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The minor third says “sad” in speech & music

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010


Just yesterday I saw this blog post at Scientific American on the pitches that convey sadness in speech. It is interesting, isn’t it, how you can pick up on sadness so quickly from tone of voice? Even over the telephone, you can get it, just a few words from someone you know well – that’s all it takes. Benjamin Zander takes this as evidence that most of those who claim to be tone deaf are not. Not if they can decode the subtleties and nuances of speech like that. If you are interested, I found a rigorous online test that screens for pitch perception. You can find out if you are actually, not anecdotally, tone deaf.

What we (speakers of English, anyhow) hear, and recognize instinctively as sadness, is the minor third. Or is it instinctive? Perhaps not, maybe it is learned. This same minor third is the “sad signal” that conveys tristesse in the Beach Boys’ California Dreaming, or Michelle by the Beatles. Of course there are many flavors of sad in popular music; Leonard Cohen is Mr. Minor, and his evocative melancholy is profound.

And speaking as someone who is listening to Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder this dark afternoon, I must say that it is perfectly congruent with my own elegiac mood. So somehow, the piece helps me feel joined and understood. The music includes me and my sadness in the human family, and that is a kind of comfort.

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Wishing you a harsh, abstemious Father’s Day?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

A friend of mine is the only child of a now long-gone doctor — a pediatrician. Throughout her childhood, her father cleaned his hands with an alcohol swab before he touched her, whether to soothe, to give a gift, or to discipline. He didn’t kiss, not even on the forehead, not even at bedtime, because of germs. There were some other pathological behaviors as well. And yet, my friend knew her father loved her. And she loved him. It was an ascetic, vinegary and perhaps twisted kind of paternal love, but it was all there was, and she learned to be nourished in some essential way by it. I imagined her childhood as a long sea passage — living on hardtack and salt cod for years, but surviving.

This poem of Robert Hayden’s is probably not the expected choice for Father’s Day. It is Hayden’s best-known work, and I was interested to learn that the father in this poem was actually a stepfather. The poem speaks to me, and though it suggests no real answers, it offers insight into many fraught and difficult relationships.

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
Robert E. Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

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Like is a many-splendored thing

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010


Is like the word of the decade? In the informal speech of young Americans, we hear it everywhere. On Facebook, liking is fundamental communication; its meaning shades from: “I see, acknowledge, and appreciate” to “that’s pretty damn cool” or “When you post a picture of your drooly infant I feel compelled to like it or risk being seen as a grump.”

Like is crucial to teens—without it they could not talk. Teen like has been with us at least since the 80s and the California Valley girls. It’s used as a hedge: I’m, like, all out of time. As a quotative: And he was like, “Come home right now!” Like is in heavy use as a discourse particle (simple definition — a word like um) I, like, don’t know how to fix this.

But when did it really start?

Scooby Doo has always said, “Like, let’s get out of here!” And hey, what about Maynard G. Krebbs on the Dobie Gillis show in the late 50s? So this kind of non-traditional use of like is not so new, is it? Certainly the beat generation made heavy use of non-traditional like. It’s like, ancient.

In Scotland like was in common usage as a discourse particle even in the 19th century. See page 7 of Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson:
“What’ll like be your business, mannie?”

I recently discovered an amusing poem by Ed Sanders. Maybe it’s particularly risible to me because my son-in-law is a theoretical physicist. The use of like in this poem is traditional, but quirky, too. See if you like, like it.

QUICK BLACK HOLE SPIN CHANGE
by Edward Sanders

I don’t like it—

two massive Black Holes
each twirling at the core of
two merging galaxies

get close enough
to fuse together

then quick as a wink
just as they are melting into a New Black Hole Blob

they undergo something called a “spin-flip”

they change the axes of their spins
and the fused-together Black Hole Blob
gets its own
quick as a cricket’s foot

Don’t like it at all

And then the new Black Hole Blob sometimes
bounces back and forth inside
its mergèd Galaxy

till it settles at the center

but sometimes a “newly” up-sized Black Hole
leaves its Galaxy
to sail out munchingly on its own
into the Universal It

I don’t like it

Nothing about it
in the Bhagavad Gita
the Book of Revelation
Shakespeare, Sappho, or Allen Ginsberg

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Don’t think of a bear: the power of prohibitions

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Don’t think of a polar bear.

Don’t think of a polar bear eating a slice of watermelon.

Don’t think of a polar bear eating a slice of watermelon in a swimming pool.

Are you following directions carefully? Are you NOT thinking of these things? Or is, perchance, your mind filled with white bears, pink watermelon, and wet fur? If so, you are just like the rest of us. The unconscious does not traffic in negatives.

And just by the way, this explains why vehement prohibitions do not work with young children. In fact they have the opposite effect to what you are probably hoping for when you say (or bark) don’t run, or don’t touch.

