[tt] Frank Forman, Cochlear Cyborg, update for 2007.9.23
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Frank Forman, Cochlear Cyborg, update for 2007.9.23
This is a running diary of an operation that gave me an artificial ear and
of my relearning how to hear. What makes my case different is that I am a
keen lover of classical music and am self-experimenting on struggling to
relearn how to hear music speech and vice versa. Go down to PART ONE:
INTRODUCTION at the end to get an overview. Excuse the typos. I'm writing
all this in a file, and the spell checker insists on running through the
whole document in a seemingly random fashion, which by now is quite time
consuming. When I'm doing an e-mail it goes from top to bottom, which is
very fast. "Don't ask me why. Go ask your pop," says Dr. Seuss in one of
his books I have heard over and over again.
Sarah is my wife. Andrea Marlowe is my audiologist at Johns Hopkins. Greg
Frane is a fellow graduate of the University of Virginia who comes up for
ten minutes and helps me go through some exercises every day at work. It
was my right ear that was operated on.
Sunday (August 26): This iSong disk featuring Bach played by Glenn Gould,
together with MIDI versions of the full score (as I know realize) and up
to three simplifications, that can be sped up or slowed down and the right
or left hand removed, is fabulous. In one hour's practice alone, I am
getting noticeable improvement, now that I've really figured out how to
work it. Above C9 (512 Hz = 2^9 Hz is about the C above Middle C on the
piano; E9 would be the E above that, in my private notation), I *am*
hearing higher notes sound (subjectively) higher, though I can't (yet) say
what they are. I can't tell that C10 is an octave above C9. Now C9 itself
and keys below them often (not always) sound like chords. My ability to
detect relative frequencies is not good, and quite often a note is lower
than the previous note but it sounds higher or else like a chord. The good
news is that, through repeated watchings of the scores, C9 is more
sounding like a note, as are a few of the notes just lower. The difference
between the beginning and end of my hour-long practice session was quite
noticeable.
Monday (August 27): Sound and Beyond: I am suite puzzled that I do much
better on the consonant task than on the vowel task. I thought that
consonants were higher pitched, which is where my hearing loss is
greatest. But I should have said *was* greatest, for my pure tone hearing
loss is about the same from 250 Hz to 8 KHz. These tests involve deciding
which one of three sounds is the odd one, where the difference is a
consonant (or a vowel). You only have to say which. If you get it right,
you get the next question. If not, you will see and hear, say,
Shape-Shop-Shop. For consonants it is Todd-Tot-Tot or Game-Gabe-Game. I
missed an important one: Hers-Hers-His! (Story of a fatal snake bite: Hiss
and Hearse.)
I finished reading the entire Book of Mormon. I took it along on our
weeklong trip to Colorado as my sole book to read, so I really did a lot
of listening during that week, as I only got through a third of it. The
book is the story of a group of exceptionally good Jews whom the Lord
urged get far away from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., since it was about to be
destroyed. The Lord told them how to build some boats to carry them to
America, which they did.
If you can't listening to music very well, at least you can dream it. And
so at 11:52 P.M. I woke up after dreaming a magnificent and long cadenza
for the first movement of the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto, improvised
and played by the Christian mystic pianist, Maria Yudina, most of whose
recordings I have on tapes I made from LPs lent to me by Don Hodgman.
Alas, I woke up just before the orchestra came back on.
Tuesday (August 28): Sound and Beyond: I got 100% of the Time part of the
Word Discrimination Task. I've hit 100% before on Families and Numbers.
But have messed at least one on Animal, Food, and Color. I'm allowing
myself all the leeway I can get and so can have the choices up to four
times and take my own good time doing them. (This allows for a consistent
measure of performance over time.) There are no levels of difficulty for
this task. So if I get 100% right all the time, I'll have to stop having
the choices repeated and to answer very quickly. I've run through all the
tasks nine times now. I've spent 20 hour-long sessions now, but the actual
training time itself is not 1200 minutes but 939. The difference comes
from testing (just twice so far), reviewing mistakes, figuring things out,
and just fooling around. Considering how much of one's day and one's life
is spent fooling around, 939/1200 is remarkably good. My aim is to spend
an hour a day doing some kind of training. This will include heavy
listening.
