September 13, 2003

• Sound

  
  

  I was just laying on the couch in the sunshine (ahh, saturday mornings…), listening to the swish-hum of the dishwasher.

  
  

  I am not very musically inclined, but i like to listen to things.

  
  

  Animals convey all sorts of interesting meanings and statements with sound; hisses, chirps, sonar, growls, language. The whole planet reverberates with noise. Atoms and molecules knock against one another like dominoes and roll the energy along. Ants taste vibrations on the tips of their antennae, and rodents sense sound and motion with finely tuned whiskers. Birds sing out codes to one another along the lines of their migrations. Spiders listen to the vibrations in a pile of sand to feel out their prey, while humans jibber away to one another on thousands of dialects based on the same primordial language. We have a rhythm based on the beating of our living hearts. Our atmosphere is an auditorium, not only for thunderous concerts, but for relaying noise through the different strata. The oceans are liquid transmitters for sound waves, relaying the songs of whales across thousands of miles. And the ground thrums and rolls with vibrations, far underground.

  
  

  Maybe we live on an orb of sound.

  
  

  So then i wonder, is there another place in another galaxy where acoustics are not such an option? Is there an alien ecosystem which relies on light and color and display for its main form of communication? Or touch, or taste? or intuition?

  • 1:52 pm
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