NOTES ON NOISE

A.
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share…
-Paul Simon

Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds….
-Vladimir Nabokov

To my wife Anne, without whose silence this book never would have been written.
-Philip K. Dick, dedication page from The Man in the High Castle

B. If you place two or more people in a lobby, they will produce words that string together discussions regarding recent changes in weather. If you put one person in a lobby, he or she will hum a tune no one–not even he or she–knows, atonally and incessantly.

C. This is a cat named Silence. He meows at the door as I write this.

Silence on "Silence" by John Cage

In the Brooklyn apartment where Silence lives, a man came to look at a room for rent. The human tenants explained to the man about daily tasks. “We all contribute,” one said, “when it comes to Silence.”

D. My grandfather tells the story of himself as a boy, talking in class. “Schweig?” the teacher purportedly said, “SCHWEIG!”

E. Somebody in the lobby: “Did you know that ‘Silent’ is what your name means?” Somebody in the lobby: “What are you writing about?”

“You are invisible,” the computer tells me.

: John Cage

F.
(I have nothing to say

and I am saying it and that is

poetry as I need it.)

G. And there was the time when Charles Wright walked in, sat down and said, “Instead of workshop today, I am going to read from this,” and he held up a book whose cover said, SILENCE. Charles opened the book and started .