When I think about Harold Budd several different thoughts and images come to mind, one is an old alternate definition of ‘wine’ … Old English wine = Old Frisian winne, Middle Low German wine, Old Saxon, Old High German wini (Middle High German wine, win), Old Norse vinr. … a friend.
OE Beowulf 30 Þenden wordum weold wine Scyldinga. 1122 Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) ann. 975 Eadgar..West-Seaxena wine. 1200 Moral Ode (Trin. Coll. MS.) 223 Werse he doð his gode wines þan his fiendes. 1220 Bestiary 374 Eurilc luuen oðer, Also he were his broder, Wurðen stedefast his wine. 1481 W. Caxton tr. Hist. Reynard Fox (1970) 70 He hath nether kyn ne wyn ne frende that wylle entreprise to helpe hym.
I was introduced to Harold by David Sylvian. David had sent me a letter (handwritten, charming), an invitation to release an album on Samadhisound. While we were working on it, he ask me to make a coda for Avalon Sutra as album was running short … the source recordings arrived as a box of blackface ADAT tapes. I took little bits here and there into a very slowly unwinding ostinato. The intention was for it to be ten or so minutes, but I wanted David to get his hand in so I made a seventy minute version and told David to cut it where and how he wanted … he used the whole long track as a second disc.
圈 Describing a Circle; 1305 Edmund Conf. 232 in Early Eng. Poems & Lives Saints (1862) 77 Þreo rounde cerclen heo wrot: in þe paume amidde., concentric; 1400 G. Chaucer Treat. Astrolabe (Cambr. Dd.3.53) (1872) i. §17. 10 The heued of capricorne turnyth euermo consentryk vp-on the same cercle.
x = sin( -5.009757041932 * y ) – cos( 5.0073237419122 * x ); y = sin( -5.006352424622 * x ) – cos( 5.0065770149236 * y );
Angular rotation, position, calculated across four billion seven hundred twelve million three hundred eighty eight thousand nine hundred seventy five iterations; graphite touching arc to shade on paper, through Faber-Castell pencil I am a circle inscribed. I am a little cowboy in South Texas, shooting metal plates hanging on a barbed wire fence. Shot striking metal to chime, dreaming sound of bell, 1225 Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) Þet ower beoden bemen wel & dreamen in drichtines earen. Time occupied by the same nature in mind, symbolism or a thing, a radiance of observation, synthesis succeed one and makes them of the soul, a dark room also occupied by dreaming itself. Aristotle describes the primary being as an intellect or a kind of intellect that “thinks itself” perpetually. A primary substance must be what is both ontologically and epistemically basic, i.e., that which the existence of everything else depends, and on which our systematic knowledge depends. Circles in circles carved in stones as Mayan haab and tzolkin, civil and divine, against the long count of distant memory, days to come curving into a distant past. Stairless cylinder of words overheard in the woods at night among the same stone altars in grey watercolor shades, circles bent towards straight lines, appetite and practical thought, affections and actions of knowledge. The eye being merely the matter of seeing, sense is either a faculty or a separation by the same act dividing the time, obscure to obscurity… learning how to fall in love with my mistakes. Time occupied by the same nature in mind, symbolism or a thing, a radiance of observation, synthesis succeed one and makes them of the soul, a dark room also occupied by dreaming itself. The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. Here we are bound by many circles.
Carefully questions unraveled in their answers upon polite observation, dipping and drawing untempered charms and it will not love me any more if I thought your speech charming, did I not know you till I will unsay the spell that holds me there… how odde soever your braines be or your wisedomes make your heart is filled with tears, and she said “you must do exactly as I tell you.”
scratched across and walks away, with that she carefully washed all darkly translucent in their wavering shadows, clings and clinging, neuer giues to truth and vertue that which simpleness and merit purchaseth, and lay ages drop unto it as were rain.
