SubmitCross
Semantic sounds like somatic. She taps her feet against the ground, feels the salt and pepper carpet reach for her damp trainer soles. The rain has not let up all day. There is, I guess, still some room in the Programme. Maybe some afternoon later in the Festival, in the gazebo? the Programme Manager says. She takes a sip of her coffee. Excellent! The Festival Director thrusts his hands outwards, leans back in his chair. We’ll need to chat lighting. The Programme Manager makes a note. She is dutiful to her line-manager and makes a note too, although she is not sure of what. It is agreed, then: the Programme team offer slow nods in confirmation. He has chosen 4pm on a Friday for his own ease, she assumes, and their waning, their easy submission, is guaranteed. He heard about it from an Artist in the south— she was striking, so passionate! Comes from a fascinating background—a very interesting heritage, so different to what we’ve got over here. Really diverse stuff. She clenches one thigh: then the other. And no, no—he is certain. It’s semantic, not somatic. The Literature Programme Director puts her phone on the table and the tap of screen to wood conceals a sigh—she will think of a poet, who is also an academic of sorts. This, she says, should not be hard, because they all have PhDs, don’t they. The Art Programme Director will think of some artists working with sound and space. Someone will know someone, his ex, maybe—it is easy money, he supposes. And you’re sure it’s semantic? The Festival Director assures them, just once more. Let’s not dwell on semantics, ha! She gives a short laugh and it is too loud so the Programme team look elsewhere. She rubs her thumb across the back of her palm. The skin pulls, then gives. Thanks, team—and let’s try to get a range of cultures involved in this, yeah? says the Festival Director. His delight is strained, Botox allows the eyebrows only so much upwards stretch. Fab! His hands slam the table and her resting forearms take the heavy surprise. The Festival Director would like to schedule a semantic soundbath and he is really very excited.
SucceedCross
The semantic soundbath is a success. Critics call it revolutionary, a vision of a world yet unformed. It is transcendent yet profoundly and distinctly earthly. Claims for gazebos as radical spaces, through which we may think through and of and with. And in, too. Nothing quite like it. Many depart the semantic soundbath tearful. They speak of their mothers and the climate crisis. The Programme team have few words—semantic, somatic or otherwise. It is near impossible to run. Often, the high voltage bubble machine ceases, sputtering with defeat. Cellos untune themselves due to stray strips of fake fur. The Poets— who are also Academics—cannot decide which thesaurus to use and change their minds after six hundred copies have been ordered and delivered. The Artist requires participant details in advance; they send emails the morning of, forget to bcc and risk the Festival’s GDPR guidelines. No matter. Hashtag semantic soundbath finds its way on to a former DJ’s Instagram story and a Private Funder faints sixteen minutes into the session, waking to announce a two-fold increase in his annual donations. The Festival Director is delighted. A triumph of the English language—and every other language—the critics are calling it.
This excerpt is from a work-in-progress.