Notes

Here it is the second Zoo & Logical Times. As you may have noticed this is an audio magazine. Like its predecessor, this issue was brought together by a mixture of chance, serendipity & plain old asking. The call went out, like a wolf at the moon, asking for “...field recordings, spoken word & experiments in sound...”. You may well be listening to the resulting deluge as you read this tiresome introduction.

Admittedly the invitation wasn’t particularly specific, the idea was to keep it as open as possible so there might be a wide response.

When asked if there should be text or a picture accompanying his contribution, Helmut Lemke replied “Its sound, it speaks for itself.” A little girl I know discovered some time ago that some letters appearing in words are silent, perhaps not surprisingly this led to the idea that all letters are silent, at least until they are spoken. Somewhere between Helmut & the little girl, there is a great wisdom.

Only the other night I was at a friends listening to Bird Song, slowed somewhat, & before long the song became howlings, barks, cries, shouts, all too human sounds, canine, bovine. Slowed again the song became huge, mournful, deep, like that of the whale. The saying, ‘As above, so below’ seemed apt, indeed I think I remarked as much at the time.

A certain uneasiness accompanied my journey home, I’m not sure why. It was a very balmy night, still, overcast & warm. A hint of strangeness to come on heavy air, so I decided to concentrate, that bit extra, on my cycling. It must have been about 2 a.m, when I rounded the corner into my street, & there, large as life, in fact a bit bigger, was a man, arms akimbo in the middle of the road, facing east, shaking his head violently from side to side, eyes rolled into the back of his head, chanting.

After the immediate surprise at this vision had subsided, one of my first thoughts was to go home, get my recording equipment & document the poor chaps ravings for this very publication. However I decided not to indulge that particular inclination & left him to his mystical trance, & hopefully not, heavier traffic. I remembered that very morning the suns face would be traversed by venus, & decided as the relatively rare phenomena would begin at 6:15 a.m, to allow it to occur in my sleep.

Anyway, I digress, the editing of material submitted was minimal & all works received have been represented, apart from two pieces the first was from Lee Patterson & was called ‘Blue Nun, 250ml’ , for the moment we can only speculate as to its contents as the compact disc didn’t work, the second was from Robert Lewis and was called ‘Clean : part2’ unfortunately the disc skipped terribly & I decided the piece was unlistenable. My apologies to you both.

Thankyou to all the people who contributed to this collection, which I believe forms a satisfyingly complete attempt at a description of these most Zoo & Logical Times.

‘Life is Sound!’

Corona Smith, Hull, 2004