I felt driven to post this self-portrait after being seduced by Gordon into creating myself on weeworld - so this is Wee Me, if you like. I waste enough time online as it is, so I won't be using the site for social interaction, but I had fun putting myself together while I was talking on the phone. (It's called multitasking)Actually I don't want to talk about that at all. I wanted to explore, briefly, the use of the spoken word as compared to singing in expressing emotional or spiritual truth. I think that Scots in particular find it hard to express certain states of mind because the accent either sounds false (think Gordon Brown trying to please Middle England) or unsuitable for the situation. But if we sing, especially when we are singing liturgical music, we have the tongues of angels. Accent is subsumed into making a beautiful sound and self-consciousness vanishes. That's how it was this morning in Holy Trinity church, singing the Kilbride mass setting (by John McIntosh) - a real hot line, taking us out of ourselves and onto another level.
Another form of communication, in fact.
To use a perhaps appropriate phrase (in view of what follows), I cannot contain myself any longer. "weeworld" indeed! Do you realise how that sounds to one of my juvenile mentality? I thought at first reading that it must be some hitherto unknown fetishistic site for mavens of micturition. I see, however, from the little figure, that it is a site for constructing self-portraits. To coin an irreverent phrase, I can now say apophatically what it is not. I also wonder if there is a Derrida-esque site where portraits can be deconstructed. And does it matter?
ReplyDeleteI should have known better than to use that silly pic when I wanted to say something serious! But your comment *did* raise a grin - as usual.
ReplyDeleteYou should have known better than to expect anything serious from me. I leave that to your sober (in the metaphorical sense) readers. btw (see - I can talk the talk) is *did* blogspeak for did?
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed - I lack the wherewithal to use bold type in my responses. You must be cleverer than I - but then, we always knew that, did we not?
ReplyDeleteNo, dear - I'm just good at faking it.
ReplyDeleteHere's a hint: look below the Leave your comment box, and you'll find that it says something about HTML tags, and gives examples. If you put the b (inside arrows, as shown; no spaces) before a word or phrase, it will embolden it. To stop the effect, put the same b-in-arrows (but with a forward slash before the b; again no space) after it. The tags don't appear in the finished article. I had to do it in the above clumsy way, because this editor did silly things (it being a mere computer and used to dealing too literally with everything, which is my excuse for GIGO) and emboldened my text without showing how the trick is done. (Who does it think it is? Marvo the bleeding Magician?) You can do the same to italicise, putting i instead of b; but not to underline, using u or ul, as I have just discovered ("Tag is not allowed" says the schoolmarm. My reply to that follows.). Viz: Sm*rt*rs*.
I suspect that the thing with the letter a may have something to do with hypertext links, 'cause if you use it, you get this.
Now it's playtime. Go and eat your piece in peace.
Oh - like this you mean! Funny - I use html to insert links, but never got round to doing anything else with it. I'm in your debt, O Mighty One!
ReplyDeleteI feel a chorus of The Rain in Spain coming on, by George!
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry that I have caused you to waste more time on-line. I would certainly agree that music gives an outlet for emotion that the spoken word just does not get near to. I don't know that it is just a Scots thing, although we are so clearly retentive in that regard!
ReplyDeleteAh, Gordon - I've had requests from two facebook friends for links to the site, so I've obviously wasted time for some purpose after all!
ReplyDelete