Monday, July 27, 2020

Alarms sound during the afternoon prayers. I don’t know what they mean. They go off every few days. No one ever reacts to them. Each of them puts out a set of continual high-pitched squeals. They may or may not be pulsing. Beat frequencies between the close pitches might be making it seem as if they are. I hear several separate alarms, distributed around our floor of the building. They aren’t perfectly in tune with each other. As I move between them, the sound clusters change. The effect is like La Monte Young’s music in the Dream House, though not as controlled. Even standing in place, I hear different combinations. During the prayers, I shift between standing still, stepping back and forth, swiveling left and right, bending my knees, bowing, and, at one point, rapidly rising onto my tiptoes three times in a row. I listen to the changing sound as I move between positions. The alarms stop abruptly right at the end of prayers. I laugh at the coincidence. A coworker asks me why I laughed at that moment. I explain it to him. He hadn’t noticed. As I sit back down at my desk, I notice that, if I listen carefully, the hums from my twin monitors cause similar effects. I’ll try not to find that distracting.