SONIC TRANSPORTS: “BLUE” GENE TYRANNY ESSAY, PART 7

Connections Without Conclusions

Nothing makes any difference as long as some one is listening while they are talking. If the same person does the talking and the listening why so much the better there is just by so much the greater concentration. One may really indeed say that this is the essence of genius, of being intensely alive, that is being one who is at the same time talking and listening. It is really that that makes one a genius. And it is necessary if you are to be really and truly alive it is necessary to be at once talking and listening, doing both things, not as if there were one thing, not as if they were two things, but doing them, well if you like, like the motor going inside and the car moving, they are part of the same thing.[1]

– Gertrude Stein

FOOTNOTE

1. Gertrude Stein, “Portraits and Repetition” in Lectures in America. New York: Vintage, 1975, 170.

Links to:

SONIC TRANSPORTS: “Blue” Gene Tyranny Essay, part 8

SONIC TRANSPORTS: “Blue” Gene Tyranny Contents

SONIC TRANSPORTS: Contents

For more on “Blue” Gene Tyranny, see:

AGAMEMNON – The Opera

Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition

Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers

Music Essay: You Can Always Go Downtown