Breakfast with Jon. We talked about life-compression, the limiting of extremes, the cutting off of amplitude. We notice it in music. Lack of dynamics due to too much compression of music (see Email from an Audient, The Future of Music, Everything Louder Than Everything Else and Dynamic Range), but also the selection of music we listen to. Radio being what it is, most people will listen to their mp3 players or CD collection in their cars and at home. Gone are those days when I would call the local radio station and inquire about a song that was unfamiliar and surprising and beautiful and moving.
But it does not stop there. Physical comfort robs us of experience, cuts off the amplitude. With modern convenience heating and cooling systems some people never let the temperatur in their home get lower than 68ºF or higher than 72ºF. Then they walk into their garage and step into their cars which contain equally powerful heating and cooling devices. Nowadays we can even travel like this. From the airconditioned plane into the airconditioned airport, into the airconditioned bus, into the airconditioned hotel… was India hot? Not that I noticed.
One of my fondest memories is how my brother and I woke up in the sixties. Mom would come into our freezing room, turn on the heater and lay our clothes on top of it. We had ten minutes to wake up and when we pulled our clothes on they were nice and warm. Warm bed to cold room to warm clothes – a whole cornucopia of feelings within minutes of waking up.
Or when I woke up early in the morning in Tibet, in the Autumn of 2006, and went from feeling warm-ish in the sleeping bag to freezing while I pulled my clothes on. Then I would step outside of my tent into even greater cold and then I would receive a piping hot steel cup of tea. There is nothing better than holding a hot, hot steel cup in your hands when it is freezing outside.
Groceries – check
Gasoline – zero
Excercise – check
Health Club Fees – zero
That sunset happened on the fifth, the Mariachi Bullitt was photographed when I returned from having breakfast with Jon and grocery shopping.
Thank you for sharing the memory of waking up in the sixties. My childhood home was heated by space heaters also.
My favorite spot through out our home was to seat infront of the space heater in our livingroom or as we called it the front room. My mother would always say, ” You are to close to the stove and your are going to burn your back”. Well, I never burned my back but I would sit on the floor, level with the flame of heat until my mother would make me move for my sister to have a turn. I loved it! I did not like being cold then and now. Yes, many times we also heated our clothes before dressing. Thanks again for sharing your memory.