RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories

Aural Gratification and other stories

Let's talk about sex. No? OK, maybe not. How about Politics? Religion? Oh right, that's going to be in my review for The God Delusion. Fine, we'll talk about something boring like aural memory. Maybe I'll let people know what I've been up to lately as well.

Today's RanTom Thought won't be so much of a rant or philosophical debate as just sharing something about myself. As such, it probably won't be interesting to most people :D

Aural Gratification

You know the cliché: Guys are more visually oriented than women. However, just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it doesn't have some truth. I know this will be old news to a lot of guys. Consider this a primer for my female friends. Call it Tom's Manifesto on the Visual. Or not, it's up to you. I won't pressure you.

I am very much visually oriented. Most of my artwork is visual. My memory is visual. I just prefer seeing things to hearing them.

Part of my problem with audio is Nature and part is Nurture. By Nature, I have problems with my ears. My eustachian tubes don't drain well. (For example, this winter I had blocked eustacian tubes for over a month and a half after I got sick, which meant that I couldn't equalize the pressure, so all I could hear was muffled sounds.) I had constant earaches until my mid-teens. I have certain mid-tone frequencies at which I don't hear very well. (Unfortunately, the voice of one of my best friends falls into this range.) By Nurture, I was raised by someone who repeated everything they said at least 5 times, whether you needed it or not. One gets very complacent about paying attention to audio when one knows it will be said again ad infinitum.

As I said earlier, my memory is very visual. For example, I'm bad at remembering names when I hear them. Usually, the only way I can remember someone's name is if I see it written down. When I study for tests I usually rely on my visual memory. I won't claim I ever had perfect photographic memory, but it was there. (One thing most people don't realize about eidetic memory is that it often takes longer to access a memory. When you rely on visual memory, you tend to read a memory, rather than accessing a specific fact directly. So, for example, while I could have better recall on a history test, it would take me longer than other people. Think about it like a computer parsing Hamlet from JPG scans of an original copy as opposed to a simple text search from a flaky transcription.) Alas, as I've grown older, the 'photographic' part of my memory just isn't what it once was. (The negatives are getting old and brittle.)

Don't get me wrong, I love sounds and music. I think most visually oriented people have a certain -- tolerance -- for music that other people don't have. Music just stays newer for them. I know I can listen to a single CD repeatedly much longer than others can tolerate without getting bored. I just can never get interested in discussions about music, such as in DVD commentaries about a film's music. (How many movies are there in which you can hear some composer say something like "This was a very emotional scene. It was very tricky to score." Where's the originality?) On the other hand, I love commentaries on foley editing. Does that seem like a contradiction? Not really. Foley enhances the visual. Foley effects very specifically relate to the visual images. Music scores, on the other hand, can be completely disengaged from the visual content. (It's known as a Soundtrack CD.) (Incidentally, this is what started today's RanTom Thought. I was watching the special features on a DVD last night and almost fell asleep during the discussion of the score.)

I have a theory that most 'educated' people tend to be aurally oriented. Your first years of school are visually oriented, focusing on reading and writing. However, higher education is oriented more towards audio. Many professors teach strictly by lecturing. If you can't learn from a class lecture, there is simply no book to fall back on. They use the excuse that there are no books covering their specific topic sufficiently, so you must take careful class notes or die. This can be a hard experience for someone visually oriented, thus making higher education tough for eidetic individuals. (This is one reason I love subjects in which you can re-derive the content logically with a few key facts / tools.) Also, think about the activities that are typically considered high-brow vs low-brow. Low-brow activities are generally visual in nature (sports, TV, strip clubs). High-brow activities are often aural in nature (classical music, lectures, poetry readings). Of course, there are exceptions (rock concerts, art museums), but those activities often started as one and switched to the other. (classical music concerts eventually evolved into rock concerts. Scandalous nude paintings became todays 'high art'.)

So, if you're a female friend and you're wondering why I don't call as often as I write, just remember it's because I'm visual baby! :) On the other hand, I do like the sound of a female voice -- don't get me wrong. You'll just stick in my memory longer if you write it down. :D (Even longer if it includes a nude photo, although I may forget the actual conversation then. Ok, scratch 'may', try 'probably will'. Or 'definitely will'. Mmmmm.. nude women. What was I talking about?)

Discuss! Tell me about your own experiences.

Other Stories

So... What have I been doing in the past month? Aside from taking pictures and um... listening to the cicadas, I've been quite busy.

Stump in Moraine Hills State Park. No sounds here, just visuals. Where did the cicadas go? Oh no! They must be plotting their final onslaught!

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one. I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend. I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before. Moraine Hills State Park was nice. I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas! Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park. I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park. (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.) One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching. Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home. Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in. I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school. So I decided to do some research and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back. I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one to the right. (Ha! And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have contextual relevance, didn't you? :P )

'Research' sketch. And no, I didn't say 'oral', I said 'aural'.

At work, we have new students at both places I work, so part of my time has been in showing them how to use the software we use. Speaking of jobs, I've been cut back to 1/2 time at Argonne until the end of the fiscal year since someone (who's not working on the project) charged over 100 hours of senior staff time to the project I'm on, which means they no longer have funding for me. (Which means 1/4 time since my position is 1/2 time to begin.) Fortunately, I have the work at Unilab to take up the slack. It does mean I have less free time since I spend more time traveling, and it means I can't be on the 'net as often.

I finished reading The God Delusion recently. I'll post a review on it sometime soon. I also posted a review of the movie Lady in the Water the other day. Currently I'm reading the Elric Saga.

Discuss! Tell me what you've been up to.

-- Tometheus (talk) 23:11, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Addendum

• The night before I was to take the car back to the rental location, the front passenger tire went flat on me. Fortunately I was 2 blocks from a gas station, so I could pull in there and change the tire. After taking it off, I found that the tread had worn down to the steel belting. eek. (Yes I can change a tire. See, I'm not completely useless!) While changing my tire, I noticed the rental's jack was bent. I went into the gas station to borrow one and they didn't have one. I asked a sheriff who was sitting in the neighboring parking lot and he told me that they weren't allowed to carry jacks anymore! (!?!?) I went into an auto parts store in the shopping center and they didn't have one either! Doesn't anyone carry jacks anymore???

• This 'break' at Argonne was probably a good thing from a certain point of view. Work was wearing me out. I sometimes get up at 6am and don't return home until 10pm. Working 6 days a week gets old after a while :D

• Study: In sexy shots, men look at faces first

-- Tometheus (talk) 22:08, 21 June 2007 (CDT)