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eerietomI took my tincture, caught a bus to go to lunch, then decided to catch a shuttle (for the trains were out of service) to hang out at the airport for a while. The ambient sounds of the OHSU Wellness Center made for a great afternoon, so I figured the airport would surely have some interesting sounds, too.
If you’ve ever heard small children try to tell jokes, it’s like they haven’t quite figured out the concept of humor, so their jokes are more non sequitur than humorous. But that was the kind of mood I was in while waiting for the shuttle. I kept coming up with such “jokes”. For example, I had the idea of taking song lyrics or poetry and reversing the second and third lines of every stanza. Armed with this daring, innovative idea, I tried it on the first thing that came to mind:
This struck me as monumentally funny, but before I could try the trick again, I thought of other “jokes”:
Riding the shuttle to the airport was like being on the Concorde. Most bus drivers will say hi or nod their heads as you board, but this driver acted like he was welcoming V.I.P.s on a luxury liner. He also seemed to drive the bus much faster than the speed limit. That might have just been the time dilation I experience while stoned, but I imagined it was because we were on a special bus that was allowed to go faster. And, because it’s a shuttle for the rail line and not an ordinary bus, the stops were very far apart and so it seemed more like an express train.
At most of the airports I’ve been to, the area around them is a sort of futuristic “utopia”. The surrounding land is completely flat out of necessity, of course, and the only things in sight are sometimes futuristic buildings or distant trees. It can look as if the runways stretch on forever. As you get closer to the airport itself, it’s all concrete and steel and glass and ramps and millions of signs about which way to go, like a benevolent Big Brother was helping you get to where you needed to be.
I went to get a coffee and a pastry at a kiosk. There was an unusual looking pastry behind the glass, so I asked the barista what it was. She wasn’t sure, and there was no little placard for it. She reached under the counter and pulled out a deck of placards and began going through them. With the time dilation, this seemed to take forever, and I kept saying, “It’s cool, don’t worry about it,” but she was determined to find it. After she had identified it (it wasn’t anything I wanted), I pointed at yet another unidentified item.
I knew I was stoned, but was she stoned too? Or just new at the job? I couldn’t be sure.
I sat very close to a ticket counter. At first I thought I heard the sounds of construction, but it was the sound of luggage moving on the metal conveyor belts. Grr-rrrrr clunk thunk bonk. Sometimes it sounded like I was in a strange bowling alley. Other times it sounded like the deepest note on a bass harmonica.
A couple of announcements also gave me the giggles from mis-hearing them (passenger names have been changed):
The first announcement was actually calling Ms. Baker back to Henry’s Tavern, but the way I heard it, it sounded like she was having an assignation with Henry in his cabin and left her panties or something behind. As for Mr. Marsan, what the heck was the suspense going to be? Would the counter agent say, “Here’s your luggage, Mr. Marsan—GASP! WHAT’S THAT BEHIND YOU?!” I really had no idea what had actually been said.
After a while, I caught the bus home. I was feeling mellow, feeling like the world was at peace. I wondered if I were only capable of good, happy thoughts while stoned, so I dictated this into my phone:
After reaching home and having dinner, I settled in for my usual evening of media:
Battle Beyond the Stars, dir. Jimmy T. Murakami, 1980
Tokyo Pig, dir. Shinichi Watanabe, 1997-1998
Two episodes: “Lookout! It’s a Cookout!” and “Pigs on Ice”
Midnight Parasites, dir. Yōji Kuri, 1972
Evil Under the Sun, dir. Guy Hamilton, 1982
This is my favorite of the big screen Poirot films. An all-star cast camping it up on a beautiful island while murder is afoot. Having seen it quite a few times already, most recently just a couple of months ago, I wondered if I might get a little bored watching it again so soon. Solution? I divided the movie into roughly ten-minute segments, and heavily processed each segment with a variety of effects, including saturation, posterization, temperature change, motion blur, delayed superimposition, and glow for the video, and tremolo, reverb, distortion, and various delays (echo, reverse-echo, bouncing ball delay) for the audio. The result? Something that ranks with my Cozzilla-ized version of Gigantis The Fire Monster (aka Godzilla Raids Again! And while these are all relatively simple effects, watching it while stoned, it was as if a nuclear holocaust had occurred: in some scenes, the sky and sea flashed and flickered as though radioactive, and glowing ghosts walked around and spoke. Posterization made the actors look like they’d been drenched in blood or skinned alive. Here are a few excerpts:
The trippiest audio effect was the bouncing ball delay, which sometimes extended to several seconds. This made the characters, particularly Poirot, sound like they were talking incessantly. Another audio effect made the dialogue unintelligible, and everyone sounded like Daleks trying to cough up furballs.
