Thursday, January 31, 2008
Birdsong and Buffalo
Last night, I had the great pleasure of falling asleep to the sound of birdsong. I'd found it, by chance, where the defunct OneWord Radio used to be, and I was delighted. Sadly, it had gone by the time I first awoke, a couple of hours later. Why, though, isn't there a birdsong channel on radio? It would certainly get listeners - in fact, I believe when birdsong is used as a test transmission, or to keep a channel open, it can get more listeners than the programmes. Television could adopt the same approach too - what could be more restorative than watching, say, a field of cows grazing, or sheep on a hillside? I remember sitting in a 'home cinema' in a TV showroom in New Jersey (don't ask), watching a channel entirely devoted to footage of buffalo grazing on a prairie - the most perfectly restful TV I ever saw. Who needs programmes?
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Aha,so you're the one who buys all of those fish tank/open fire DVDs.
ReplyDeleteIt's a small step from that to watching Big Brother inmates sleeping, I fear.
''in fact, I believe when birdsong is used as a test transmission, or to keep a channel open...''
ReplyDeleteI think that's probably just tinnitus...
That wasn't birdsong it me at choir practice...
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I've thought for some time now that the problem with telelvision was the progammes - and, of course, the inevitable and infuriating trailers for them.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the euthanasia scene in "Soylent Green."
ReplyDeleteI would love to have a channel like this. I don't know if you're from the UK or not but when they show the live streaming of Big Brother, they sometimes run ambient sounds to silence out conversations for 'legal reasons'. The noises are as if someone has stood in a quiet part of a town and pressed record. You can hear birds, planes going over, trains in the distance, bees buzzing. I don't like Big Brother but late at night the ambient noises is great for dropping off to sleep (until they talk again which kind of ruins the effect!)
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