Rather what this is, is an opportunity to read to you something I've
written ie it's an opportunity to bring my spokenword
to bear on my writtenword.
I assert the true
transformationalart form
is
face to face
speaking and listening ie the domain of the spoken
word.
Writing
and reading is only a not so close approximation. I've distinguished
this divide, if you will, repeatedly in these
Conversations For
Transformation.
As long as I keep telling the truth about it, there's no integrity
violation in what could be misconstrued as attempts to pass
off the written
word
of
these essays
as the authentic domain ie as the authentic milieu of
transformation.
Suggestions and requests have been made many times during these past
ten years for me to record myself reading
Conversations For
Transformation
then to provide the audio from links in each
essay's
webpage,
and as audiobooks etc. It's an attractive idea. But it's
one I've
eschewed
ongoingly in the past and which I continue to
eschew
today.
Here's why.
While it really is an attractive idea, it's simply not
pragmatic - and it's not pragmatic
paradoxically
enough given the flexible nature of the medium in which these
Conversations For
Transformation
come alive: the
internet.
The
internet
provides a flexibility way beyond that which printed materials and
books provide. I exploit this flexibility fully. It gives me the
opportunity to update, amend, refine, and perfect
essays
many, many times over after they're published - a freedom which
chiseled in stone printed materials and books don't give.
Updating the text of these
essays
on the
internet
is one thing when changing as little as a single
word
here or a subtle phrasing there. It makes the difference between
acceptable communication and scintillating communication.
But it's something else entirely to then re-read and re-record the
whole
essay
every time if (as is often the case) only one or two of its
words
are changed, in order to maintain
congruency
between
its audio and written forms.
For this reason I maintain
Conversations For
Transformation
in the written form only, adding the qualifier that the written
word
is only a not so close approximation to the spoken
word
ie the written
word
is only a not so close approximation to the authentic milieu of
transformation.
This completes it for me.
That said, I got the idea of recording myself reading
Conversations For
Transformation,
not from suggestions and requests to record them, but from
Werner.
Werner
and I sat
face to face
on chairs directly opposite each other during a private
tête à
tête.
He asked about my life. I shared what was going on. When I'd done that,
I asked if there was anything I could do for him. After a pregnant
pause he said "Yes. Read to me.".
My experience of reading
A House On Franklin
Street
to
Werner
reaffirmed what I already knew, which is this: the way I sound
to myself when I'm writing
Conversations For
Transformation
isn't the way I sound to myself when I'm reading them, and it's
certainly not the way I sound to myself when I'm speakingtransformation
in my day to day
face to face
conversations.
I discovered I can read a piece of my writing, sounding exactly as if
I'm reading a piece of my writing (I made some recordings which sounded
like this, then discarded then) ... or ... I can read a
piece of my writing, sounding as if I'm speaking
transformation
with you in a day to day
face to face
conversation. Going for the latter calls me to
rigorously
distinguish my speaking
voice
as the
instrument
of
transformation.