A Wayne Coyne Medical
I had my first interview for about 4 years today. Given that I need money for a flat, to pay my tuition, to buy a new Bronica ETRS outfit, pay off all old debts and keep my folks happy with dig money, shit has really hit the fan and I find myself applying to Baxters, the local soup and beetroot factory. Interview goes well, then I have to do a medical, which is a first. Usual questions about general well-being, eyesight and hearing and TB (!), then a urine test, for which I have to piss into a cardboard coffee cup sitting on the nurse's desk (I do get to go to the bathroom to do it - I don't just whip wee Albito out and start pissing). I consider the irony of micturating into a cup bearing the logo of the soup factory, and manage to dribble a few drops into it eventually. Then, I have to do a lung capacity check which painfully exposes the effect of smoking on the lungs, i.e. the nurse's exhortations to breathe out a little more forcefully are met with a pathetic wheeze and an embarrassed shake of the head.
Next, I get to do some kind of Zaireeka-esque hearing test. I step into a small booth, banging my head on the ceiling (I have been measured and weighed - I am 1m80, whatever that means, and 78kg, whatever that means, and I find myself longing for imperial). The inside of the booth is clad in a kind of holepunch pattern, so that if you defocus your eyes for a few seconds it takes on a 3D-type trompe l'oeil effect. Then, I have to place a massive set of headphones on my head, reminiscent of Dad's old Panasonic jobs that I used to listen to the Jeff Wayne War of The Worlds soundtrack on. The left can is blue; the right one red. I have a weatherman-style trigger to hold as well which I am told to press and hold whenever I hear a sound in my ears. Then, tones of varying frequencies are piped into alternate ears, and I push the clicker as soon as I hear the tone rising, holding it down until it fades back into silence. Since I want to do well on the test - as if this will tip the balance in my favour - I push the button as soon as I hear the tone. The test lasts 12 minutes or so, and by the end I find myself zoning out a little, my vision blurred by the inside of the booth and finding more and more that I want to hear the whole tone, so I am starting to delay pushing the trigger more and more. I am reminded of an afternoon in Osaka, not long after buying Zaireeka where I connected up the two little portable speakers that came with my CD player and listened to track 6, How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos), over and over again. It's recommended on the CD inlay that you don't operate machinery or drive after listening to this track, as 3 of the 4 CDs contain nothing but low, mid and high frequency notes. After ten minutes with the speakers jammed up against my ears, lying on my back on the tatami in my bedroom, I almost floated up and out of my body. I felt a little ill. Check the track notes from the 'Lips site for another track, Riding to work in 2025 (Your Invisible Now):
"Imagine, if you will, this tale set to a spooky swirl of sound - with drums that sound like they were miked in a submarine and angular guitars that leap at you from alternate corners of the sound panorama. Once you get it on your own four CD players in one room, the voice just creeps and floats through that sound web and it really does enchant you. Synchronised screams and two, then three interlocking drum patterns coming from all directions. Huge bass sounds fading into a glorious piano lick that is itself surrounded by voices and strings. Lush, deep, enriching and, above all, exhilirating. They just seem to have absorbed all music and put it back in a form so different that you really can't identify any of it any more. You find yourself thinking, "Well that might have been trip-hop but it isn't it's just... different."
I felt a little similar after the hearing test. I managed to get through the rest of the medical on autopilot, even flirting a little with the nurse. I hope I got the job.
Next, I get to do some kind of Zaireeka-esque hearing test. I step into a small booth, banging my head on the ceiling (I have been measured and weighed - I am 1m80, whatever that means, and 78kg, whatever that means, and I find myself longing for imperial). The inside of the booth is clad in a kind of holepunch pattern, so that if you defocus your eyes for a few seconds it takes on a 3D-type trompe l'oeil effect. Then, I have to place a massive set of headphones on my head, reminiscent of Dad's old Panasonic jobs that I used to listen to the Jeff Wayne War of The Worlds soundtrack on. The left can is blue; the right one red. I have a weatherman-style trigger to hold as well which I am told to press and hold whenever I hear a sound in my ears. Then, tones of varying frequencies are piped into alternate ears, and I push the clicker as soon as I hear the tone rising, holding it down until it fades back into silence. Since I want to do well on the test - as if this will tip the balance in my favour - I push the button as soon as I hear the tone. The test lasts 12 minutes or so, and by the end I find myself zoning out a little, my vision blurred by the inside of the booth and finding more and more that I want to hear the whole tone, so I am starting to delay pushing the trigger more and more. I am reminded of an afternoon in Osaka, not long after buying Zaireeka where I connected up the two little portable speakers that came with my CD player and listened to track 6, How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos), over and over again. It's recommended on the CD inlay that you don't operate machinery or drive after listening to this track, as 3 of the 4 CDs contain nothing but low, mid and high frequency notes. After ten minutes with the speakers jammed up against my ears, lying on my back on the tatami in my bedroom, I almost floated up and out of my body. I felt a little ill. Check the track notes from the 'Lips site for another track, Riding to work in 2025 (Your Invisible Now):
"Imagine, if you will, this tale set to a spooky swirl of sound - with drums that sound like they were miked in a submarine and angular guitars that leap at you from alternate corners of the sound panorama. Once you get it on your own four CD players in one room, the voice just creeps and floats through that sound web and it really does enchant you. Synchronised screams and two, then three interlocking drum patterns coming from all directions. Huge bass sounds fading into a glorious piano lick that is itself surrounded by voices and strings. Lush, deep, enriching and, above all, exhilirating. They just seem to have absorbed all music and put it back in a form so different that you really can't identify any of it any more. You find yourself thinking, "Well that might have been trip-hop but it isn't it's just... different."
I felt a little similar after the hearing test. I managed to get through the rest of the medical on autopilot, even flirting a little with the nurse. I hope I got the job.
posted by Albie Clark | 1:38 pm
1 Comments:
i remember seeing you after your zaireeka listening party of one - you were skittish, and a little paranoid as i recall.
i also remember lying on your tatami mat splitting a pair of ear buds and listening to the saddest music in the world.
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