I've been thinking about the Danish term "uitwaaien," which refers to fighting anxiety by walking or jogging against a very strong wind. It's been something I've hoped to accomplish recently but unfortunately we've been in the middle of a slight Indian Summer (or is it too early?), so the air has mostly been mild and still. Originally I wanted to upload the recording I made walking along the coast in Cape May, which was full of noisy, distorted wind, but I think I lost it while clearing up SD cards prior to recording a couple of noise festivals. I was also thinking about that recording in particular because it was about a month after my last major breakup, which took me nearly a year to get over. The car accident, car theft, two hospitalizations, both of my cats requiring countless expensive vet visits and then dying three days apart, two of my mom's cats dying, my mom's dementia growing significantly worse, a close friend moving out of the country for life saving surgery, and whatever else probably didn't help the grieving process. There was one person that suddenly appeared and unexpectedly helped a lot over a brief period, but such is life. I miss her and think about her often, but I know everyone's life is has its own unique challenges and I hope she's well and I hope to still hear from her again. But, the Lightening Field. I'm not entirely sure when I became aware of it. It was either from a documentary on Land Art that played at the International House 7 or 8 years ago or from an audio recording, like this, on an Australian radio program in which the person recorded themselves walking around the field in the early morning. There's no photography or video allowed of the installation or the cabin you stay in, but you can photograph the surrounding areas (which I did extensively) and record audio inside the exhibit... presumably. They never said anything about audio at least. So, here we are, with my trusty $70 binaural mics and my Zoom H5. The piece is installed in an undisclosed location in the middle of the desert, roughly 3-4 hours outside of Albuquerque. It consists of however many aluminum polls set up equal distance from each other across the field. When you stand at specific angles and at specific times of day, you can't see them at all. When the sun sets or rises against them, it gives an impression like the angels standing on the beach in City of Angels (I think that's what it was called? That weird, more straight remake of Wim Wender's Wings of Desire, turned into some sort of romantic dramedy with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan). It's beautiful. But the desert is always beautiful. I spent a lot of time out in the field also staring at dung beetles and little lizards. Also, when the sun was setting I pulled out my phone and was able to film it disappear behind the mountains in real time. I think I recorded this in the middle of the night, when it was pitch black and I could barely make out where I was. In the beginning you can hear my friend who came with me and the family staying in the cabin with us (the one was a documentarian that disliked Agnes Varda, which I think left me so startled and depressed I was incapable of conversing normally for the next 24 hours), though they were all practically a mile away. I don't hear it here, but I think I ultimately walked back as soon as I did because I heard rustling and I think the person who drove us out had noted that there were coyotes around. That might also be why I stopped about halfway through. I certainly wasn't looking at anything. Since these get a weirdly high number of listeners when I update, and I assume most people are into musique concrete and thus may be into noise, here's the trailer for the noise movie my friend and I made out in Milwaukee and Fargo. It'll be available for sale on his bandcamp in the next month or so. Sorry, as always, for my heavy breathing, coughing, and burping. Hope you're well.
