An Audio Tour of the Casa Gaudi

I am back from Barcelona - a city I should have re-visited two years ago. One of the more interesting experiences was touring the Casa Gaudi with an audio guide - one of those dinky little DAT things that plays back a lecture about the room you are standing in at the press of a button. It's a mildly amusing toy. I was heartened to be able to hear the commentary but annoyed at it's fluffiness. Yes, Gaudi WAS a genius, yes, he did brilliantly fuse geometric and natural forms, but repeating it one hundred times more doesn't make it any more or the less true.

Gaudi always gives me a strange deja vu, as when I was a teenager, before I knew of his existence I wrote parts of an SF novel where the houses were grown, rather than built, much in the style of a Gaudi house, execept maybe made of leather and bone and fuelled by chlorophyll versus stone and sunlight. It's always odd to see something that you always thought lived only in your imagination standing there in the light of day.

I'll have to eat my words about my implant not changing my life. I went to the theatre yesterday, and for the first time in about 20 years, I understood every word of a play.

The play itself was "The Pillowman" by Martin McDonagh. It's billed as a black comedy, but I'm not sure it is. It might be more of a white tragedy. If there is such a thing, natch.

The writer used some cheap and tedious devices to pad the dialogue - characters often repeated things three times, the word "fuck" used for empathis which I find tedious from over - use in many texts

However, I'd completely forgotten the power of words to conjure up illusions in a small, dark space with the help of talented actors, and that's what this play was all about, and it did it quite well. I can't say too much without spoiling the whole thing for the causual reader of this blog (if you do exist, please say hello ;))

At last I have access to the theatre again. It feels like coming out of exile. I left the theatre with my mind fully charged and whizzing with thoughts and ideas...I don't know if they will surrvive or die. Let's find out.

Latest tuning appointment

The latest tuning appointment confirmed what has now become a routine that I am confident with, mapping my hearing by an audiogram like process, where I listening to pure tone beeps, to get frequency response, that is used to generate a program that is uploaded to my processor. The usual incremental improvment in my hearing faculties is a result.

I think I have gained as much improvement from the implant as I ever will, now. I can pick words out of conversations or announcements without lipreading, but can rarely make out a coherent whole. I can just about follow a television programme, and can hold a simple 'phone conversation. It isn't real hearing, but it's so much more functional than what I had before, there is no comparison, and I have no regrets

I also get one other bonus - I got some gadgets to try after my last appointments: adapters that let me plug my processor into a mains powered (TV/Computer), or battery-powered (CD player/iPod) device, and one also for the 'phone.

I'm looking forward to plugging myself into my PC soundcard at work. It should freak out some of my colleagues...

Shrydar

My ex lead programmer has gotten himself a blog. He sounds seriously sleep-depreived. Hope he's ok.