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@Sally Bailey : 我一直在思考声音,以及我们如何通过声音片段来感知世界。五月里的鸟鸣声很大,而我一直在思考我们如何在不断被打断的声音包裹中生存。我认为我们生活在由片段组成的世界中,就像伍尔夫的《达洛卫夫人》一样。我最近重读了《达洛卫夫人》中的一段,因为我被要求写一篇论文,需要补充更多内容,而书中关于声音和歌曲的部分很容易找到。 《达洛卫夫人》中,五月节的歌谣打断了彼得·沃尔什的思绪,他正沉浸在对自己的长篇回忆中。也许这就是他以前的恋人克拉丽莎·达洛卫多年后见到他时所想的。彼得·沃尔什从印度回来,与过去的生活和达洛卫夫人重逢,如果当初情况稍微好一点,他或许会娶她。然而,一个声音打断了彼得·沃尔什。一个微弱颤抖的声音,一个毫无方向地冒出来的声音,一个充满活力的声音,是开始还是结束? 这是一个老妇人在摄政公园地铁站外唱歌的声音,她唱的是一首古老的春日歌谣。这些声音从大地中涌出,我听不懂她在唱什么,但这并不重要,因为有节奏,我能听到它。我认为这就是生活的全部:踏着节奏,找到节奏,让自己融入声音中。任何声音都可以像一个问题、一次审问、一个想法、一个疑问,或者是一个停顿,某种冲动的迹象。我们要去向何方?这个声音,她要去向何方? 伍尔夫在《达洛卫夫人》中写道,这是一个没有年龄和性别的嗓音,一个从大地中涌出的古老春天的嗓音。今天,当我站在敞开的窗户旁,看着森林般茂密的荨麻紧贴着我的蓝色小船,我心想,我不该砍掉这些荨麻,为什么呢?我喜欢我的绿色森林。在我开始考虑今天应该做什么之前,我必须在贵格会会堂主持一个诗歌小组。然后我必须按时会见两个学生,总是按时,我们从生活中抽出的这些片段和时间段,我们称之为会议。 因为我们总是在时间中寻找意义,但这都是人为的,都是人造的。当我看着一只小蚊子在我的木制百叶窗上爬行,它的头发竖起来,它的小触角来回飞舞,倾听,调谐时,我忘记了。我忘记了我今天必须做什么。我忘记了,我只是听着那古老而又不那么古老的声音,就像在《达洛卫夫人》中,当她从威斯敏斯特走到邦德街时,天上飞过一架飞机。天上也有一架飞机飞过,在空中写着字。 人们都说,这意味着什么?那些用烟雾写成的字是什么意思?这意味着什么?也许如果我继续倾听,我就会知道。

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A reading life, a writing life, with writer and teacher Sally Bailey. Amongst the bird there is a child's voice I can hear in the background. A child not wanting to do what he's being told on this

beautiful May morning, the day after May Day. Perhaps May Day makes us less pliant, compliant. I've been thinking about sound the last few days and I'm thinking about sound this morning. The birds are so loud in May and I've been thinking about how we exist in and through packages and parcels of sound which is constantly interrupting us.

car crossing the bridge just now, the birds tweeting together in loud harmony. And then a cry of a child in the background complaining. And I've been thinking about fragments and how everything that we live in and through and out and with and alongside is a kind of fragment. And I've been rereading a fragment of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.

because I was asked to write an essay and I was asked to write more words to my essay, so I had to find another part. And it was easy. The book fell open on a section about sound and song.

A May Day song, an ancient ballad, which interrupts the thought life of the character Peter Walsh, who is already in the middle of a long reminiscence about himself. "Peter, you think far too much of yourself," I thought to myself, me, the reader. And perhaps that's also what his former friend and lover, Clarissa Dalloway, was thinking when she saw him after all those years, now that Peter is aged 53 and still playing with his pocket knife.

Peter, Peter, Peter Walsh, who has come back from India and has reunited with his former life and with Mrs Dalloway, who he would have perhaps once married if it only had been a little more agreeable. Peter Walsh who interrupts Mrs Dalloway's sounds and songs, her recollections and reminiscences. A sound interrupted him, however. A sound interrupted him.

A frail, quivering sound. A voice bubbling up without direction. Bubbling up without direction. A sound. Vigor. Vigor beginning or ending.

Beginning or ending a sound running weakly and shrilly and with an absence of all human meaning into: E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Sweet-Doo-M-O E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Sweet-Doo-M-S-O E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Sweet-Doo-M-O It is the sound of an old lady singing outside Regent's Park

tube station and she's singing an ancient ballad of spring. Sprouting forth from the earth these sounds: E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Swee-Doo-M-O E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Swee-Doo-M-O And I don't know what I'm singing but it doesn't matter because there's a rhythm and I can hear it E-M-F-R-M-S-O Foo-Swee-Doo-M-O

"I am far am so, foo-swee-too am oh" and I think that is how all of life is lived. By tapping the foot, by finding the rhythm, by lifting yourself up into sound. "I am far am so, foo-swee-too am ooh, I am far am so, foo-swee-too am oh" And any sound can sound like a question or an interrogation or a thought or a query.

or a pause or an indication of some sort of impulse. To what? To what? To what are we heading? Where are we going? This voice, where is she going?

This voice of no age or sex, the voice of an ancient spring sprouting from the earth, writes Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. The voice of no age or sex, the voice of an ancient spring sprouting from the earth. And today as I stand here by my open window, looking out upon the forest of green nettles pressing up against

My blue boat, as I think to myself, I won't cut down those nettles, why should I? I like my green forest. Before I start to think about what I ought to be doing today, I have to lead a poetry group later at the Quaker Meeting House. And then I have to meet two students in time, always in time, those fragments and sections of time we cut out of life and call a meeting.

Because we are always looking to meet with meaning in time. But it is all artificial. It is all man-made. And underneath it all, as I watch this tiny little gnat crawl down my wooden boat shutter, with her hair standing on end, her little tentacles flying back and forth, listening, tuning in, I forget. I forget.

what it is I have to do today. I forget and I just listen to that ancient and not so ancient, there's an aeroplane going over just as there is in Mrs Dalloway sight lines as she walks down from Westminster to Bond Street. There is also an aeroplane going over overhead writing out letters in the sky.

What does it mean, they all say, the crowds below? What does it mean, those letters made of smoke? What does it mean? Perhaps if I continue to listen, I will know. Thank you for listening to A Reading Life, A Writing Life. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please like it, give us a review,

or mention us to friends or on social media. Thank you.

We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!

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