Day and night I have been thinking about noise(s) and sound. Where I live, they have been repairing the natural gas pipes that are everywhere below ground and sometimes the hammering of the giant drill they use is so intense that it feels like my whole body becomes it - no longer corporeal, just molecules of sound, hanging together in the air.

Everything about the city is sounds - I went to a talk (!) earlier this week and tried to keep track of what I was hearing besides the speakers voices: the ice machine, buzzing of the blender (there was a bar in the back of the space), electricity of the projector, chairs scraping and squeaking, shoes in heels on creaky floors, breathing, pen on paper, paper rustle, pages turning, coats squishing, discrete coughs…

I find it hard to think of the words for various sounds, as I try to parse them out. The initial words often come to me in Russian (which is not usual for me) - from a different place in my mind, an earlier place.

Anyway, if you want to do this exercise - just stop where you are and close your eyes for a minute. Try to figure out what you are hearing layer by layer. Try to figure out which layers are closer to you, which are farther away. Which are sounds? Which are noises? Which are noise? What is the difference?

And HOW DO YOU DRAW ANY OF THIS?

PS the Russian word for sound is zv[ou]k (звук), and presumably the Russian word for noise is sh[ou]m (шум), EXCEPT these last two are absolutely NOT the same - noise to me is buzzy, pitchy, annoying and silvery like many small fish, and шум is massive, monolith and sepia brown.