SOLD OUT
EXCERPT from Christine Hume's HUM:
Hum
But is an internal voice even a voice at all? Is it another kind of force masking itself as voice?
Swimming from Cuba to Florida, Diana Nyad, in her sixth decade, decides she’ll sing for those sixty straight hours. Neil Young, the Beatles, Janis Joplin keep monotony at bay and her in the moment. Her cadences match her pace, cause she gotta ticket to ride. But what does it mean to sing underwater? Stroke by stroke, she rides one word at a time, one line of high tide, her own siren.
Hum
To hum is also to sing with closed lips because you don’t know what the tune carries. It carries on beyond the words, leaving you—where? You want to ward away the feeling of uncertainty; you want to travel the songlines. In the ocean, in the world, on the page, you are lost. But hearing is bound more strongly to time than space—lost in blank time, time empties into your voice. The aim is not to sing the words, but to materialize a personal acoustics, to block out the prosaic commonality of ordinary song.
Hum
But is an internal voice even a voice at all? Is it another kind of force masking itself as voice?
Swimming from Cuba to Florida, Diana Nyad, in her sixth decade, decides she’ll sing for those sixty straight hours. Neil Young, the Beatles, Janis Joplin keep monotony at bay and her in the moment. Her cadences match her pace, cause she gotta ticket to ride. But what does it mean to sing underwater? Stroke by stroke, she rides one word at a time, one line of high tide, her own siren.
Hum
To hum is also to sing with closed lips because you don’t know what the tune carries. It carries on beyond the words, leaving you—where? You want to ward away the feeling of uncertainty; you want to travel the songlines. In the ocean, in the world, on the page, you are lost. But hearing is bound more strongly to time than space—lost in blank time, time empties into your voice. The aim is not to sing the words, but to materialize a personal acoustics, to block out the prosaic commonality of ordinary song.
