slow down

from the raven:

“Slow down,” say Simon and that other guy, and so did a bunch of other artists this weekend at Pomona College in a colloquium on the effects of the Information Age on human concentration.

This is light artist James Turrell, who likes to make light “inhabit a space so fully that it changes our perception of our surroundings.” According to the story, it can take hours to fully appreciate one of his installations. Another artist at the shindig, composer Pauline Oliveros, is a proponent of “deep listening,” where she asks the audience to “get inside a sound and let it resonate through their bodies until they can no longer separate themselves from the surroundings.” She plays slow, hypnotic trance-accordian music that can take a half-hour to get through one song. Does anyone have enough time for this kind of thing?

If you're like me, the idea of pausing in the mad rush of life to take in an experience at extreme leisure seems almost blasphemous, and strongly tempting.