Years ago in a little junk shop in Maine, I saw something I deeply regret not purchasing. It was a miniature wooden sign, about the size of a can of sardines, and painted a silvery grey (also sardine-like, I now realize). The two carefully painted words in black, with initial caps and delicate serifs read: No Dancing. Such visions of minuets, polkas, and sambas! That sign set my toe to tapping right there in the drafty, creaky little shop. And I think it would bring a bit of merriment and levity wherever it hung. Why didn’t I ante up the few dollars and take its charmingness home with me? I think of it longingly, from time to time.

I have often thought of recreating that sign myself, but somehow I fear it would break the enchantment of that original object. Maybe I could make a different little sign, though.

No Laughing?

Yeah, I like that.

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Liminality: living on the threshold

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Threshold, Amory Faulkner, oil on canvas

The subliminal is understood to be that which is below the threshold; a subliminal suggestion is below the threshold of consciousness. Liminality is a state of being on the threshold, neither here nor there. The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy — one’s sense of identity becomes less clearly defined. Liminality is a period of transition, or a kind of limbo, where normal limits to self-concept and behavior are relaxed.

I’m making some changes in employment and currently I am in a kind of liminal state. And here’s what’s surprising me: I’m comfortable here. I identify with teens, those most liminal of my friends, in that complex place between childhood and adulthood. I identify with stateless people and illegal immigrants. The bisexual, the interracial, the accused but not yet judged, I am with you right now, in the liminal space. Hey, cyborgs too, hybrids of every kind — I’m feelin’ you! There’s a lot of energy here. It’s a difficult and potentially excruciating place to be when you don’t choose it, but when one does “ask for it,” it can be exciting and energizing.

When I was in primary school my grandfather, whom I saw almost every Sunday, would pay a nickle a stanza to any grandchild who could recite certain sentimental Longfellow poems for him. I was captivated by the rhythms and the use of language and imagery along with the nickles, and my mind is still populated by characters in The Village Blacksmith and The Children’s Hour. The latter held me with its twilight scene:

Between the dark and daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupation
Which is known as the Children’s Hour.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

That “anything can happen” feeling combined with the implied paternal warmth and safety drew me in to a special and liminal place in my imagination. I wished to know those girls and their affectionate Papa, whose surprises would be surely be good ones. I was enchanted.

For me, right now, in a liminal state, my approach to everything — from work in the studio (fewer judgements), to choice of reading material (more poetry) — is loosened up, feels more fluid.

It’s transporting to be camped out on the threshold to my next chapter, a new adventure. At least for now, I am wide awake and alive to the ride, vividly aware that the dice are always rolling.

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How to talk to grownups

Monday, May 17th, 2010


Kids and adults can have a hard time communicating smoothly with each other. Several times I have helped a youngster, usually between ten and 13 or so, learn the basics of conversing with adults, even those rather clueless ones who seem to be everywhere when a kid is this age. I have been thanked, sometimes shyly and monosyllabically, and more often quite effusively, for my little lesson in basic sociability. It goes like this:

You think of the conversation as a game of catch. The opening greeting is like a ball tossed in your direction — you must catch it, and then throw it back in order to play catch, or in order to converse.

We’ll do a hypothetical one between Binky and Uncle Ed.

Uncle Ed: So, Binky you have grown a foot since last summer. What grade are you in now? (are you groaning inside now?)
Binky: Seventh grade. (Binky has now caught the ball BUT he has not yet thrown it back. The throw is the addition of new, unasked for information) I’m on the swim team and I’m at the pool every morning at six for practice. (Yes, that’s the return throw! Good going, Binky)
Uncle Ed: Swim team? Well, that’s terrific. (Weak, Uncle Ed. Come up with a little more if you want to get the ball in play.) When I was your age I spent most of my summer with my nose in a comic book. (OK. We are off and running now.)

Kids quickly see how this works. School interviews, job interviews, awkward social situations, even first dates. Its a great skill to acquire, and once they learn the basics they can go on to become conversational virtuosos.

About conversing with strangers I was told: Be interested; ask questions. But you know, people can feel hectored by too many questions, they want to know about you, too. Reciprocity is the name of the game. Easy with the questions. It’s not the third degree, it’s a conversation.

Now that I think of it, this conversational problem often runs the other way as well. Parents say, “My kid won’t talk to me. I ask her, how was school? and all I get is, OK.” My question is this: Do you really talk to the kid, or just try to pry information out of her? You need to tell her about your day and what you are thinking about, too. Don’t just focus on the kid like a critical laser beam. It makes everyone feel squirrely. Play a game of catch, and don’t forget to throw the ball back.

So, go forth and chit-chat!

