Episode 099 - Fight or Flight

Recorded: 9 September, 2013

Participants: Steve Harlow, Emory Holmes II, Jim "Jimmy The Peach" Aaron, Ruth Parson, Ferrie Differentieel, Allan Ludwig, Tom Giansante, Anneke van de Kassteele.

Jim introduces his guest, Tom Giansante, as a "fantastic artist and an iconoclast."

Ferrie says he has switched to a new DAW (digital audio workstation) and is learning how to use reverb to create "rooms" of various sizes and sound characteristics. He has been experimenting with Jim to with various reverb effects, they discovered today how to get Jim's voice from North America to sound like it is beside Ferrie in Europe. He is in process of making some music for a collection of Dutch spoken word using his newly learned techniques. He's mixing the voice and the music in separate "rooms" to bring the voice to the foreground.

Emory says he finds the different sound qualities of rooms to be similar to what he found when traveling, each area stamps the people, flora and fauna with identifying characteristics.

Ferrie says it is true that he is exploring the different feeling the sound elicits from various environments. Music sounds different in the woods than it does in an open field.

Emory asks Allan if the circles Allan is photographing in Maine are different that the ones he finds in New York city.

Allan says yes, in the city there are manufactured circles, such as manhole covers, some made as long ago as 1875, some new ones cast in India. He wonders how casting a heavy object like that and shipping it from India to NYC can be cheaper than casting it in New York.

Jim says he's heard of beaches in India where giant ships have been run aground to be cut up for scrap metal, perhaps that is where the metal comes from for casting NYC's manhole covers.

Allan says, in Maine, he's photographed granite millstones near streams and is reminded of the old song, "Down By The Old Mill Stream."

Steve says he was at the corner of E. Houston and 2nd Avenue in New York a few years ago when a manhole cover exploded out of the middle of a busy intersection, flipping like a coin about 10 feet above ground, falling back to the street without damaging anyone or any vechicle. The explosive sound made him jump 2 feet into the air and the traumatic memory stayed with him for days afterwards, causing him to give every manhole a wide berth. The memory of it causes him fear even now. He wonders if Anneke, in her dance therapy work deals with traumatic memories affecting people's movements.

Emory also wondered if Anneke, in her travels, recognized different types of movements as typical of specific locations?

Anneke says she sees identifying body language from each country in Europe. For example the expression of obedience is different in Austria than in Holland. The physical memory is always being expressed in an individual's movements.

Mary asks if that memory can be changed?

Anneke says yes, that is what she does in her dance therapy work.

Ruth asks if the work involves shifting the emotions?

Anneke says yes. In the split second when frightened, a person must decide between fight or flight responses. In Dance Therapy she gives the person the opportunity to decide whether to run away or attack. Those new opportunities can change the memory.

Emory says he remembers when he was growing up in the South (USA) that people live as if superstitions were an accurate way of understanding the world. His Grandmother said whenever you hear thunder when the sun is shining it meant, "the devil was beating his wife with a hambone."

The community's newspapers would carry "news" items reflecting the mythological understanding, like, "the devil was sighted today taking the daughter of..."

Mary said she just attended the annual Sacred Music Festival in Quebec City, held in an old church that serves the "oldest parish in North America." While listening to Ba...