On The Purpose Of Squid Ink

Further to the salute to Jeff Healey below, I was listening to The Science Show on radio national last night and there was an excellent interview with Oliver Sacks mainly regarding his new book about brain malfunctions and oddities regarding music (a middle-aged surgeon with no prior musical intent or ability gets hit by lightening and two weeks later becomes obsessed with Chopin to the extent that he learns piano just so he can play Chopin's work, at the expense of his marriage, and this year saw the concert debut of some chopin-like piano pieces that he has since written). Anyway, he dropped some interesting facts throughout the conversation such as less than 1% of the population has perfect pitch but over 40% of the blind population has perfect pitch. Also (and I am not sure how this is ascertained) almost everyone has perfect pitch in the first year of life but subsequently lose it… I am setting Hughie to work as we speak. What sets Ollie apart though is the ability to link all these back to the human condition… the plight of the everyman… and he used a favourite phrase of mine from Thomas de Quincy “the pressure on the heart from the incommunicable” to express why he thinks music is important, i.e. that music, and Squid Ink in particular, relieves that pressure.

If in this world there is one misery having no relief, it is the pressure on the heart from the Incommunicable. And, if another Sphinx should arise to propose another enigma to man – saying, What burden is that which only is insupportable by human fortitude? I should answer at once – It is the burden of the incommunicable.

Not sure why a Sphinx is proposing enigmas and why anyone is listening but I am sure that is this caused by my mythological ignorance.