Sonic placement

Ong still: To see, things must be in front of us. And we can only see the surfaces that are turned to us. Sight is sequential, giving us one thing after another. It is “nonsimultaneous”: “The actuality around me accessible to sight, although it is also simultaneously on hand, can be caught by vision only in a succession of ‘fixes.’”

Sounds can call me from behind, can call me to turn ( metanoia ). All the sounds that are around, from every direction, can and must come at me all at once. Sound places me, not with the world in front, but “in the midst of a world.” And thus it conveys simultaneity: “Although sound itself is fleeting . . . what it conveys at any instant of its duration is not dissected but caught in the actuality of the present, which is rich, manifold, full of diverse action, the only moment when everything is really going on at once. The ticking of my watch, the ringing of the church bell, a quick step on the floor, and the lowing of a diesel horn merge.”

Sounds places us in media res , and it likewise demonstrates my lowliness: “Auditory syntheses overwhelm me with phenomena beyond all control.”