“But there’s another way that you could think about mathematical structure. You say, ‘I’m not going to allow myself to look inside this object. I’m going to treat it as some atomic thing, and instead I’m going to give it an identity based on how it relates to all other objects of the same type.’” Jonathan Gorard, Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal, 3/29/24

 

Some people have said that speech is music, that the most primary function of sound is the recitation of words that name things (i.e. God only needs to say ‘Be’ and it is; Adam is the mirror in which Allah sees His Names; the work of Robert Ashley). But at the same time you can’t just talk over a beat and call it music.

In mathematics—based on my admittedly extremely rudimentary understanding—SET Theory basically attempts to identify some structure by the composition of, say, the points that comprise it, whereas CATEGORY Theory instead momentarily ignores the specific points of composition and instead views the structure as a single unit (i.e. a human as an individual operating in a social milieu and not solely a compilation of red blood cells, organs, and tissue, etc), and then measures said units by its relation to other local units. 

Set Theory, to my mind, is how you would compose music if using something like a piano, where each musical line is broken down into precise notes that have static individual values themselves (12 tones, equally tempered, etc), while Category Theory would probably be useful for composing using a structure like language, where the words are comprising a melodic line, but at the same time the words themselves lack a static individual musical value. 

This is basically, at a high level, macrotonality to me—where complex recitation (erm, “rapping”) is viewed as a single wave (or line), and is then in turn measured by its RELATION to other structures in its orbit. In the macrotonal case, the wave is defined by its TIME VALUE, which is in this case syllables per minute. That value has a relationship with the normal tempo of speech (which is latent), and it also has a relation with the time values of the other active components (“beats,” “percussion,” “drum loops,” “guitar solos,” etc etc.)

The wave’s relation to time integrates it relationally into the rest of the composition, as opposed to its internal line structure or rhyme scheme. So the wave itself is operating by its own internal logics (it contains line structure and rhyme schemes, human beings have kidneys and skin cells) but within the composition itself it’s identified by its CATEGORICAL TIME QUOTIENT, which is, again, in this case expressed in syllables per minute, and is relational to other components (as well as latent normalized speech).

In other words—we’ve considered groups of tones as modes, but can’t a range of tempo be a mode as well? Existing within a degree of time can be an art as well, can’t it? Simply put: Can tempo be a modal space? This is the final entry in a trilogy I’m calling Dead In The Middle Of Little Italy Trapped In A Golden Rectangle, and it’s based on this idea that acceleration of a precise type (1.618x) is a mode, that recitation within plus-minus 5% of 377 syllables per minute is an actual mode of music. Myka 9 is a truly epic American composer. We should admit that much. 

‘We come down from Truckee surfing against that sun / As if off a great wave but in the / Wrong direction certainly the wave is frozen / Or just moving so slowly that no one can know / If you've done it though you know the feeling’  Robert Ashley, Foreign Experiences

 

‘There are no points or positions in a rhizome . . . there are only lines . . . when Glenn Gould speeds up the performance of a piece . . . he’s transforming the musical points into lines.’ Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

 

What’s the fulcrum of modernity, the fulcrum of the so-called Western world, the fulcrum of the scientific method, the fulcrum of ostensible rationalism, the fulcrum of sanity as we generally understand it if not this notion that ‘things’ can be broken down?—and not just broken down but disassembled into a more or less infinite regression? 

To us every atom is a little explanation, every subatomic particle is a tiny special meaning for us to gossip about—to us every building block of nature is a dead frog to be dissected by high school sophomores, every single conversation is something to be recalled and divided into little apple pies of intent and cause and effect, to place on our window sills overlooking our white picket fences. Musically, this trend expresses itself, at first, through musical notes—being quote-unquote ‘noted out’—notes functioning as tone-spaces, and then, eventually, the trend graduates to a concept of microtonality, where said tone-spaces regress to infinite spectrums, infinite spectrums that still contain infinite points. 

But listen. I don't want to, you know, like, get into a whole philosophical discussion behind all of this?—other people have explained it better than I could—I don’t even understand it.  But compositionally—there’s an idea that, rather than component parts, we could compose via irreducible waves, waves frozen in time, that, yeah, maybe exhibit some attributes that we can notionally attribute to them, but these attributes, they’re attributes that don’t negate the fact that the waves themselves can’t be disassembled—that they don’t actually contain infinite points. That to disassemble them is to change their essence essentially. They contain no points at all.

