Numinosum Radio

Who are the Big Hat Doctor People? Ask them that when you talk to them next.[for acoustic/electric guitar, nettles & synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

: I should set this in the present tense : One theorem : I meet or am going to meet another man. This is a man who is trustworthy. We pass each other, walking in our separate directions, acknowledge each other with a nod and a slight smile. We could be the same man. He is wearing a suit, and in that he is different from me (in that I've worn a suit, for real, once in my life – and that seems a mistake now, to have worn that suit ever). The situation is a living room that is crowded with detail. It is no fancy living room – middle class, average in a way of the middle class in that it has nice things, but nothing that stands out. Nothing ostentatious. But is it crowded with detail, a sofa, a coffee table, there is green vegetation, there are people coming and going – quite a lot of them in fact. But these are all background people. They're vague, see-through, no one stays. It is bright near the high window, where the sunlight comes in through, and I can see what must be the branches of deciduous trees outside. But beyond the sunlight beam, there is dark. It's like a tunnel or a warehouse of dark. People come out of the dark and they go back into it.The man in the suit and I pass each other some distance from the scene of the living room, back towards the dark, half-enshrouded by it. He is leaving the scene of the living room, while I am coming toward it.[For word generator, guitar, field recording, blandishments] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

The moment at which all lights pass through all other lights.[for hm-hm-hmmmm] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I'd been let off a bus at a stop near a small town late at night. It was dark, and there were really no sources of light to be found on this two-lane road that led towards the town itself. My goal was in town, a place to which I had some old connection, and where now I had some kind of personal business that needed to be dealt with. The bus had let me off well outside the town proper, and I had maybe a few miles to walk through the dark, and now also the elements, as it had started to rain. I didn't much mind that it was raining, or that I was underdressed for this weather. I would run the distance of the long, straight road, and by running, though this may not itself keep me dry, it would offer some other form of protection. Maybe. It was yet to be tested, and I wasn't sure my premise was correct, but it seemed that should work. I was also quite sure that I would encounter people, or maybe just one person, along this road in the form of oncoming traffic. Someone would for certain see me as they drove past – I just knew this to be the case, and there was nothing for it but to be seen by them. I could already envision in my imagination the twin, round headlights of the approaching car, and of it driving past in the opposite direction.[for just intonation] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Numinosum Radio episode 167: sleep progressionsNear the bathrooms I found a large cockroach hanging out. Just sitting there in the path. Sitting? Standing? Just there in the path. “Hey, buddy,” I said, “what're you doing?” No response. I considered nudging it with my shoe to see if it was alive, but figured that would just be rude, so didn't.[for electric guitar, electric guitar, electric guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

This was not simply frustrating – it was exhausting. It was utterly dispiriting. It seemed that any direction I tried to move in was blocked, inexplicably. What's more, there seemed to be a definite reason why it was blocked, but I was going to be the last to know what that reason was.[for electric guitar, synth, and fishwalk] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Ants / they can't get /Across the wiresSo they follow / the wires' / curve[for cello, small dogs, acoustic and electric guitar, drum & small dogs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Murky were the eyes that fashioned the faceAnd murky again was the face. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

and still burst is (to) that which resolves[for electric guitar in just intonation and drum] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Is that what we're up to now, drawing fishes from milk?[for synth, electric guitar, the trains and demolition]#dronemusic #electroacoustic #experimentalambient #ambientmusic #experimentalmusic This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

It seems to me a reclamation of the animal, the somatic, the body and its directives. And its inherent friendliness.[for electric guitar, cello, and two small button-dogs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

[…] But Tobias had just confirmed for me something that I'd been casting about for, whether I realized it yet or not: that there was congruence between what I'd read in Lily's journals and the stories carried around about in the minds and memories of those she described. Were they the same? As in, one-to-one, the ratio of fact to text? Was that even a question that could be answered? Was it one that fundamentally meant anything? In the day-rooms of our hearts, as in that moment, it did not.[for electric guitar, cello, drum, and fishwalk] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

A fourth belonging of the serrated eye.[for drum, electric guitar, gherms, rhizoma] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I don't need to be up in the air with screaming. No.[for synth, electric guitar, cello] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

The brains are breaking up there where they look.(Once again, much thanks to Brona Martin and the Sound and Image Research Centre, University of Greenwich, London, for the use of the Buchla Easel, and to Katie Chatburn for use of the Shruti Box, which fit so well together, reconfigured by heaping, and not by harms.)[for shruti box, buchla easel, electric guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

More than other.More if than other.More than if other.More than if.More if,Other.(Thanks to Brona Martin and the Sound and Image Research Centre, University of Greenwich, London, for the use of their Buchla Easel, and to Katie Chatburn for use of her Shruti Box. Thanks to CAMP for use of the drum kit, and for hosting us for a wonderful two weeks. And many thanks also to the source of the voice.) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I didn't belong and I knew it, and as I naturally and inevitably separated myself from the crowd on the sidewalk, my sight was limited by the atmospheric haze, which obscured much of the terrain – the buildings, the bridges, the traffic – making it appear as something very different from what it had been: from crowded urban center to deserted shore in an instant. I knew it to be an illusion, but it was an illusion so complete I couldn't help but believe myself actually there.[for synth, electric guitar, cello, and drums] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I approach the island with its marshland grasses and reeds, standing at the prow of a slow-moving canoe in the sun. Though it is only a narrow waterway that separates this island from the mainland, still, it is an island, distinct. People don't live here. Animals do, but not people, yet I'll be staying for a while. It is the island both of healing and of wounds, because the two are the same in this place. It's where I come to get the medicine. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

