{"id":11439,"date":"2012-07-13T12:10:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T16:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11439"},"modified":"2012-07-13T12:10:06","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T16:10:06","slug":"shut-up-shut-up-shut-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/shut-up-shut-up-shut-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Shut Up Shut Up Shut UP<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

[Image: Prototype of the SpeechJammer, a “gun” which makes it functionally impossible to talk.
\nRead about it at<\/em>\u00a0Wired<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Silence is radical. When sustained, it has an effect on your perception comparable to that of any number of chemicals with which you might seek change. Your vision transforms, to start with; you suddenly find yourself absorbing what’s on the periphery, massive amounts of once-invisible data assailing your pupils. When you’re not preparing your next remark, your hearing capacity expands, too: the changing rhythms of the wind; the muted thud of a teardrop hitting the wooden floor; your neighbor’s beating heart. And taste, and smell, they’re amplified and shifted, as well — a cup of tea sipped without the surrounding dialogue (Earl Grey. You don’t? How about English Breakfast, then? No, no sugar, thanks. Watching my weight. Do you have one of those carrying trays? Wow, that sure is hot.)<\/em> is a more intricate cup of tea. Silence gives you the opportunity to know any number of an object’s facets that typically disappear behind the verbal screens we erect constantly, unthinkingly, between our selves and our environments. And surely the power of wordless touch is one each of us knows; I need not expand on that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anna Wood [source<\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Silence<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
\nabove a player not moving on the field,
\nand the silence of the orchid.<\/p>\n

The silence of the falling vase
\nbefore it strikes the ?oor,
\nthe silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.<\/p>\n

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
\nthe silence of the moon
\nand the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.<\/p>\n

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
\nthe silence of the window above us,
\nand the silence when you rise and turn away.<\/p>\n

And there is the silence of this morning
\nwhich I have broken with my pen,
\na silence that had piled up all night<\/p>\n

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
\nthe silence before I wrote a word
\nand the poorer silence now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Billy Collins)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world’s word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence. Nature does utter a peep – just this one. The birds and insects, the meadows and swamps and rivers and stones and mountains and clouds: they all do it; they all don’t do it. There is a vibrancy to the silence, a suppression, as if someone were gagging the world. But you wait, you give your life’s length to listening, and nothing happens. The ice rolls up, the ice rolls back, and still that single note obtains. The tension, or lack of it, is intolerable. The silence is not actually suppression: instead, it is all there is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters<\/em>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Why do I love thee, O Night?
\nA:<\/strong> Because you know I will never answer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(attributed to Vera Nazarian<\/a>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

[To still all those inner voices and arguments which keep us from writing, she recommends the following exercise.]\n

Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it into the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because you won’t do what they want — won’t give them more money, won’t be more successful, won’t see them more often. Then imagine that there is a volume-control button on the bottle. Turn it up all the way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, neglected, guilt-mongering voices. Then turn it all the way down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get to you. Leave it down, and get back to your shitty first draft.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Lamott [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

These days, a successful standup comedian makes his or her living primarily from televised or pre-recorded video performances. Within recent memory, though, their big non-live revenue stream came from albums. Like the writers of radio dramas, great comedians have always understood that small silences can often induce the biggest responses. A particular master of this sort of controlled quiet is Bill Cosby; herewith, two of his bits which play especially well with silence:<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>The Giant. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:30 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:thegiant_billcosby.mp3|titles=’The Giant’|artists=Bill Cosby]<\/div>\n

[…and here’s <\/em>Chicken Heart. Same instructions as above, of course. This clip is 12:24 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:chickenheart_billcosby.mp3|titles=’Chicken Heart’|artists=Bill Cosby]<\/div>\n

(And by the way, this isn’t the first time<\/a> I’ve posted the “Chicken Heart” routine here (although the first time was several years ago). Sorry. It’s just so great.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Prototype of the SpeechJammer, a “gun” which makes it functionally impossible to talk. Read about it at\u00a0Wired.] From\u00a0whiskey river: Silence is radical. When sustained, it has an effect on your perception comparable to that of any number of chemicals with which you might seek change. Your vision transforms, to start with; you suddenly find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,5,372,713],"tags":[295,923,1141,2212,2845,3095,3096,3097,3098],"class_list":{"0":"post-11439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-06_writing","9":"category-style-and-craft","10":"category-humor-writing_cat","11":"tag-annie-dillard","12":"tag-bill-cosby","13":"tag-billy-collins","14":"tag-anne-lamott","15":"tag-vera-nazarian","16":"tag-anna-wood","17":"tag-norton-juster","18":"tag-speechjammer","19":"tag-great-sounds-in-small-silences","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2Yv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11439"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11454,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11439\/revisions\/11454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}