SXSW, a most lovely disturbance

In preparation for the upcoming SXSW orgy of toxins, filth, and sound, I've been doing a bit of thinking about those three components, attempting to understand their delicate necessity and devise of plan of surviving each of them. I'll start with sound.

The vibration of sound is ethereal and powerful, even if quiet and subtle. There are some sounds that can take your breath away or leave you panting with excitement. A baby's first cry, the whisper in your ear "I want you," a tornado passing overhead can give you chills. Some of the most deafening sounds I've heard are silence...when the fight is over, when the last guest leaves.

As everyone knows, I live for sound and have a carefully cataloged brainfile of sounds I treasure and those I wish I had never heard. We all do I assume, though how carefully filed seems to be personal preference and aptitude for self awareness.

Mine are usually filed by emotional response. The feeling I get seems more memorable than even the sound itself. To be mentally shoved by sound requires a reaction. But, to have a vault of sounds and how they have already made me feel has proven a very useful tool. I often know whether to ignore it, run from it, or soak it up.

This makes sense because sound, by scientific definition, is a disturbance. Disturbances are memorable. Disturbances can't easily be ignored. Disturbances change you, sometimes forever. Tom Robbins, one of my favorite authors, probably said it best:

Perhaps sound carries farther across time than across space.

Looking forward to a week of music and all the ways it will make me feel, I can't help but be excited and a little scared. Being 'disturbed' for that many days in a row requires a steadiness I often lack. But, at the very least, there may not be a more comforting sound than your name being called by the friend you couldn't find at a show. That is SXSW. And it is a most lovely disturbance.