4 minutes, 33 seconds, and counting...or do they count?
This week's blog entry is brought to you by grading. That is to say, I was grading, it took all my brain power, and that's why I didn't write anything here. This week, we're trying a performance of silence, like John Cage's 4'33" (which is just that: 4 minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence).
And no recipes this week, either. But I did discover something, theoretically a food, in my local grocery store. It was a stressful week, and emotional eating had me looking at grocery-store displays I usually ignore. Packaged in a kodak-yellow cardboard box, the kind of box that usually holds cookies or crackers, and displayed--I guess the intent was "alluringly"--on an (unrefrigerated) end cap, was something that called itself "Ready Bacon." I didn't buy it. I'm a vegetarian, and no amount of stress makes me crave meat. (Scones, yes--I ate a month's worth of scones this week. But bacon, "ready" or not? Never.) Does anyone know what this is?
While the Ready Bacon was its own kind of performance (or performance art, maybe), I suggest a moment of silence, out of respect, or something, for such creative, instant-meat-style, food-type objects. May they reside in shelf-stable peace. But anyway.
What does it mean to make a performance out of silence, or is that just a manipulative, performance-art thing? I was reading an article about lying by omission today; certainly this is a performance through silence. There's a kind of silence of expectation: when is this musical performance going to start? (I've been waiting four minutes and thirty...thirty-one...thirty-two seconds and...) When is this lecture going to start? Are we there yet? That, I think, is a performance more by the audience than the performer. I mean, what's everyone in the audience thinking they're going to hear, for four and a half minutes? Aren't these--the expectations--the performance each one of us experiences?*
If that's a performance of our own, internal expectations, there are also performances of silence based on external expectations--expectations we have of other people. You've probably seen some of those performances--pregnant pauses, guilting silences, comfortable silences born out of familiarity (we know we don't need to explain, because others "just know"). Please tell me the ones I'm not thinking of.
Some of these performances take a lot of practice to pull off. Those who know me know I drink a lot of tea, especially at work. I got into this habit because I teach by the socratic method. It's really hard, when you first try teaching by asking the right questions (as opposed to providing the right answers in a lecture), not to jump into the long, long moments of silence and answer your own questions. I paced myself by drinking tea after I asked a question. After maybe half a cup, if nobody said anything, it was time to rephrase the question. I'm comfortable with that silence, now, but I had to learn.
I try to be mostly comfortable, most of the time, with most kinds of silence, and with what I think is its companion, emptiness. Emptiness is not a bad thing, sometimes. There's sunyata, the emptiness of enlightenment, and blank mind, the emptiness of meditation. There's the emptiness before inspiration, both creative and literal. There's the emptiness of exhaustion after hard physical or mental activity, and an emptiness that comes after the release of strong emotions--both of these, I think, are a relief.
This has not been an empty week. It's been crammed full of impatience, overly-obsessive counting-down of days, over-analyzing, over-eating, make-work and grumpiness. I'll definitely benefit from four and a half minutes of silence.
Next week, recipes. But one thing I do, as a ceramicist: I always try to make bowls and plates that look good when they're empty.
Photos: Marc Mancuso
Bowls: Amanda
*As I understand 4'33", part of the point, if not the point, of the composition is that neither Cage nor the performers have any influence over what the audience members hear--but the focus is meant to be on ambient noise, not on what's happening inside the audience members' heads. Is that right, musicians and scholars of music?
4 comments:
Thanks for this thoughtful post. I'm still digesting it.
It makes me think of the concept of "companionable silence" and this quotation, which seems to be unattributed:
“The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch swing with, never say a word, then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation that you ever had.”
From the Tao Te Ching, Trans. D.C. Lau:
Thirty spokes share one hub. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the cart. Knead clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make a room. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the room. Thus what we gain is Something, yet it is by virtue of Nothing that this can be put to use.
I love the mixing of modalities you use (the beautiful ceramic bowls) and inspire (Susan's quote from the Tao Te Ching)!
I'm not very good at Socratic Seminars. How exactly do they work?
There's a Star Trek episode that mentions an alien culture than includes day-long "lacunae" in their poems, during which "the audience is encouraged to fully acknowledge the emptiness of the experience" (to which one of the characters wise-cracks that this reminds him of some college lectures he remembers). Star Trek mentions a lot of cool things in passing (as well as focusing on cool things), and it uses (for me) just the right balance of sincerity and humor.
I find it interesting that you cite lying as an example of performance art; I've often admired liars. It's a skill I lack that some people manifestly have. Of course it can be used in a really unhealthy way, but there's still something impressive about it when done well.
Humor and wit are the same: abilities I've always lacked and admired in others, but which I've sometimes been suspicious of, as efforts at deception. Could humor that is meant to deflect communication be considered a type of silence? Could emotional unavailability? Although as PJS pointed out, emotional closeness can also occur in silence.
Thank you for the wonderful quotations, P and Sue. Taken together, they remind me of Cambridge Insight Meditation Center's advice: "Don't just do something, sit there!"
Andy I really appreciate the thoughts. I don't run formal socratic seminars, so I don't think I can tell you much about those. I just try to ask questions that will get students thinking about what I want them to learn. Perhaps the students are reminded of Star Trek episodes. :)
I think ling is a kind of acting, at least for many people who engage in it--although acting is not lying.
I remember reading somewhere (when I worked at the New England School of Acupuncture) that people with a fire-element imbalance often use laughter as a defense, or to keep people out.
I think you're capable of both humor and wit, though, in good (healthy) ways.
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