Thursday, June 19, 2008

A Golden Voice

Radio has always been more graphical to me than visuals or TV. Particularly commute time radio using the mind's idle time while the body is locked inside a car. Pictures worth a thousand words? Even more words in a good radio segment. Oh, and the familiarity of a sound, specially a voice. Back in the Intel Corp. days I worked long with a colleague over the phone but never saw him. Got to meet him in Germany when we met at a train station. The familiarity of the voice diluted by the face of a stranger. I ended up looking away from him during the car ride and only listen.

Driving back late from Long Beach to San Jose after the CAC2007 conference, I resorted to music to make the solo ride feel shorter, a Leonard Cohen CD in an infinite loop. It worked. 

Repetition improves a technique and also releases endorphins they say. Repetition of a menial task just frustrates. Listening to just any music repetitively for 5 hours saturates, but Leonard Cohen, the more I listened the better it got, in an addictive way.

It is remarkable that as Leonard tours the world again, his voice comes back as a familiar invariant. Thanks to a fan in Dublin, and Youtube, here is a 2008 rendition of one of the songs that drove back with me from Long Beach  The Gypsy Wife.

As a solo driver I can sing along. Try car pooling with a singing me. You'd rather walk. Oil mafias be damned, for his music I am driving solo and singing along .