The Sound of Silence

There is no such thing as silence. There is sound in every corner of every space.

A good friend of mine is a composer at a recording studio. Hanging out with him one night, I walked into the booth where the air is as dead as I’ve ever heard.  I stood in silence. Almost. It physically hurt.

See, I don’t live in silence. My world is very loud. It crept up on me? I can’t remember any more.  I only remember the moment I recognized it. It was in Barnes & Noble and it hit me like a tidal wave. I arrived home in time to collapse onto my bedroom floor. Even that was unstable. I couldn’t tell if I was falling or lying still in space; I had no sense of space anymore. I was a terrified void. I heard sound. The sound pinned me to the existence I began to doubt.  Sound so loud it seemed my body would make those tones audible for everyone to hear. Sound has been my constant companion since.

The Dr said the only cure for my condition was to live with it, or scramble up my middle ear so nothing was left to cause a problem.  Naturally I chose to live with it. At first, with drugs, and then as I became trained to cope, without.

I had hearing tests a lot as a kid. This time it was different. No clown nose to light up. It wasn’t pass/fail anymore. I understood this test. I had passed the others, the xrays, the MRI, the psychological evaluations; everything before the audiologist. Ultimately, I failed. The sound was destroying my hearing. Slowly. There have been more tests since that day, every time hoping the loss won’t go so fast or be so permanent. Maybe the sound will one day grow tired and stop.  It could happen.

I am obsessed with sound now.  Maybe because I want to hear as much as I can before I can’t. Maybe because I hear too much noise in my head that I can’t shut off. Maybe because sound is my drug.

I listen to a lot of sound. Sometimes, when I’m most riled up, someone will put on some music and it tranquilizes me. I mean that. Halcion tranquil, I've taken the drug, it's the same effect.White noise. My salve. Most people find it irritating. It is my salvation. Without it, I’d end up in a psych ward.

My favorite sound is music. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, ecstasy all, even if the band was terrible. I’ve spent the last decade of my life listening to music to replace silence I never hear. I don’t know much about music. I am not well versed in bands, what’s hip, what’s obscure, what’s worthy of being called music. I just listen to whatever I can access and makes me happy. No, I am juvenile about music, except for one thing: passion. If appreciation were a talent, in the words of Lady Catherine DeBurg, “I should have been a great proficient.” I am McLean’s living, breathing, littlest angel with music in my soul I can’t express.

I’ve learned to tune out sound. I sleep without ear plugs in a house of 8 girls. I simply roll over, put my bad ear up to mute the noise, and tune the rest of it out. I've learned not to pay attention to sound. I can focus "in the zone" at  loud, raging parties, and fall asleep in movie theaters. I barely notice I hear it all the time anymore. It is kind of a cruel fate- knowing one day I may not hear and learning not to hear while I can.

Sound often overwhelms me.  I’m possessive of sound. Bad sound irritates me worse than any annoyance I can imagine. In crowded rooms, I read lips. I can hear sound but I can’t recognize the sound as words in big crowds. My brain doesn’t want to filter that much noise. So I try to avoid crowds where I have to interact with people. Sound disorients me.  Sound makes me uncomfortable-the sound booth that had been silenced.  It physically hurts me when I can’t process silence that should be there; like the noise of nails on a chalkboard or Styrofoam rubbing against Styrofoam.  A whisper in my right ear sends my body into muscle spasms as if it is one giant exposed nerve. I involuntarily flick at the sound as I would a fly resting on my eyelashes.

I am drawn to the musical types. I don’t discriminate between performers and dealers. But, I don’t live that life. I’m a fish out of water there and quite awkward. Music is my drug and I abuse it like any junkie. I know my boundaries and I steer clear. That hasn't stopped me from being a mosquito drawn to a bug zapper. I can’t walk by a piano being played without stopping, I cried when I heard the story of Joshua Bell, I involuntarily stop breathing when my ears hear new and stronger drugs, I fall in love with the minds of musicians. I become obsessed with what they are capable of creating. It is an unfair advantage to put a pharm lab in front of a junkie. It is dangerous to even put a dealer in front of a junkie.  And that’s my foible. My great weakness.

I’m addicted to the sound of silence.

 "There was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in her mouth all of the sounds of Pauline's soul. Standing a little apart from the choir, Ivy sang the dark sweetness Pauline could not name."
-Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Food as Seduction

For this Valentine’s the most appropriate topic on food: seduction. Not only is Valentine Day synonymous with the word “chocolate” but it is the epitome of the role of food in seduction. The gift of chocolate has so engrained itself into holiday tradition that in the month of February chocolate metamorphs into a universal symbol of love, lust, and sensuality. Brave souls the country over buy boxes of the stuff (the world’s most recognized aphrodisiac, even clever cupid with all his arrows simply can’t compete) to give away in a gift giving ritual repeated every February 14^th asking a bold question: “Will you be my valentine?”