Subway ride: I stood near a young couple, much in love, with the man
stroking the woman's hair repeatedly, chatting merrily away. I wish I
could report that I'm hearing better now, but in this once department, I'm
really not. I peer over the top of a book I'm reading, so as to not seem
to be staring. I usually stand up to train myself not to have to grip onto
a seat or railing as the train goes around corners. Some of these curves
are pretty bad. The worst I know is Union Station-Rhode Island Ave., for
the train not only curves left or right but up and down. The speed changes
a lot, too. I think it's due to having to maneuver around the other
railroad tracks, something like sixteen of them. The upshot is that my
balance have become very good, so that when I go out jogging on icy roads
or stumble over, I'll automatically righten myself and won't fall down. I
am FOR global warming, since having icy roads on fewer Winter days
outweighs hotter Summer afternoons. I don't know who the losers are, much
less whether the losses outweigh the gains AND whether it would be
worthwhile doing anything about it. For all anyone knows, we should be
heating the planet up faster. (I do have an article that suggests as
much.)
Wednesday (August 29): 12:30 AM. So if I want music, I dream of a cadenza
played by Maria Yudina. This time, I dreamed of Adam returning to All My
Children. I seriously doubt that either would have been as good as they
would have been in actual life. Certainly, I have no talent as a writer
for soap operas!
I should report that I have been listening, this time when not out
jogging, with both my meat and cyber ears to Gould's recording of the
Well-Tempered Klavier. The scales are still off, but I'm nevertheless
getting some pleasure out of listening to the music. And this time, there
are no tunes coming from auditory hallucinations interfering with my
pleasure. This is a remarkable break through. On the other hand, when out
jogging (meat ear only) I am still getting these imagined tunes. We shall
see (HEAR!) how this improves.
Thursday (August 30). A sudden and major breakthrough! Today, I was able
to easily distinguish male from female voices when using Sound and Beyond.
Just yesterday, I had no idea that the various practice items were read
sometimes by men and sometimes by women in various modules, such as
picking out the odd person out when being fed two words twice and one once
of a word differing by only a single vowel (ditto for a different
consonant).
I've gone through all the modules ten times now and I've tested myself
thrice. Here are the results and my improvements:
Pure Tones: From 100% to 93%. This doesn't count, since I did the third
test only a day after the first. I am practicing at Level 5, the highest.
Environmental Sounds (telling a cow mooing from a railroad train, for
example): 44% to 56%. I am still practicing at Level 1 of 4.
Male/Female: 52% to 90%. I didn't do much better today than I did a day or
two before, though, even though I can clearly pick male from female when
they come on in other tests. This particular module deliberately makes
things difficult. I am still practicing at Level 1 of 3.
Vowel Recognition: 8% to 32%. I am at Level 1 of 5 but at Step 5 of 16.
Consonant Recognition: 5% to 28%, I reported the paradox of doing better
with consonants than vowels, since consonants tend to be higher pitches,
but this is for the training sessions, not for the tests. I do not
understand why I did better with vowel on the tests. I am at Level 1 of 5
but at Step 7 out of 16.
Word Discrimination (no levels)
Animal: 76% to 92%
Food: 72% to 88%
Color: 86% to 100% (hooray!). In the practice session, there is only one
category I haven't hit 100% at least once.
Family: 82% to 98%
Number: 80% to 98%
Time: 88% to 94%
Everyday Sounds: 96% to 100%. A modified hooray, the testing is done on
the easiest level. I've done one run at Level 1, three at Level 2, five at
Level 3, and one at the highest Level 4. I did poorly at Level 4 and shall
continue to practice at Level 3.
Music Appreciation
Music Instrument: 39% to 72%
Familiar Melody: 50% to 69%
Listening to Gould with both ears. I was quite distracted by my reading,
but I sense that the tune are coming back in.
Thursday (August 30): Sound and Beyond. Major and sudden breakthrough! I'm
distinguishing male from female voices in the Word Discrimination tests,
while just the day before I couldn't tell. I'm doing so well on these that
in the future, I won't ask to hear the choices repeated. My scores will
drop, so I won't be bumping up at 100% most of the time. Now I don't do so
well on the tests specifically designed to distinguish the sex of the
speaker, but these are designed to be harder. In fact, I went down from
96% to 88% on that test. My progress is not perfectly linear by any means.
Friday (August 31): Jogging: I go through my Bach Gould cassettes at this
time every year. The Art of the Fugue (Gould's only organ recording, which
contains only the first nine fugues) came on with the scales all wrong,
but I found them greatly amusing, since I know the basic beat well. The
tunes came back on after about fifteen minutes. One of the violin and
piano sonatas came on toward the end of the run. Normally, this provides a
delightful segue into Gould's cool jazz style, but I could barely hear it
and hardly the violin at all.