wild flowing this as blithe faery of field a, thorngarth evil that as tenebrous wonder of weird a, washwives our baith by in led is Lammas. marche de jambe la sur soul tombaut los‚ h Le. metroosers matches How? days all soup rish por and pingers cop in shieling A. harestary assa Barbar and tory hics Bibelous later Till. to sidecurls her give would who one your dream and off dust the shake, fire the at drug, water the in Sleep. was that dear one, Blotsbloshblothe. musk of sigh odours after and music liquick play shall Bandusian fount that, fastalbarnstone silver of sphere as shone has hitherto silence whose leaves lifetrees them tread shall she that this to concomitated has all, one fair pure and Pious. chenlemagne Auburn From. Shlicksheruthr. exits my kissists, adeal supposed she who, otherwards in, chumming veryveryvery if, or perfume or flower her using, Prize my Get or peethrolio, all if, or backfronted, asamples for, Soldi desires when be can, chumming prints if Christinette cinder from best With. air soon to (shopes of consolation (mabby, Well). ptover turning ere the in gently Wave (Shrubsheruthr. moulding s’Mippa of are mequeues curly these but Foster Vere Poppa from hawks she mostly pothooks Those. Shrubsher. cates of pershan) circles domestic to introduce (lovely A.) maggy question (you are how) allhealths after enquiries (Well.) M. F., moment the for suppressed person mention (to sorry so) if one, funeral happy for condolences tender (we and I Shlicksher. to on go I and, well.) N. A., subject desired of name) Dear is Such twelvemonthsminding the on smiles leap lex aftermoon Satadays as outcome yesters and gone tomorrows singingsing will then branchings the where plantation sweet our of woodwordings now the in it Is? sumns that eye for scares if annalykeses that ear for Hopely freewritten her By. memorise shall they Which. dreamoneire Or. sight at scene A.
Or quand le pianiste eut joué, Swann fut plus aimable encore avec lui qu’avec les autres personnes qui se trouvaient là. Voici pourquoi :
L’année précédente, dans une soirée, il avait entendu une œuvre musicale exécutée au piano et au violon. D’abord, il n’avait goûté que la qualité matérielle des sons sécrétés par les instruments. Et ç’avait déjà été un grand plaisir quand au-dessous de la petite ligne du violon mince, résistante, dense et directrice, il avait vu tout d’un coup chercher à s’élever en un clapotement liquide, la masse de la partie de piano, multiforme, indivise, plane et entrechoquée comme la mauve agitation des flots que charme et bémolise le clair de lune. Mais à un moment donné, sans pouvoir nettement distinguer un contour, donner un nom à ce qui lui plaisait, charmé tout d’un coup, il avait cherché à recueillir la phrase ou l’harmonie — il ne savait lui-même — qui passait et lui avait ouvert plus largement l’âme, comme certaines odeurs de roses circulant dans l’air humide du soir ont la propriété de dilater nos narines. Peut-être est-ce parce qu’il ne savait pas la musique qu’il avait pu éprouver une impression aussi confuse, une de ces impressions qui sont peut-être pourtant les seules purement musicales, inétendues, entièrement originales, irréductibles à tout autre ordre d’impressions. Une impression de ce genre, pendant un instant, est pour ainsi dire sine materia. Sans doute les notes que nous entendons alors tendent déjà, selon leur hauteur et leur quantité, à couvrir devant nos yeux des surfaces de dimensions variées, à tracer des arabesques, à nous donner des sensations de largeur, de ténuité, de stabilité, de caprice. Mais les notes sont évanouies avant que ces sensations soient assez formées en nous pour ne pas être submergées par celles qu’éveillent déjà les notes suivantes ou même simultanées. Et cette impression continuerait à envelopper de sa liquidité et de son « fondu » les motifs qui par instants en émergent, à peine discernables, pour plonger aussitôt et disparaître, connus seulement par le plaisir particulier qu’ils donnent, impossibles à décrire, à se rappeler, à nommer, ineffables — si la mémoire, comme un ouvrier qui travaille à établir des fondations durables au milieu des flots, en fabriquant pour nous des fac-similés de ces phrases fugitives, ne nous permettait de les comparer à celles qui leur succèdent et de les différencier. Ainsi à peine la sensation délicieuse que Swann avait ressentie était-elle expirée, que sa mémoire lui en avait fourni séance tenante une transcription sommaire et provisoire, mais sur laquelle il avait jeté les yeux tandis que le morceau continuait, si bien que, quand la même impression était tout d’un coup revenue, elle n’était déjà plus insaisissable. Il s’en représentait l’étendue, les groupements symétriques, la graphie, la valeur expressive ; il avait devant lui cette chose qui n’est plus de la musique pure, qui est du dessin, de l’architecture, de la pensée, et qui permet de se rappeler la musique. Cette fois il avait distingué nettement une phrase s’élevant pendant quelques instants au-dessus des ondes sonores. Elle lui avait proposé aussitôt des voluptés particulières, dont il n’avait jamais eu l’idée avant de l’entendre, dont il sentait que rien autre qu’elle ne pourrait les lui faire connaître, et il avait éprouvé pour elle comme un amour inconnu.