In the dream of my childhood street, I think there were no shadows, and that strikes me as wrong, off, as odd. Maybe it's the point. But my childhood seems to me as if it were only shadows, at least as I remember it. Not literally, of course, but… What is this neon-bright and ultra-high sunlight at noon? These flowers all explosions of color? Reds, yellows…[for piano, electric & acoustic guitar, for harms and the harms, tape, trifle, trope] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Why are persons? [Person; field of proximal resonance.][for sine wave oscillator, cello, dvina, stereo field, tape] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Also wondering about the teleology of scorpions, and why they're so good at dying. I mean, they really are good at it. And then getting reborn…[for electric guitar, cello, & sine wave oscillator] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

_______ raccoon got under the _____. __ pulled off the panel to the ____, having moved _____ the bricks holding it __ place.[for electric guitar, cello] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Bear has no insides.[for electric and acoustic guitar, synth, speck, speckle, the witnessing of it] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Washed clean, like nothing. I feel like nothing. That's just fine.[for guitar, synth, and stillness within movement] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

With the urgency of birds.[for guitar, ears, hair, and flight] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

It feels cruel. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

And no, I don't want to go anywhere or talk to anyone.{for acoustic and electric guitar, noise floor, stereo fields, synthismickens, blaubait] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

You know. When you're an alien. When you see with your eyes closed.[for field recording, narrative voice, synth, electric guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Moments. And other moments. It becomes difficult to speak.[For guitar, synth, formant oscillator, Caribbean cruise, killers on the Caribbean cruise, and column] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Some, in stickhouse, the.[for guitar, clatter, glass shard, synth, & suchness] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I am / they are / the killers of form.[for gilding, glitter, for synth, forms, acoustic guitar, and forms] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Halfway held, and then halfway made something of.[for acoustic guitar, synth, boiling or steaming] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Among the other things I'd neglected to learn, or learn proper, was the use of the dead-body voice. This will not be my mistake going forward.[for acoustic/electric guitar, synth, speck, speak, and moments] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

“The pale ones. I think you know just how pale they can be.”“Very pale.”“Very pale, yes.”[for electric guitar, synth, plinth, pale, somber & soak] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

if only in the fact[for voice, cello, electric guitar, synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

You are in your dead-body phase while you're undergoing. Things.And I should be here in the way of the line-splitters.And I think that I am.[for electric & acoustic guitar} This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

I will be fine, it will be fine, we'll deal with it.[for cello, dvina, electric and acoustic guitar, synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

The featherless hatchling of some baby bird was crawling under the skin of my right arm. I could see the bulge of its beak as it crept steadily toward the elbow joint. Somehow, I simply knew that it was a just-hatched – or really never-hatched – baby bird, and could envision the rest of it, though it was only the beak that was visible, bulging up through the skin. It frightened me; I couldn't stop its progress, though I pressed down on the skin and muscle of my forearm, as if that might convince it to stop. Should I smash the creature? Should I break its fragile beak? I wasn't sure that I could even do so if I tried, though it seemed perhaps possible. But I was worried about then having the corpse of this young, and never-even-properly-born, creature still stuck in my arm, having no way to get it out. I knew besides that it was already dead; that this could in no way be a live baby bird, but more like an unborn embryo, its egg prematurely cracked. Yet it crept along incessantly, apparently very strong. I tried alternately ignoring it – though I could feel it crawling in there – and then to block its progress, squeezing my arm, but I stopped short of actually trying to crush the bird. Still, it crept along, indifferent to my efforts, making its inexorable way up toward my shoulder.[for synth, electric guitar} This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

The ground floor room is someplace where I'm not supposed to go. Inside, it is a mystery to me, but my father seems to know it. He, at least, knows what it contains. And though I'm not to go there myself, he promises that one day we can take a “vacation” there, and he will show it to me. I imagine it as some very nice place, full of interesting things to do and friendly people. Alternately, he leaves me with the impression that the ground floor is a frightening place, full of dangers and depravity, and that's why it's so important I never go there by myself. Yet he never takes me. The years pass, and now I'm the age that I am now. My father has been dead for a long time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

The only thinghe knew for surewas that noneof itwas his idea.[for electric guitar, field recording, synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

…the stuff so old, I don't even know what it is, but can only feel my way around the edges of it, see it's tracks through the dirt.[for electric guitar, cello, synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

What is awful about this is how utterly normal it is. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

“Rather than putting things together, let's take them apart,” says the man with no eyes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

A time of life / of simply having answers / to questions you'd never thought to ask.[for field recording, acoustic & electric guitar, piano] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Who is Mr.?[for synth, electric guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Reeds and tall grasses throughout.[for field recording, synth, cello] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

This kid is just annoying. Though he's got his own prominent role, now he's shadowing me on stage, hovering around and peering over my shoulder at the card in my hand as I'm trying to read it. Though I've been doing this part for a while, tonight I simply can't manage. I stumble through the sentences and flub it terribly. It isn't necessarily because of this kid who's bugging me (though the kid is definitely bugging me), but for some more personal reason. Finally, in utter frustration, I give up, saying, “A*****e. You want to read this? Then f*****g read this. Because apparently I can't.” Someone in the audience laughs, but I don't know if it's because he thinks that's part of the play, and it's funny, or because he sees what's really happening to me, and that's funny. But I've just had it – I am done. I throw the card at this obnoxious kid and stalk off through the auditorium. The kid can have the part if he wants it. I'm f*****g sick of all of it.[for cello, electric guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Armies of collapse. [for electric guitar, piano & acoustic guitar] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

Armies of soft derangement.[for dvina, cello, electric guitar, pressure0Oo] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

[for electric guitar, synth] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com

[for electric guitar, cello] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com