The compositions that comprise Body Hair Awareness Month, sure, are tethered to certain principles of measurement—namely that elements are in a more or less fractal relationship with one another, five lines per verse, 34-55 syllables per line, a mode of 377 syllables per minute—they reference concepts like word-enunciation and breath-blowing, but they don’t strictly consist of parts. These are just attributes to irreducible names. This is my understanding of macrotonality—or at least that’s how it came to me. Who am I to argue? I wrote the majority of this introduction while listening to Thou Art Lord’s “Nine Steps to Hell” on repeat.

On Incongruities & Recollection as Fabrication

Recollection of minutia as fabrication on my way to drink my face off at Needle I bought The Novelist: A Novel at Symposium the cashier was not the nicest I'd encountered—

Every center of gravity is the single center that's ever existed there are in fact infinite centers I pondered this sitting silently on a tall roof assisted by my so-called sensory organs—

 

It’s no longer the case—things have morphed to the extent that people have no actual work to complete which is maybe why the podcast industry is on the rise with such impressive growth rates and they're all sublime— 

The nationalism of the Romiosini was corrupted Romanides should have gone further east to find himself drinking scotch my glass reads ‘girlfriend’ scratch that ‘fiancée’ 

I try to achieve honesty with myself every three days perusing Rubmaps with the royal nonchalance of a British prince when unevenness is evinced that's just a ripple of triplicity 

 

Courting Caroline Ellison

Actually Giordano could have succumb to a devilish little trick his own damn self is he burning in flames of folly I’m tossing syllables onto a blockchain with the ex-boo of Sam Bankman-Fried— 

Rereading Noah’s nine hundred fifty year five paragraph creeds are they drowning in the flames of an immanent plane that extends into the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Heaven?— 

 

Troubled souls are telling us ‘Timing is everything’ but they only call at the absolutely most inopportune times you ask yourself if it’s possible you’ve become morally outraged in illogical ways 

Just maybe about matters which have jackshit to do with you?—wearing five dollar Foot Locker tees I tossed Dave Yurman rings into the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean or actually it could have been just the box 

But maybe the relevancy is out of stock timing is everything—no waiting is a logical impossibility since Biblical eras people posted up til last call and only received chlamydia 

Drinking Blended Scotch Out of Measuring Cups

Imbibing blended scotch out of measuring cups filled up with ice on a quaint Saturday night The Social bartender although polite deep down definitely held a ruthless vendetta against me 

Remembering a comment I made months ago correctly critiquing her slow Corona Light service she’s now superfluously charged me seventeen and a half bucks per glass of Mezcal 

 

Faces contorted frozen in time I chugged the cup of agave helpless but at the same time it seems so antiquated investing in things like depression and elation 

If you can’t annihilate yourself in the midst of Mineral Spring what can you do Rocco’s bar’s girth got extended the cul de sac streams with lovely ducks got a cement redo the tailor’s building is now a gas pump 

The Syrian’s spots gone too I spit on the terrible white truck after doubling back to spit on the white truck in two decades we’ll remain the exact same age the loogie on the windshield was just an illusion of change 

I (Heart) BJ in the Singular Tense

A young Korean female is wearing an ‘I (Heart) BJ’ white tee in the singular tense while waiting at the Broad Street bus stop whatever the idiocy of your youth 

It’s indubitably true that eventually it becomes something soporific and increasingly idiotic as times passes ruthlessly asking attendants for top shelf liquor 

Then quickly flickering into states of existential shock at the opulent bills received insects with telepathy hypothetically could control the cosmos we'd have no science to prove it untrue— 

 

They tried to impolitely poop on my aura probably unaware of their actual bowels I had to head a different direction we used to obsess over revenge

Press necks against walls certain substances suggest you could evade the Unseen you might think you see a demon but perhaps it’s just a generous gift? 

Juicy Couture in the Courtyard

Emerging from the condo sun baking a white crackhead is naked pulling up her Juicy Couture sweats in my fucking courtyard I carry a black trash bag glancing at her pasty asscrack 

She stares blankly back as I toss trash into a rat filled navy blue dumpster Staten Island’s shaped like the Peloponnese I enjoy vaginal cavities when they’re wet and they’re greased— 

 

On shrooms I find I’m often in tune with herbs and plants shit hit when I exited to amble toward Cranston Street dark skies fold origami-esque the tinnitus of June was architectural I guess— 

Why would you want to be in control when you could instead be out of control ‘time to come’ isn’t always linear ‘raised from’ isn’t necessarily literal 

We could consider memories recurring concurrently with current events Sunday seems different during the day sitting in utter silence at the bar.