really friendly gesture) Back then they were important. If you heard a snapping twig it probably meant something was following you to eat you. (The things that killed you didn't always eat you, the snapping could have been a branch falling and killing you and branches don't eat you. But being helpfully dead many other things would happily do it for them and be very gracious about it, shitting you out near the roots for fertilizer and leaving the bones for calcium. Other noises that often preceded death were the snarl of a dog, wolf, cat or bear. The thunder of an avalanche, the roar of a waterfall, the earth roiling passage of huge herds of bison or elephants or yak or just things that run together. All these things made consonants and the people that got under, in, ingested, squashed made sounds when it happened and if anybody didn't get killed and/or eaten they heard the sounds. So when things looked like something was going to happen and other people saw it before it did they tried to make similar noises to warn people. Mostly these sounded like screams, crashes, snaps and rumbles but like our sentences now placement of the sounds rendered them useful. I'm sure that "crack splat rrrk" was understood to mean "look the branch fell on him". For a much more documented reference go here
But my theory depends on explaining the vowels, and that comes next chapter
So, very loosely defined, this is chapter two, sorta anyway.
If consonants are the sounds of alarm then vowels are the sounds to sooth. The sound of soft breeze through the grass, of the water rushing back to the sea after the wave crashes when it bubbles through the sand and drags the foam back toward its beginning. Vowels are what the brook whispers and the leaves rustle. But vowels are also the sounds of sadness and worry, the cow lowing for the lost calf because her bag is too full of milk and the scent of her young is gone. It's the whine of pups that have gone too long without food, the mewing of kittens left cold and exposed when the cat is too long on the hunt.
There is another kind of vowel/consonant sound that is sinister, seductive, sibilant, somnolent, somewhat sexy (I'm way too into alliteration but I can't help it! At this point I no longer care if you want to read this, it's taken on a life of its own. I do want you to add to, edit, rearrange, suggest, comment, order, imply and be free to do whatever at your pleasure), and these are the exhalations of pleasure or release, the hiss of a serpent, the storm wind before it howls, sap boiling from a green stick in a hot fire, the fall of sand on a dune face. These sounds are softer but can come from hard places, dangerous because they make you want to look or freeze, not run or fight.
However we are not done with the harder sounds yet. Sharp edges on sounds can pierce and cut but they can trim and fit also. But that's for chapter three.
Sorry to inflict this on you but helmet thoughts must get out somehow.
On the subject of helmets, I hit a quail at 50 mph the other day! If not for my full face helmet and shield I'd be at best wearing a severe black eye and probably a broken nose. I've been decreasing the ground squirrel population which led me to think they have a contract out on me and are working with the deer and the quail/birds (the acorn woodpeckers have made a couple of attempts too but they are possibly dangerously inbred and careless. They use a tree or building as a grainary which is used by multiple generations of the same family. I’m shamelessly speculating about the polluted gene pool but there are some that keep trying to peck a hole in the metal flashing on the side of my building. Also they seem to fly into vehicles often.) The most recent attempt was the most ambitious and serious, a turkey vulture hit me in the helmet at 60+ mph and gave me the softest concussion ever (minor, eyes slightly crossed and balance off for a couple of days but no blood)
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/messages-from-the-stone-age/
But again I digress! But really not so much digress as being aware of listening to (seeing?) the sounds of danger myself. The sounds at times transition to sight, which is just a different frequency of wave length. The slower, lower frequencies are lost in the snarl of my motor and the hiss of the wind, the constant consonant and vowel sounds. I can become entranced by sensation of speed and acceleration, centrifugal forces pulling and the leaning into the edge of uncontrollable. The sound of the edge is the scrape of my foot peg or the drag of my boot heel on the blacktop not heard with my ears but with my whole body. From my balls wanting to shelter in my stomach and the churn from stomach to throat to the smile when I don’t go over the edge. The visual sound of the edge is the out of place reflection, the flash of motion, the wrong color for the season. These things help me to attend to the world around me and so far not die, although blind luck and unmerited grace probably are the real answer to that.
Chapter 3 or my attempt at it anyway.
As with all things balance is sought in My Beginning of Language Theory (whenever I see/do that capitalization thing I murmur a request for blessing to A.A. Milne). My personal opinion is, balance in this case is a slide towards entropy that will be forever (for practical purposes) be prevented by the undependable forces of chaos. (God I love dichotomies! if I could just add a palindrome that was on the level..)
Tired now. I was drawn into areas I wasn’t looking to go and kept fighting to get away. Didn’t work so well. Next installment of Chapter 3 I’ll surrender to the story.
Surrendering to the story is an odd feeling. It’s a bit like realizing that I always type “the as TEH ” but Word corrects that automatically, but I know if I accept that I’ll never get better. That’s not true. It’s more like the feeling that happens just before the onset of a grand mal seizure (yes if you drink and drug hard enough epilepsy is unnecessary) when the fight to pretend you’re ok and have control becomes absurd.
The mating of the sounds had to wait for the moment of sublime safety. That second of awareness when the sun shines on the face of the mountain and there isn’t a ledge high enough to be pounced on or low enough for something to survive the jump, your belly is full, the smells are of life, honey, sex and mint (or whatever calls to your soul). When things that fly are casting shadows that aren’t seeking you, the colors are as they should be and the breeze is just that. For that second you are safe. That was the moment laughter was conceived. Fathered by Consonents and mothered by Vowels, born from the cleft between pleasures recklessness and fears pain.
Well, there it is. All the words came from that moment of laughter, when the guttural harshness was given a more sibilant softer tail. I believe that our use of those innocent sounds (and their incarnation as written words) to convey such things as we do is what our “Original Sin” is. I also believe it our only hope of salvation. I know that when I am aware of the seconds of safety in the warm sun I believe in paradise and that I’m in it.
Thank you.
Bill