Friday, April 29, 2011

Bells and Calls

One of my correspondents in Frank's APA was talking about being in Malta. Malta is apparently quite Catholicy, and at one point on his visit the churches started ringing their bells simultanaeously, creating a weird and spacey sound effect. This reminded me of sitting on the walls of the castle above Tripoli in Lebanon and hearing a load of mosques simultanaeously doing the Muslim call to prayer. There was one long sustained note on which they all seemed to be unintentionally harmonising, creating a strange and otherworldy sound that cast me into unintentional direct contact with the sublime. It was on of the strangest and most fascinating experiences of my life. I know a lot of people who think that the world would be a better place if it could be expunged of religious devotion; it is experiences like that that convince me they are wrong.

An inuit panda production

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