All My Children: I discovered a spoiler list on the web and knew that Adam
was coming back. But he was not there today. There was a big party for
Tad, for reasons I didn't understand. Kendall fed some secret vitamins
from the quack doctor to cure Spike of his hearing. She fell asleep. Zach
came back and discovered the bottle. To be continued.... My hearing was
awful, but something was the matter with my cords or else the teevee, as I
can pick up Channel 7 better when going through the cable box and then the
set, using Channel 3 on the set, rather than going directly to Channel 7
from the wall. But I was at long last copying some video tapes to DVD and
somehow could not go the indirect route anymore. But the buzz from the
halogen lamp disappeared.
The Jim Lehrer News Hour: Not at all exciting. Just some eminences, plus
Brooks and Shield, blathering about the mortgage crisis, with Bush
proposing some new plan (I thought conservatives didn't have plans) that
would somehow preserve the Free Market. How I wished that some Austrian
economists would have come along and pointed out that there is no Free
Market in housing loans. I imagine that they would have discovered *some*
market intervention that was responsible for the bubble encouraging too
many loans at too low interest rates. They certainly would have done so,
however dubious the actual cause and effect relationship. Lenders and
lendees are never irrational, you see, except that somehow they are
persistently and systematically deluded by what the government does and
never, ever learn. Faulty logic prevails on all sides. Still, an Austrian
representative would have given some balance.
Several more days, collapsed: My cord to use on both my meat ear and cyber
ear collapsed once again. In frustration, I repaired to the local
RadioSnack and bought the thinnest speaker cable, which is thicker than
the various wires I had been using but which were too flimsy. The new cord
was a success. The buzzing from the halogen floor lamp stopped. Alas, it
started up again, but went away just as mysteriously. I am rather enjoying
listening to Gould's WTC, not really following the music, but loving the
way he chirps away. I am also enjoying Silverman's private recordings of
the Mozart sonatas made in Jan Narveson's house in the same way. But when
I tried Ralph Kirkpatrick's "complete" 1950s Bach recordings (yes, a disc
was left out), I couldn't get anything.
I'm now taken to go jogging with both ears. Andrea assures me that the
processor is sturdy and won't be damaged by my bouncing up and down. Alas,
it isn't waterproof, but so far it hasn't been raining. When it does, I'll
have to go back to using just my meat ear. Still, the hallucinating tunes
come through, when I go jogging that is. They usually don't when I'm
listening at home. I'm listening to my cassettes of Gould's Bach when
running, though the tunes do come on much of the time. They almost always
do when listening to the Brahms chamber music.
Thursday (September 6): All My Children. A day early, for we are to go to
visit Sarah's folks the next day. Adam is back! But he's disguised as his
brother Stuart. By just wearing a funny hat, he deceives everyone. He
listens to several others talk about going to a rick concert. Krystal
continues to visit the quack doctor Hillard to get "vitamins" to cure
Spike of his deafness. Everyone is mad at her.
Friday (September 7): Jim Lehrer: David Brooks says it is just not true
that the West has not penetrated the Islamic World. Why, Osama bin Laden's
latest broadcast is full of left-wing American college stuff. The text of
his talk was surprisingly hard to find, but I found it and sent it to my
list, along with a lot of commentaries by others. Was Osama spending a lot
of time in his cave surfing the Web? Another speculation was that Osama's
ideas consisted to a Mahometan overlay on those of "an
American--28-year-old Adam Gadahn--may have written at least part of the
speech. Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and supporting terrorism
for serving as an al-Qaida propagandist, has appeared in several past
al-Qaida-produced videos, lecturing against capitalism and globalization
and making insider references to American culture," according to an AP
story.
I heard Sarah's mother and stepfather rather poorly.
Monday (September 10): I did stop using repeats on the Word Discrimination
tests, which don't march through levels of difficulties (percentage
correct):
Animals: 96 -> 80
Food: 100 -> 80
Color: 96 -> 88
Family: 100 -> 80
Number: 100 -> 84
Time: 100 -> 100, and that last is good.
As I bump up against 100% in all of them, though I never did get 100% on
either Animals or Food, I'll continue to refrain from asking for repeats
and also shut my eyes before making choices. It helps to know what to
choose among, and I will be wanting to make it harder, so as to continue
to train. Of course, I do know by now most of the choices. There are 100
animals, but actually 400 wav files, since each one comes with two male
voices and two female voices. I can tell male from female but not high vs.
low male or high vs. low female. When I get to the third and highest level
of the sex discrimination tests, I'll have to choose. I'm still on level
one, though. The same is true for the other five categories. (It's neat to
have V-com.com's Power Desk as a file manager, so I can quickly get these
figures and listen to each one in rapid succession.)
