On loss and despair

Whip the blinders off a horse, and she will go half-mad with the sudden sight

Or something like that. I'm sure there is an aphorism to that effect. I'm going long for an analogy, and the basis for the analogy is about bringing your iPod with you traveling. (The iPod, in the hashed analogy, is the blinder. I'll stumble to the rest of it, hold on.)

Why do we do this? It's about soundtracking--a peculiar ability that belongs to our generation and younger, kudos to the Sony Walkman.

Since that gadget, it's all been downhill. Taking the bus to school? The plane to Phnom Penh? The tuk tuk to Ta Phrom? Why waste your ears on the ambient tragedies of local conversation, cricket chirps, motorcycle engines, etc, when you can overdub an appropriate song for the journey? However, the Walkman, that was a halfway home: tapes were bulky; albums were cumbersome; even the best mixtape will not necessarily hit your buttons for both rainy seabus tromps and sweaty bus rides to jungle suburbs. No, it took Mr. Jobs' (get well soon!) Perfect Thing to seal the deal: with 10,000 songs in your pocket, the right tune for the job is always near at hand, and if it turns out to be the wrong choice, you can jog-wheel your ears to the right one, no waiting required.

Oh, the gnat-like attention span! The death of patience; the channel-surfing, multitasking mind! Yeah, yeah. In less than a decade, having your music library in your pocket has become absolutely essential for the merest walk down the street, let alone a three month tour through strange places. Which means that if you lose the damn thing, you are at a certain disadvantage.

So I lost the damn thing, on a bus from Melaka to Johor Bahru, and I am at a certain disadvantage. No, wait: I'm going fucking insane, and it's been two days.

I have not yet had much chance to spice my life with addictions, withdrawls, etc (thanks, zealous family!), so this is some new, cold-turkey shit for me. Suddenly, my careful collection of tools is useless: fold-out portable speakers, byzantine voltage-crunching AC bricks, noise-canceling headphones (blessed art thou, precious headphones; I'll turn on the noise buffer and listen to velveteen silence, just to wash out the crying babies on the plane, if nothing else). Dead weight without the iPod. No bow for the violin, no pick for the guitar, no toilet-plunger thing for the cornet. I am at the utter mercy of the aural atmosphere of alien surroundings.

So yeah, there's something to be said for being at the utter mercy of alien aurals, etc, obviously. I have some family friends who are professionally invested in "found sound" music (often found in kitchen utensils, actually), and between being musicians and of an older generation, they are appalled by the turn-on-and-tune-out thing. "Why would you want to cut out the natural sounds around you?" they ask. Ok, but they asked that from their home in tranquil, leafy Point Grey. There are some nefarious sonorousities happening in Malaysia, and I'm not talking about the giant wasp-horde megadrone of traffic light derby de-mufflered motorcycle engines, nor the heady purchase-inducing bhangra of sari shops. That's all fine, and indeed, there is something truly intoxicating about hearing eg. wailing mosque prayer-calls over the drone of a bustling city, among many other things. No, sound purists: backpackers don't bring headphones to zone out while exploring indigenous treasures like peacock-hued bazaars, etc. They bring them for the bus.

I've been trying to think of a cultural relativism argument in favour of being immersed in Cantopop/Thai arias/Khmer love ballads on ten hour bus rides. There is no argument. My busy mind would have found it by hour four of said bus ride, believe me. This music, if you could bottle it, could thin paint like benzine. (Though, as a conciliatory aside: MIA's "Jimmy" is lifted straight from a bollywood anthem of the same name; if you want to hear it, take a bus from Kota Kinabalu to Semporna; you will be favoured with several encores) In Learning to Live Without, I am tasked with meditation-like trials of relaxation, concentrating on the Self and divorcing the Outer, and so on. Ear plugs? They are to bus music speakers as chipboard hostel walls are to amorous neighbours (they are all French and they are fucking sound-exhibitionists, pardon the pun).

I also just miss the music. Cultural intransigence? Whatever: pop music is rarely sophisticated enough to cross cultural boundaries fluidly, let alone remain listenable after a year. The "pop" in pop is a misnomer, because sometimes "popular" implies "long-lasting" or "boundary-crossing," and quite often, local pop is neither, at home or abroad. (Again, in conciliation: everyone, everywhere, knows and generally adores Avril Lavigne; it is by Her grace that I can sell my life to my new friends as anything remotely interesting). There are a handfull of albums that are essential and intrinsic to the overland travelling experience (everyone has a different list; apparently some travel writers actually get paid to make these lists; mine is yet not formally written, though I can say in advance that it is the only accurate one). These are just as necessary as carry-on toilet paper and imodium, and without them, one develops a gradual sickness of the mind. I would love to call it "Monteverdi's Revenge," but I don't really listen to opera.

How can I have a proper solo travel odessy without Kid A? I think that's essentially what I'm trying to get at.

There are certain things--ie. Jesus phones--that you do not leave to the goodwill of tired, overworked, piss-test sobriety-verified (really!) bus drivers to submit to the lost and found. Goddamn. I hope he likes Paul Simon.