The Sound of One Train Colliding

It was an eventful trip. I caught the Northlander for South River this morning.

I was sitting in the first car behind the engines. This particular engineer blew his whistle a lot. Thinking that I could use a good train whistle in my sound collection, I took out my mike and stood in the vestibule between the engine and the first car.

I had been recording for about 3 minutes when the train came to a stop. In retrospect, I can remember bracing myself just a bit .. the train must have put its brakes on quickly, but it was still a very smooth stop. I kept recording until the train came to a complete stop and got the thumping of one car on another and (I think) some squealy brake sounds.

I went back to my seat. A minute or so later, one of the crew came on the P.A. and said we would be delayed because there had been an accident. That was a little spooky -- the only five minutes I recorded on the train would have captured the changing sounds of the train as the impact was happening.

I haven't listened back to the recording yet -- I am wondering if the engineer was blowing the whistle even more than usual in that space and time. I wonder if I can detect the moment of impact.

I am also wondering if I will be able to listen to that bit of recording and use it in sound pieces without conjuring up the associations of having been in an accident. I'm sure it will sound different to me than it will to anyone else listening .. I know the larger context and they don't. (Which is true of any recording we make -- for the person who created the recording, there are many different associations which wouldn't be there for other people.)

And then of course I went into journalistic mode, and got the story from the train crew. Seems that the person in the car is okay -- the train either clipped the front or the back of the car, sending it flipping over. But he's alive. Good thing his timing wasn't a split section off or he would have been right in the path of the train. And the story wouldn't have had a happy ending.

It was a long train trip. The crew was all shook up so in addition to waiting while the police investigated at the scene of the accident, we had to wait in Bracebridge while Ontario Northland brought in a new crew from North Bay. The new conductor told me that there is always a crew change as soon as possible after an accident. This is a good thing .. I can't imagine what it must be like to be an engineer and know you're going to hit a car. And not being able to do anything about it.

I'm glad everybody's alright.

The technological universe expands!

This is my first audioblog post. Had to try it out to see if it works. So if you want to hear my voice, just hit the Play arrow.

Now I have to think of creative audio I can post over the telephone. Maybe I'll read a poem next time.

The Birds

Hi friends -- I am in Toronto this week. Had a good though challenging time in Hamilton last week .. in the end, the good times outweighed the challenges.

This week I am in Toronto doing a guest Radio Art deejay stint at the Radio without Boundaries conference. This morning I was at my sister Di's place and went for a walk in High Park. A couple of people along the edge of the pond warned me to watch out for the red-winged blackbirds because they were dive-bombing people. The guess is that this is a critical day in nesting season and they are trying to warn us away. What they'd do is swoop down on people's heads, grazing their hair as they did it. One came after me but I was able to duck.

And speaking of ducks, I saw eight adorable little ducklings. It was a good day for birdwatching. I didn't have my camera with me so couldn't take any pictures but I will try to upload some visuals when I am in South River next week. The Blackfly festival has started .. oh joy. Oh well, it's still awfully nice up there, blackflies notwithstanding.

Packing and Unpacking

Well, time for the official "on the road" part of my blog to come back. I tell all my friends, this is the best way to keep up with where I'm going to be when. And I can also refer back to it myself when I find myself asking "so where am I going today?" Or even "where I am I right now?"

I have left Windsor. Might be going back .. they'd like me to teach 2 courses next January. Radio Broadcasting and also Sound Design. Which is cool -- sound design means I get to teach some composition, which is the whole artistic side of things. but that's not until January and there are a lot of miles to go before I get to that point.

I am at my friend Ellen's in Hamilton until Friday. Ellen is a poet and has also graciously allowed me to keep my stuff in her attic. So every time I come to visit Ellen, I get to visit my stuff.

And also unload more of my stuff that I just can't carry around. I'm taking off for Toronto, South River, Ottawa for brief visits and then for Vancouver for the next few months. I am living out of a backpack -- and the backpack is still too full.

So I'm trying to figure out what I really need, rather than what would just be nice. Do I really need to bring all of my long dresses ... sorry, the hats will get crushed ... two pair of jeans really are necessary because what if I fall in the water .. that cute little black dress can come with me because it's little and very versatile. A couple of pair of earrings don't take up much space and they dress things up. Three week supply of underwear is a little excessive. And I've recently started wearing makeup again .. I am starting to acquire enough face paint to be a supermodel. I'm in radio, I remind myself. This is not necessary.

There's an art to travelling light in this world .. I'm still getting the hang of it.

Write to me! Helps keep me company on the road!