The Sound(s) of Injustice
Rare is the novel where taste, touch, smell or sound create the prominent sensory descriptions.
We rely on our eyes as humans. We want writers to use visual depictions to describe scenes. We have our reasons.
When we interact with the world we rely more on vision than on our other senses. More more of the primate engages in processing visual information than in processing information from any of the other senses.
Yet we recoil from unwanted touches, even when we can’t see our assailants. Certain smells make us nauseous or salivate. Sounds make us tap our feet or sweat in terror.
Music has filled my life since my preschool days. My father worked at the now defunct Montgomery Wards in Houston, Texas. A sales rep from KIKK (“650 on your DIAL”) presented my father with free country music albums to give to me. I only remember two: Homer and Jethro “Live at Vanderbilt U.” and Jim Reeves “The Best of Jim Reeves.” Reeves’ “Four Walls” remains one of my top 100 personal songs.
Music expanded into soundtracks in film and video. How actors sound is as important, if not more important, than how they look. If the soundtrack is muddled, the images may be exquisite, but I don’t care. I need to hear a film to appreciate it. But the sound needs to be just right. Many soundtrack engineers today seem unable to modulate for changes in dialogue, sound effects, and the sound track. How many times have we all grabbed the remote when action or drama increases and the soundtrack rises with it?
Sound permeates social justice, too. How a people sound can result in repercussions. Some people deem other people too loud or too quiet. The wrong tone can result in physical consequences. Napa Valley Wine Train personnel removed 11 African-American women for “laughing too loudly.”
Our class and racial histories drive our expectations of noise levels and comfort.
According to Lisa Renee Johnson, one of the 11 women who live blogged the entire incident as it was unfolding, “[A]t one point, the train’s maître d'hotel came by and asked the group to tone it down so that other passengers didn’t feel uncomfortable.”
The better question was “why do they make you feel uncomfortable in the first place?” But that would have required the maître d'hotel to understand how sound, physical comfort, and racism interact.
Authorities use a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) as a sound cannon and an acoustic weapon to dispel crowds. Make no mistake. Police use LRAD to brutalize and maim demonstrators by permanently damaging their hearing:
“It is a brute force design dedicated to a single purpose: playing really loud in the most sensitive part of human hearing,”
Robert Auld, audio engineer
Sound is political. It seems silly to write it out. But we forget how political it can be.
I’ve spend the last several weeks scribbling down soundscapes in words. It’s not that visuals don’t appeal to me. They do. But I don’t obsess over them the way I do sound. Sustainable writing for me grows out of my obsessions. Music lives inside of me. But not all sound is music. That’s one of the themes I’m exploring.
Until next time,
Jay