HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-09-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2002. PAGE 5.
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The sound of silence
Here is the Nuttiest Lawsuit of the Week
so far: Mike Batt is being sued by the
publishers of John Cage for theft.
Mike Batt is a new player to me, but John
Cage is an old favourite. He's the "conceptual"
music composer who 'way back in 1952, gave
us the seminal piece called 4' 33". That stands
for four minutes and 33 seconds, which is
exactly how long John Cage's ground-
breaking musical opus is - four minutes and 33
seconds.
Of total silence.
Well, not quite.
To record the piece, Cage actually sat down
in black tie and tails before a concert grand
piano, in front of a live audience, opened the
lid and...did nothing for precisely the
aforementioned length of time.
But it was recorded, and if you listen really
intently, you can just hear people in
the audience clearing their throats, the odd
shuffle of feet and the distant hum of passing
traffic.
How this came to be regarded as a Great
Moment In Music rather than a juvenile stunt
is something for the musicologists to debate.
The point is, Cage the musician is better
known for a recording that has not one note of
music in it, than for anything else he ever
wrote.
Which is how Mike Ban got himself into big
trouble. He, too, is a music producer and on an
album of classical music he produced, he
decided at the last minute to include a_ joke
piece called A Minute's Silence — which
consisted of guess what?
John Cage's publishers heard (or, I suppose,
didn't hear) A Minutes Silence and
Every reporter who covered the
legislature has wished he or she could
write like Sean Conway talks. Conway,
a Liberal MPP for 27 years, who is retiring,
best - described former Progressive
Conservative premier William Davis's
circumlocutions speaking style.
Davis's sentences seemed to go on forever
and digressed. regressed and progressed until
finally he made some point. He could have
spoken more concisely, but was anxious to
foster an image of not being a city slicker.
Conway said Davis spoke like "the old
Colonial Railway, which twisted and turned,
chugged up hill and ,down dale, stopped and
started, crossed bridges, disappeared in tunnels
and meandered through the remotest r sidings
before eventually reaching its .final
destination." ,
Conway called Michael Cassidy, a New
Democrat leader who was abrasive, "an ice
cube wrapped in sandpaper."
Conway's oratory prompted Liberal prime
minister John Turner to borrow him to warm
up audiences for his speeches in the 1984
federal election, but they did not find the top of
the bill as palatable.
Conway was a minister in the provincial
Liberal government from 1985 and mildly
chided ousted Tory premier, Frank Miller, who
once tried to close hospitalS and was pelted
with snowballs, but now was chair of a
regional municipality and urging the province
._not to cut the hospital budget.
Conway observed, "There are a variety of
perspectives and different roles in the political
process and those who have not experienCed
all of them should be very careful about
offering definitive advice:'
After the NDP ejected the Liberals and
taunted him, Conway replied: "We are not the
first government to be defeated and we will not
be the last. We are all bounced around in
immediately slapped a lawsuit on Mike Batt
for plagiarism.
So it's come to this - even silence is
copyrighted.
Funny thing about silence - it's almost
impossible to experience. The reading rooms
of libraries are quiet, but they're hardly silent.
As for home; you can shut the doors and
windows and turn off the radio, but you don't
get true silence - not even with ear plugs.
The closest I ever got to total silence was
scuba diving. If you can get your carcass down
25 or 30 feet in a large-ish body of water
devoid of roaring Bayliners and whining Jet
Skis chances are you can experience
something prettyclose to absolute quiet 7 until_
you exhale.
Breathing out underwater sounds like a truck
full of boulders being dumped inside your
head.
And anyway, just because the human ear
can't pick up many sounds underwater doesn't
mean it's silent down there.
Go to Baffin Island, walk out on the ice, drill
a hole and lower a hydrophone. You won't hear
much inside your parka hood; but listen to the
tape and you'll discover a whole world of
noise.
The truth is, the world is noisy and gett-
politics. That is the fun of the job."
"To win is to lose and to lose is to win
hopefully next time. I tell my beleaguered
friends on the cabinet benches, as they sign
their Christmas cards and perform their other
essential tasks, I do not worry about having
none of those responsibilities."
"I feel like,Stanley Baldwin (a British prime
minister.) I was never happier than when I
surrendered the seals of office."
Conway could easily switch into comparing
with U.S. politics, as when he complained the
NDP unfairly burdened his constituents with a
gas tax increase and "this could never happen
in Congress, because the rural lobby would
make sure the majority leader, the minority
leader, the Speaker and the White House
bloody well understood they were not going to
be disproportionately ripped off."
Conway was one of the first to spot the big
issue of the past decade, whether to maintain
services or cut taxes. He said it was a "powder
keg" for all politicians in that they would have
to choose and a right-wing Tory, Mike Harris,
chose slashing taxes and turfed out the NDP.
Conway said the future could be seen in the
Final Thought
What a pessimist thinks is taking a chance,
an optimist believes is a great opportunity.