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Tell me about it: outstanding conversations

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Mary Cassatt, The Conversation, 1896


Yesterday I had lunch with Anina and Sydney. It was a truly convivial occasion, not because the food and drink were so great, but the conversation — now that was delectable, and to borrow a phrase from Virginia Woolf, “fringed with joy.” We ranged about, through the last ten years and into the future a little, too, almost as though we were out for a ramble together in the countryside. Dilemmas, predictions, pleasures, disappointments, jokes, philosophical musings and plenty of laughter — it was the kind of intimate conversation that nourishes and energizes, makes one feel spirited, and glad (for the moment at least!) to be a human being.

From time to time I have participated in these types of fully collaborative jazz combo-like conversations, but it’s usually a duet. Yesterday we were a trio, which made the rhythms and trading of solo riffs more complex and artful.

Just last week I had some connected, stimulating conversations with my friend Erika, who stayed at my house for a couple of nights. The conversation had a sense of unity and flow; it was hypothetical, frolicsome, and tender; we talked about art, music, offspring, changing perspectives, and careers. The feeling of radiance, connection, and vitality caused us to stay up too late both nights, gabbing away.

And I must not forget some great talks about creativity and spatial sense with friends Robert and Larry — so it has been a week brimful of conversation of the very best kind.

You can see why I have been thinking about it. What are the ingredients, the conditions necessary for such a magical conversation? From experience I can say definitively that you don’t have to be old pals for it to happen; it can occur with someone you have just met. Participants have to be in that psychic space between inner private self and outer public self that Patsy Rodenburg calls second circle and Donald Winnicott called transitional space. And what else? It does seem like magic, doesn’t it?

I have some tentative thoughts. First, an abundance of new ideas. Then, the courage to put forth one’s own convictions, and to speak in one’s own authentic voice. There must be respect, and a mutual attempt to be understanding, rather than overbearing. Also a full acceptance of the other, and an openness — a heart that can be touched, and that stirs in response.

That’s as far as I have gotten. I would love to hear your corrections or additions to my list, and other thoughts as well.

To close, here’s Bertrand Russell’s description of his first meeting with Joseph Conrad:
We talked with continually increasing intimacy. We seemed to sink through layer after layer of what was superficial, till gradually both reached the central fire. It was an experience unlike any other that I have known. We looked into each others’ eyes, half appalled and half intoxicated to find ourselves together in such a region. The emotion was as intense as passionate love, and at the same time all-embracing. I came away bewildered, and hardly able to find my way among ordinary affairs.

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The naming of the blog: butter and lightning

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Why butter and lightning?

Hey, why not?

Here’s why not: It’s too long. It’s hard to remember. It does nothing for SEO. It’s a head-scratcher. Plus surrealism is out of fashion. But still, like Goldilocks, I decided it was just right for me.

My butter and lightning originates in a remarkable piece of writing, a speech in the form of a prose poem, by Spanish poet García Lorca, Theory and Play of the Duende. If you know the speech, you’ll probably be familiar with its best-known image, “But intelligence is often the enemy of poetry, because it limits too much, and it elevates the poet to a sharp-edged throne where he forgets that ants could eat him or that a great arsenic lobster could fall suddenly on his head . . . .” Lorca’s duende is a dark and mysterious power, an untranslatable force. We need it desperately, for in duende, with its “wings made of rusty knives,” we have the cure for bloodless, anesthetic art — art which deadens and numbs us. And duende admonishes us that we must never, ever forget that arsenic lobster.

You will find my phrase buried in the middle of the piece … “Those moon-frozen heads that Zurbarán painted, the yellows of butter and lightning in El Greco…”

Lorca’s speech is so jam-packed with poetic images it leaves one reeling — and those evocative yellows can feel almost like a throwaway. But they grab me. Yellow is my color. No, not my “favorite” color, but mine nonetheless. Yellows illuminate, yellows resonate, yellows wake me up and amp up my vibrations. Something to do with my aura? Don’t laugh. Something to do with my third chakra? (center of will, commitment, and personal power) Not sure. But yellow has always had this characteristic stimulating effect on me. I claim it as mine. Feeling it as I do, smack in the solar plexus, I embrace its implicit voluptuous butteriness, amalgamated with that jolt of electricity.

Ambush me. Say “butter and lighting.” My first association is to the human nervous system. The electrical impulses in the neurons (the lightning) cannot do their work, or make their swift, complex sense, without the insulation of the fatty myelin sheath (the butter). Demyelination, the loss of the myelin sheath insulating the nerves, is the hallmark of neurodegenerative autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis. When myelin degrades, signals along the nerve can become incoherent or lost, and the nerve eventually withers.

Our skulls are bony bowls, packed solid with butter and lightning. OK, have it your way: Crisco and sparklers. And Joseph Beuys would be calling for a big hunk of lard and a flashlight right about now. I’m sure of it.

It’s all related to Jung’s concept of holding the opposites. We need both the lamp and the sword, the butter and the lightning.

* * * * * *

If you find any of this remotely intriguing, I hope you’ll come back for more, and comment with abandon.

—S.R.

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