Animals range from aardvark to zoot
Food from apple to yogurt
Color amber to vermilion (Burnt Sienna is not among them (yuk button)
Family adolescent to youngest
Number zero to one million
Time One (Irish) O'Clock to (Jewish) Yom Kippur
(There's no C.E. or B.C.E. hypocrisy, praise the Lord!)
This is module no. 6.
For the record, there are
Module 1: Pure Tone test, 48 tones, from 309 to 7272 Hz
Module 2: Environment Sounds, 102 examples, from arcade to yawn
Maybe Modules 3-5:
4684 words from Bab to Zoot, or 1171 for each for male 1, male 2, female 1
and female 2. I think these comprise the sounds for the next three
modules: Male/Female Identification, Vowel Recognition, and
Consonant Recognition. I'm not sure about all this.
Module 7: Everyday Sentences: There are 720 files named AW1.wav to
AW720.wav and another 720 named TA1.wav to TA720.wav. I thought there are
four levels of background noise. Further investigation is necessary.
Module 8: 10 instruments, from accordion to xylophone and 17 familiar
tunes from Alphabet Song to Yankee Doodle.
But there are a bunch of other files, maybe for the tests.
Tuesday (September 11): I'm getting remarkable improvements on the Glenn
Gould iSong disc and now Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichord comes in well.
(Haven't tried Ralph Kirkpatrick, clavichord, yet.)
Wednesday (September 12). Vowel recognition went down from 66% to 56%
correct, my worst score yet. My hearing is indeed variable.
Thursday (September 13): Birthday party for Liz. I used this as a training
section. Got only bits of sentences. Afterward, Jay told confirmed that 25
subjects were discussed in as many minutes. This is how people
communicate. It's always been hard for me to interrupt, since by the time
I think of something to say, the subject has moved on at least thrice!
Sound and Beyond: Consonant recognition went from 84 to 88 and rather
quickly. Word Discrimination, giving three results, one before I stopped
asking for repeats, then three days ago, and now today:
Animal 96 -> 80 -> 84
Food 100 -> 80 -> 92
Color 96 -> 88 -> 92
Family 100 -> 80 -> 96
Number 100 -> 84 -> 88
Time 100 -> 100 -> 96 Improvements, when not using any repeats, in all
cases except the last, which may just mean not paying attention.
On everyday sentences, I'm told to move from Level 3 to Level 4, but I
think I'll wait a bit longer.
Friday (September 14): All My Children: Kendall said, "A best friend is
someone who knows you better than you know yourself." I am not sure this
thought is original with her, but it is a good one. I like even better
Emerson's "A friend is a person with whom I can be sincere." Here's the
paragraph containing the phrase, from his essay on friendship:
12. I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest
courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work,
but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of
experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step
has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In
one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the
sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I draw from this alliance
with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all
thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a
friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to
entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that
relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for
that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,[297] to the great games,
where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes
himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists, and he
alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve
the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The
gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that
contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles.
There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each
so sovereign, that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason
why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person
with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am
arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may
drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and
second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with
the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets
another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, but diadems and authority,
only to the highest rank, _that_ being permitted to speak truth as
having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is
sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We
parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by
gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him
under a hundred folds. I knew a man who,[298] under a certain
religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliments
and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he
encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was
resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he
could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the
advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true
relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him,
or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But
every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain
dealing and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he
had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not
its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true
relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it
not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some
civility,--requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some
whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be
questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend
is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives
me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A
friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox[299] in nature. I who alone
am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with
equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being in all
its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so
that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-8.txt
On the show, Annie may be crazy. She says she's being harassed by Richard
Novak, who was let out of prison on the grounds that he was innocent.
Ryan, believing his wife, goes to the prison shrink, Dr. Michael Chambers,
who maintains Richard is innocent.
I've just discovered that you can get recaps at
http://allmychildren.about.com/library/recaps/blrecaps.htm
Jim Lehrer: Complete waste of time. Entirely given over to the War on
Iraq.