- Unknown
ing noisier by the minute, thanks to
technology.
Our forebears had to contend with
technological sounds like squeaking ox-cart
wheels, the creak of leather, the scrape of a
plough against a rock, the jangle of arrows in a
quiver.
We, on the other hand, get cars, trucks,
boats, planes, radios, tvs, generators, traffic
noise, horns, whistles, boom boxes, Muzak,
Oprah, and of course the dreaded and
ubiquitous chirp of the g.d. cell phone.
In his book A Century of Recorded Music,
Timothy Day reckons that nearly 70 per cent of
the noises we' hear come from technology:
Even as late as a hundred years ago, he
suggests, the total would have been only about
five per cent.
Stop reading for a moment and count the
sounds you hear right now. I get a ticking
clock, the hum of my computer, the squeak of
a chair that needs some WD-40, a mournful
seagull and the whup-whup drone of a
helicopter chugging across the sky - and I live
in the sticks.
I don't want to think what somebody living
in Toronto on the banks of the 401 can hear.
I wonder what Mike Batt is hearing? The
tiny patter of shyster feet no doubt.
Still, I wouldn't worry about the lawsuit too
much if I were in his Birkenstocks. I think
Mike Batt's mom put the whole kerfuffle
nicely into perspective.
When she heard that her son was being sued
for plagiarizing part of John Cage's 4'33", she.
asked him sweetly:
"And which part of the piece do they think
you stole, dear?"
rise of Ronald Reagan, the actor and right-
winger who had become U.S. president. "We
laugh at Ronald Reagan and I am disposed to
laugh too, because he is not my kind of guy."
"But before I laugh too loud at Ronald
Reagan, I also have to think that he devastated
the coalition Franklin D. Roosevelt put
together and half these people are now what
are called Reagan. Democrats."
"So I might laugh at the Gipper, but it is the
electoral calculus that counts and I might find
after all the laughing I was standing with
substantially fewer clothes on and much of my
audience had left home and gone. over to the
Gipper's sideshow, leaving me wondering why
they made that switch."
Conway recently eulogized Harry Worton, a
Liberal who died after being an MPP for three
decades and almost never spoke in the
legislature. He recalled Worton warned him
"more people have talked their way out of this
place than ever talked themselves into it".
But Conway never took that well-meant
advice and his rare dexterity with words will
be missed.
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ydiittetters brief and concise.
Just show up
I 'm afraid I'Je never been much of a
community leader. I can voloteer, but
you'll have to hunt me down first. I'm just
not one of those with the confidence, or yes,
the drive to be a, well, driving force.
And you know what? There's not a thing
wrong with that. It's taken me a while to
realize that while our little communities would
suffer greatly without the driving forces to
push things along, they would suffer equally as
much without the back seat drivers.
Take for example, Blyth's Heart and Soul
campaign, a tremendously ambitious
undertaking to revitalize the community centre
and arena bringing it up to the standards of
others in the region thereby maintaining its
viability in a competitive world.
With big hearts and vision a small group of
community leaders, the folks whose names we
. often hear associated with loc4sl projects, threw
their energies into getting things off- the
ground. From late nights over computers in
pursuit of grant applications many months
ago, to last weekend's huge celebration and
grand opening, they could be proud of a job
well done.
It is also to their credit, however, that in any
interviews, arty contact we at the newspaper
might have had with them; they pointedly
drew, attention to the efforts of others. The real
credit they noted time and time again, goes to
the volunteers who came together when the
first call went out, responding to the need.
They also thanked the community at large for
its generosity and overwhelming support.
Because wise leaders know that success
takes everyone. It cannot be achieved by a few.
The end result, of course, should be a source of
pride for many years to come, not just for the
impressive centre it has created, but for the
show of community spirit that brought it to
fruition. .
On a smaller scale, last week's Brussels Fall
Fair was another example of sinhll town
success.
Contending with weather, with dwindling
interest, there have been times when the work
of the agricultural society has been challenged.
But the 2002 event proved once again what
passion for our rural roots, and' dedicated
commitment, from volunteers can do.
A fall fair is the big event for agricultural
societies. A small number of members pull it
together. There are the leaders, the big voices
with the big ideas, the forces that push and
prod. Then there are the quiet yorkers who set
to the task given them and together achieve.
The end result this year was an entertaining
social event which drew compliment after
compliment. The displays attracted a good
deal of attention and the exhibits were many
and varied.
However, again, it is support on a different
level that ensures its success. The agricultural
society can create the atmosphere, but it takes
others to bring in the exhibits, to view those
exhibits, to support the fair.
It has been inspiring to have waik:bed the
progress of the Heart and Soul campaign. to
see the driving forces and its quiet travellers
achieve what many thought couldn't be.
As well, it was heartening to attend the
Brussels fair and witness the accomplishment
of a handful of people, while at the same time
being proud of the level of participation given
them from the community.
A volunteer may not always lead the way,
they just need to show up.
Legislature loses a great speaker ,