domingo, 13 de novembro de 2005

Traumatic experience

Sleeping with ear plugs can be a dangerous experience. I used them. Not anymore. Recently one of these ear plugs caused me acute external otitis during my sleep. I didn't understand my symptoms immediately and thought I'd permanently lost my hearing. I woke up with the ear canal swell shut.

I completely freaked out! I knew that hearing was a crucial part of my life. I didn't imagine how crucial it was... This predicament was the single most traumatic event I ever experienced to that date. 

Fortunately I was cured but there was a dramatic and valuable lesson to be learned.

(see also here)

Tears for sounds

I returned to my aurologist one week after I started taking the medication he had prescribed for the otitis. He was very patient, by the way, and I immediately felt "cured" just by listening to his initial words and quiet advice. We talked about music, after he learned I was a musician, and I told him a story that had shocked me about an American guitarist I admire very much, who went through a complicated surgical procedure and had lost his hearing.
The patient that left the doctor's office before my turn was a 99 year woman. She stood completely still and silent at the reception desk for some time, next to another woman who appeared to be her daughter. Suddenly the older woman turned to her supposed daughter in tears and said: "I don't want to go deaf!" The younger woman yelled very close to her ear that she didn't need to worry. She was going to be fine.
I wanted to tell her that exactly one week before I too had cried pronouncing the very same words...

sexta-feira, 11 de novembro de 2005

Dumb bells

The newspapers announced that on November 1st, exactly 250 years after the big earthquake, all churches of Lisbon would sound their bells at 9.30 AM. I got ready and anticipated the spectacular sonic feast.
On November 1st 1755 Lisbon inhabitants were caught by surprise with a violent earthquake of major proportions. The earthquake and the ensuing tsunami "made the news" in those days. Voltaire and Kant wrote about the phenomenon that destroyed Portugal's capital city. The citizens of Lisbon had just started to leave the churches after the Day of the Dead mass when the earthquake started. After it ended the few churches that survived the massive destruction sounded their bells to signal the tragedy or to signal life...
250 years later the local authorities decided that all Lisbon churches (including the very few from those days that remained intact) would sound their bells on November 1st at exactly 9.30 AM. 

The Lisbon churches concert promised to become quite an exciting and enriching sonic experience. My plan was to document it and post the results of my efforts here. I prepared my equipment and studied possible locations to properly record it. During that night however I had a problem in my right ear, became partially deaf and had to miss the event. If only I could rewind time...