July

There have been a number of curious weather events this week. Hurricane Arthur made landfall and another storm was reported to me from France. I have been unable to devote my usual level of attention to the bursting winds because I am busy busting out sentences. Here we had a brief rain event which was an absolute affront. She sprang on us! I talked with another woman beside me on the pavement as the rain destroyed us and we agreed it was Top of the Pops affront. Where did it come from?

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The other theme this past week has been the body. I read a science paper on the eye blinking patterns of unmedicated schizophrenics which left me pondering the voluntary and involuntary notions of movement in the body and the role of the brain therein and what it can provoke. I can’t find the paper. But it came to mind again this morning at a storytelling workshop organized by the Indian Summer Festival where Sharada Eswar demonstrated and taught us how consonant sounds create Konnakol — a music based on vocal percussive sounds and rhythm. Russell Wallace demonstrated First Nations story telling through the physical body (dance) and music. The consonants particularly fascinated me how the tiniest adjustment in a sound and an increase and decrease in its rhythm could change so much meaning and intention. The same can be shown in relation to the brain and the body. I continue to find pondering the physicality of language rewarding.