The Process of Weeding Out, Black Flag, 1985
Live at Jazz Spot Combo 1975, Itaru Oki Quartet, 1975
If you’ve ever heard small children try to tell jokes, it’s like they haven’t quite figured out the concept of humor, so their jokes are more non sequitur than humorous. But that was the kind of mood I was in while waiting for the shuttle. I kept coming up with such “jokes”. For example, I had the idea of taking song lyrics or poetry and reversing the second and third lines of every stanza. Armed with this daring, innovative idea, I tried it on the first thing that came to mind:
| Mary had a little lamb And everywhere that Mary went Its fleece was as white as snow The lamb was sure to go |
This struck me as monumentally funny, but before I could try the trick again, I thought of other “jokes”:
| If you want to discourage vandalism in public bathrooms, just build them so that the floor is a grate fifty feet above the ocean. It would be so cold and windy and dank nobody would want to stay in there any longer than they had to because who wants wind blowing up their skirt? |
| If you like chocolate, date a guy who doesn’t like chocolate. That way you won’t suspect him when your chocolate goes missing. |
| A woman wants to do some extended travel. She’d like to rent her house to earn a little extra money while she’s gone, but she doesn’t want tenants messing with her stuff, nor does she want to have to put everything in storage. She asks a magician for a spell to make everything in her house both intangible and invisible. He tells her she can have one or the other but not both. If he makes everything invisible, the tenants will bump into the furniture and think the house is haunted. If he makes everything intangible, the tenants will still see the furniture and also think the house is haunted. |
Riding the shuttle to the airport was like being on the Concorde. Most bus drivers will say hi or nod their heads as you board, but this driver acted like he was welcoming V.I.P.s on a luxury liner. He also seemed to drive the bus much faster than the speed limit. That might have just been the time dilation I experience while stoned, but I imagined it was because we were on a special bus that was allowed to go faster. And, because it’s a shuttle for the rail line and not an ordinary bus, the stops were very far apart and so it seemed more like an express train.
At most of the airports I’ve been to, the area around them is a sort of futuristic “utopia”. The surrounding land is completely flat out of necessity, of course, and the only things in sight are sometimes futuristic buildings or distant trees. It can look as if the runways stretch on forever. As you get closer to the airport itself, it’s all concrete and steel and glass and ramps and millions of signs about which way to go, like a benevolent Big Brother was helping you get to where you needed to be.
I went to get a coffee and a pastry at a kiosk. There was an unusual looking pastry behind the glass, so I asked the barista what it was. She wasn’t sure, and there was no little placard for it. She reached under the counter and pulled out a deck of placards and began going through them. With the time dilation, this seemed to take forever, and I kept saying, “It’s cool, don’t worry about it,” but she was determined to find it. After she had identified it (it wasn’t anything I wanted), I pointed at yet another unidentified item.
| ME: | Is that a chocolate chip muffin? |
| HER: | (not being sarcastic) Does it look like a chocolate chip muffin? |
| ME: | Well, it’s either chocolate chip or blueberry, I can’t tell from here. |
| HER: | (peering at it) Hmm ... |
| ME: | Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll take it, whatever it is. |
| HER: | You’re sure it’s a chocolate chip muffin? |
| ME: | No, but I’ll take it anyway. |
| HER: | Well, if you say it’s a chocolate chip muffin ... |
I knew I was stoned, but was she stoned too? Or just new at the job? I couldn’t be sure.
I sat very close to a ticket counter. At first I thought I heard the sounds of construction, but it was the sound of luggage moving on the metal conveyor belts. Grr-rrrrr clunk thunk bonk. Sometimes it sounded like I was in a strange bowling alley. Other times it sounded like the deepest note on a bass harmonica.
A couple of announcements also gave me the giggles from mis-hearing them (passenger names have been changed):
| “Would Joan Baker please return to Henry’s cabin for a left-behind item.” ... and ... “Would passenger Evan Marsan please come to ticket counter 2B, for passenger luggage and suspense.” |
The first announcement was actually calling Ms. Baker back to Henry’s Tavern, but the way I heard it, it sounded like she was having an assignation with Henry in his cabin and left her panties or something behind. As for Mr. Marsan, what the heck was the suspense going to be? Would the counter agent say, “Here’s your luggage, Mr. Marsan—GASP! WHAT’S THAT BEHIND YOU?!” I really had no idea what had actually been said.
After a while, I caught the bus home. I was feeling mellow, feeling like the world was at peace. I wondered if I were only capable of good, happy thoughts while stoned, so I dictated this into my phone:
| [Riding] the bus home and looking outside and thinking that everybody and everything seems so nice today and I thought, am I even capable of an evil thought while I’m stoned? KILL EVERYONE! KILL EVERYONE! Lol |
After reaching home and having dinner, I settled in for my usual evening of media:
Battle Beyond the Stars, dir. Jimmy T. Murakami, 1980
Tokyo Pig, dir. Shinichi Watanabe, 1997-1998
Two episodes: “Lookout! It’s a Cookout!” and “Pigs on Ice”
Midnight Parasites, dir. Yōji Kuri, 1972
Evil Under the Sun, dir. Guy Hamilton, 1982
This is my favorite of the big screen Poirot films. An all-star cast camping it up on a beautiful island while murder is afoot. Having seen it quite a few times already, most recently just a couple of months ago, I wondered if I might get a little bored watching it again so soon. Solution? I divided the movie into roughly ten-minute segments, and heavily processed each segment with a variety of effects, including saturation, posterization, temperature change, motion blur, delayed superimposition, and glow for the video, and tremolo, reverb, distortion, and various delays (echo, reverse-echo, bouncing ball delay) for the audio. The result? Something that ranks with my Cozzilla-ized version of Gigantis The Fire Monster (aka Godzilla Raids Again! And while these are all relatively simple effects, watching it while stoned, it was as if a nuclear holocaust had occurred: in some scenes, the sky and sea flashed and flickered as though radioactive, and glowing ghosts walked around and spoke. Posterization made the actors look like they’d been drenched in blood or skinned alive. Here are a few excerpts:
The trippiest audio effect was the bouncing ball delay, which sometimes extended to several seconds. This made the characters, particularly Poirot, sound like they were talking incessantly. Another audio effect made the dialogue unintelligible, and everyone sounded like Daleks trying to cough up furballs.
The Process of Weeding Out, Black Flag, 1985
Live at Jazz Spot Combo 1975, Itaru Oki Quartet, 1975