Our infatuation with chocolate first began 2,000 years ago when it was discovered in Latin America. The Maya and Aztec elites infused cocoa beans with water to form frothy chocolate drinks – the first frappuccinos, if you will – for special occasions and as sacrifices to the gods. The Aztec ruler Montezuma believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac and routinely drank it before entering his harem, thus increasing chocolate’s popularity and its association with love and romance. As it turns out, he was ahead of his time. Modern-day scientists have linked the chemical phenylethylamine in chocolate to feelings of excitement, attraction and even pleasure.

The rest of Aztec society used cocoa beans as money and were unable to afford to drink it. Thus “gifting” chocolate for consumption was the Aztec version of John Cusak standing outside of your window with a boom-box. Christopher Columbus saw how the Aztecs revered cocoa when he entered the picture in the sixteenth century and immediately took the luxury product back to Queen Isabella of Spain. Chocoholics sprouted up all over Europe, sharing the legend of their new obsession’s alleged mythical powers. At one point in time, chocolate was believed to be so potent that nuns were forbidden from eating it and French doctors used it to treat “broken hearts.”

Consider all the films (Chocolat), books (The Chocolate Touch), music (Kylie Minogue’s Chocolate) and traditions that embrace chocolate as a sensual delight.

But you don’t have to take my word for it…

Food as Seduction

Feeding has always been clearly linked with courtship. In nature this is not without its dangers. In several species of insect (the praying mantis, for example) the female devours the males after mating: he has done his job and so becomes a source of nutrition for the now expectant mother. Many species tone this down by having the male offer little packages of food to the female, who eats them and leaves him alone. The males and females of all species, including our own, seem to be involved in this mating gamble with food as the bait. Even if the male is not himself the food, he universally seems to have to make some show of feeding to be acceptable. With humans this works two ways since we are the only animals who cook: the bride is usually appraised for her cooking ability. (“Can she bake a cherry pie, Bill boy, Billy boy?”) In some cultures this is far more important than her virginity.

But food and sex are generally closely linked. They are physically linked in the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotional activity generally. It is not surprising that we not only link them but do so emotionally. Good food = good sex. It is this sensuality of eating that spurs the puritan and ascetic rejection of food pleasures. But the link makes sense. To reproduce effectively, a female needs not only insemination but also provisioning. Particularly in species such as ours, where she is relatively dependent during the suckling period, she needs a male to provide food. Thus, a male’s willingness to provide food becomes an important index of his sustainability as a mate. Above all, it suggests his willingness to “invest” in the female’s offspring. Studies of mate preferences in many cultures reveal that while men universally go for looks (actually a fair indicator of fertility), women go for provisioning: a male with resources is preferred to one without, regardless of his attractivity. Studies of Western females show that one of the most “attractive” features of a male is his willingness to “pick up the tab” for a meal. This may be an appeal to deep and atavistic survival motives in the female, but unscrupulous seducers can use it to their advantage. Courtship etiquette today seems to demand the offer of a meal by the male as part of foreplay; and the female is then supposed to cook breakfast to complete her part of the bargain. (Some modern cynic defined a contemporary “moral dilemma” as whether or not to go bed with a man after only a cheeseburger.) 

The choice of setting for food and courtship is as important as the food itself. There is a tendency to move gradually (or swiftly as the case may be) from the public to the private. For modern urban couples, “dates” usually begin in a crowded public place such as a bar or disco. On the crucial “second date,” they may move to a restaurant, where the male is able to demonstrate his “resource accrual ability” by paying the bill. This stage may be prolonged, but at some time the “your place or mine” issue will arise, with, researchers have found, her place being generally preferred. At this stage she is supposed to supply a meal – usually a “romantic” candlelight dinner – thus demonstrating her abilities as a cook and hostess. Breakfast follows the consummation, again usually cooked by the female since it’s her kitchen. But it is order at this point for the male at least to offer to make breakfast, thus demonstrating his egalitarian and cooperative nature. 

If the relationship gets serious, then the next important ceremonial meal is likely to be with her family. Again the meal is used as a “bridge” to mark the importance of the event and as an icebreaker and demonstration of the family’s good will. The prospective mate joins her family at its most familial: eating the family meal. He can be assessed. He in turn gets to see his prospective in-laws close up, in a setting which both offers information and lubricates the difficult mechanism of social interaction.
Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective  by Robin Fox