Seagulls are gulling, loudly
Notes, note, noted, a note, note down, not(e)ice, ^me
Notes, I think is a strange word (actually I don’t think about it at all, really); one of those unassuming words that link all the senses.
smell
taste
sound
but not touch
and only maybe sight
This strange word that sits beside the complexities of amber, musk, patchouli, bergamot, neroli, vetiver, sandalwood, (I must admit I have no idea how to describe these to you),and the subtleties of red fruit, orange blossom, dark chocolate, smoke, peat, tannins, pears, stone fruits, velvet,and the exactitude of c, d, e, f, g, a, b, ♯♭ (lalalalala do re mi fa so la ti do) (none of which I can admit to hearing) and the intimacy of a scribbled something or other to remind yourself of some errand or the other, (phone number, thing to buy, world’s next big great amazing idea)
Notes, which is different to a sketch, but maybe a sketch is a note if
if
if it is meant to remind you of something
if it can point something out?
if
if
if
it were written
(maybe)
A note is
noun
noun: note; plural noun: notes
1. a brief record of points or ideas written down as an aid to memory."I'll make a note in my diary"
- a short comment on or explanation of a word or passage in a book or article; an annotation."see note iv above"
2.
a short informal letter or written message."I left her a note explaining where I was going"
- a short official document certifying a particular thing."you need a sick note from your doctor"
- an official letter sent from the representative of one government to another."the Secretariat sent a diplomatic note to the embassy protesting about the sale of arms"
3.
BRITISH
a banknote."a ten-pound note"
- a written promise or notice of payment of various kinds."a credit note"
4.
a single tone of definite pitch made by a musical instrument or the human voice."the last notes of the symphony died away"
- a written sign representing the pitch and duration of a musical note.
- a key of a piano or similar instrument."black notes"
- a bird's song or call, or a single tone in this."the tawny owl has a harsh flight note”
5.
a particular quality or tone that reflects or expresses a mood or attitude."there was a note of scorn in her voice"
- any of the basic components of a fragrance or flavour."the fresh note of bergamot"
but a note is a fuzzy thing, or rather, it is a definite thing that sits on top of other fuzzy things, because the things that a note denotes, is almost always a shorthand, a symbol, the edges you add to a big blob of something kind-of a unit, (something something something)
notes would you say, (I am saying), are points?
like imagine a blob of colours, and as the colours mix together, they lose their edges, they become one.
and now blue and green are some haze of blue-green-purple-red-yellow; blueish, greenish, purplish, reddish, yellowish; bleenpuredyell;
notes are points
amongst the bleenpuredyell you say there is blue, and there is green, and there is purple, and there is yellow. and in some angles, some portions, some light sources, you see the blue but not green, the purple but not red; sometimes you see blue amongst the greige (and you are told you must make your palette more *sophisticated* so you pretend and you say ah yes, the purple, the red, the yellow. maybe there was never any yellow. but who is to know? and even if there was, if you cannot see it in the end result, did it ever matter that at one point yellow was in there somewhere? of course it does).
some notes are stronger, clearer, obvious. they sometimes feel too obvious to be ‘true’ notes. Peach hand cream smells like peaches, coffee smells like coffee. Coffee does not have ‘notes’ of coffee, nor peach hand cream have ‘notes’ of peaches. Of course a glass of red wine can have notes of both.
Notes in the olfactory sense, has that air of kinda, sorta, bit like, hints towards…
But even the written note, the paper note, (even more so) has that sense of plucking out of thin air, a capturing of some fleeting shifting thing, a pinning down of some abstract intangible ‘’thing’’ (just like the word thing). In spirit, taking notes does not mean write down every single minute detail (just the important bits), but rather some reductive, trimmed down, digested & digestible, variation of it,
and importantly, something that will later expand outwards and capture all those details, the peripheral bits, the whole.
bit like a stock cube, a promise that this small blob carries all the essence of the volume, time, space of a low-and-slow chicken soup, and is portable, convenient, transferable, simple.
notes are a bit like arrows, directions, pointers. in the bleenpuredyell of your brain, notes are points. bright lights amongst the greige; something to hook a wire to — as well as the switch that activates it. Notes of coffee light up all the instances of coffee scattered around your memory-web, offering it up to be matched to whatever fine glass of ruby you are imbibing at the moment. That reminder to buy milk just the same.
In this way, words, are basically notes. The mother of all notes. (i might have lost the boat here).