Oh dear, I walked across campus tonight and almost died. The wind has been beating our windows all night and whipping across the plastic on Carter roof, making a really cool sound, almost like some invisible person knocking on the window, but I didn't think that much of it because I wasn't thinking about going outside. It's so cold out there I didn't even think, "it's cold" all I thought was "ouch."
I've been so socially tired lately. I was thinking about this today and about how people so often wear me out because they have so many different ideas and perceptions than I do. It's so hard to talk to people because they understand things in a completely different way than I mean them and it's like we're all speaking different languages. I wonder if people could understand what each other meant better before Babel. In that case Babel would truly be a tragedy. I believe that in heaven we'll have some kind of language (because I really don't believe that we'll dispense with language and words) in which everything will be easily and truly expressed. The thing that annoys me most about language is how far short it comes of expressing what I mean.
In French Fiction and Drama right now we're reading The Diary of a Country Priest, which is an amazing book, and it addresses this idea: "It is one of the most mysterious penalties of men that they should be forced to confide the most precious of their possessions to things so unstable and ever changing, alas, as words." Last semester Hope, my dear sociology major roommate, took Interpersonal Communication where she learned all about non-verbal communication. Since then she has been quite enamored with this idea and I think it's rubbed off on me a bit. Non-verbal communication is amazing and in a way so much more direct than words. I think in heaven we will have lots of non-verbal communication. But words are important, words are life to me. I love words. It's just so hard to use them in the right way . . .
Posted by linnea at December 4, 2003 1:13 AMIn my experience, hell is yourself. Other people just heighten your awareness of that fact.
Posted by: KornSt@r at December 4, 2003 1:51 AMyeah, the title is kind of superfluous to the post. I just like saying it.
Posted by: linnea at December 4, 2003 8:11 AMWow, Linnea, that's an interesting view of the effects of the Fall that I hadn't thought of before. I'm really inspired by your comments. I've been trying to understand how my Christianity affects my scholarship...old hat, I know, for Cov folks, but when you get OUT of Cov, all of a sudden you feel like you never truly thought it before. Perhaps this avenue should be pursued more. After all, Christ is the Word.
I've also been thinking about communication and understanding, because all semester I've been in a seminar about editing Renaissance manuscripts, wh. has been so awesome, but at the same time brings up so many crazy things. Like in an edition how accurately can we communicate the musical text (wh. is written in a completely different notational system). It's literally like making a translation from a culture that is gone forever. We'll never know what med/Ren music sounded like to med/Ren ears, so our edition's being a representation of that sound is hopeless. I became especially intrigued with this when looking at facsimiles of chant, wh. is written in neumatic translation. symbols that represent groups of notes that have meaning in the context of their relationship to one another. This kind of notational concept cannot be shoved into modern day musical notation! It's a completely different way of conceiving and singing sound. And I could go on and on...
Posted by: Jeannette at December 4, 2003 9:11 AMwow....what a fun blog to read...and it related to the topic on a very real level. I approve, nay, i cheer it! this is a move in the right direction. lets reform the blogs to become either "right on"...or at least short and mildly amusing. carry on good soldier of the cause
Posted by: pnut at December 4, 2003 1:32 PMGreat point Jeanette. I was just doing a research paper on Rousseau and his music theory, so I was reading his essay "On the Origin of Language," and he was talking about that very thing. He talked about the silliness of the academics of his day who tried to translate and perform andcient Greek music, then had the gall to say that it was laughable for the Greek authors to talk about the emotional and moral effects of their music, since it didn't have that effect on the modern hearers.
Posted by: tabitha at December 4, 2003 2:15 PMwhat, pnut, no beer?
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