Saturday (September 15): Mencken Day in Baltimore
My hearing was so bad I heard only phrase here and there during the
speeches, but still I enjoyed myself. In conversation I often do most of
the talking in fact, but maybe not in perception, since I often pause to
get my listener's attention and ask a question, usually one answered by
yes or no. That we he feels like a participant, rather than passive
audience member. I can rattle off summaries of ideas like others can
relate stories on lots of subjects. It makes me seem a lot smarter than I
actually am. Intelligence is mostly a matter of being able to engage in
complex forms of reasoning, to juggle many mental balls at once. I spoke
with a juggler, a local high school outside Barnes and Noble, and he
verified for me that everyone can juggle only a certain number of balls
and not one ball more, no matter how slowly he juggles them. It happens
that accounting requires the highest minimum number of mental balls of any
occupation. Accounting is far from being the highest paid profession.
These require people skills, as well as the ability to engage in abstract
reasoning.
[Accounting is not the same as bookkeeping, as it requires keeping track
of a large number of accounts where the money gets divided. Such diving up
of the monies is, at bottom arbitrary beyond a certain point, making it an
art as well as a science, something that the accountants at the Civil
Aeronautics Board, where I worked from 1969 to 1984, hotly denied. The top
guy, Frank Lewis, understood perfectly what is instantly obvious to an
economist, but only one or two others. Here's an example: passenger
aircraft carry cargo only as sideline. Accountants nevertheless are
obliged to calculate the cost of the cargo. Well, part of the belly under
the passenger seats where the cargo goes is for the passengers' baggage.
The rest is for excess baggage and for cargo. But will costing out the
cargo be based volume or on weight? For flights in general, or for the
specific flight? Is the cargo made up of lead or ping-pong balls? Human
beings, plus their baggage but not their excess baggage, weigh 200 pounds
by international conventions. But they take up a lot more space than 200
pounds of lead, but not 200 pounds of ping-pong balls (and certainly not
200 pounds of mental balls), I don't think.
[There are laws and regulations aplenty governing accounting and, as we
all know, they can be abused, prompting another round of regulations. I
should think that the market would punish those who keep their accounting
methods secret or who earn a bad reputation, but governments think
otherwise. Then again, international conventions can be likened to the Law
Merchant (lex mercatoria) of the Middle Ages, which were private law
courts that rendered swift and well-written decisions on the spot, and woe
be to him that flouted them. (Businesses, quite rationally, wanted speedy
decisions, reasoning that in the long run the cost of losing in a specific
case was less important than having a rule of law continue.) In time, as
Bruce Benson described in his excellent book, _The Enterprise of Law_,
governments got in on the act, if only to generate incomes for themselves.
One upshot is that, instead of well-reasoned decisions of private courts,
state-run law benefited lawyers more than businessmen. This means that
accountants have to have even higher IQs.
[In a way, accountants rule the world. If ones can be found that cost out
cargo in a more than arbitrary way, aircraft makers will be better able to
decide how big cargo holds in passenger aircraft should be and, indeed,
how to price air cargo. Accountants who work only with slide rules or the
old Friedan MONSTER calculators can make calculations that are only so
refined. With computers, it becomes more and more possible to estimate
costs, and therefore profits, for all manner of operations. This leads to
adding and subtracting product lines and to the speeding up of product
cycles, another name for Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction." Gone
are the long assembly lines for products that will last for years. Reduced
is the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labor that can work on
assembly lines, where detailed and unchanging instructions are issued to
these workers. Increased is the demand for product development and
marketing of these products, occupations that require more intelligence.
And this, my friends, the principle reason why income is becoming more and
more concentrated. This has been going on irregardless of what party
controls the White House or the branches of Congress. (Globalization is
another factor, but I have an most plausible meta-study that argues that
globalization amounts to only about 20% of the reason for increased income
inequality in the United States. Income inequality has been increasing for
some time within nations, but the opposite between nations. As it happens,
the latter is bigger than the former, resulting in a world-wide increase
in equality for everyone.)
See, this is one of the little summaries of ideas I can rattle off. Now, I
do (I think) actually have something to say. I used to attend a monthly
meeting of WAG-HOH, the Washington Area Group for the Hard of Hearing.
until I got bored with it. Someone pointed out that the hard of hearing
often dominate conversations because it is so difficult for them to
listen, not that they had anything to say. Well, I doubted that, since I
do (I think) have something to say, but one fellow got up and rattled on
and on. He had absolutely nothing to say!
Well, what happened during Mencken Day in Baltimore? Sharon Hamilton gave
a superb lecture on, "Mencken and Nathan's _Smart Set_ and the Making of
Modern New York." She showed Mr. Mencken's mostly unrecognized role in
turning literature from being dominated by moralizing Protestants and
promoting those who wrote about life as it is. She gave me a copy of her
paper and a disk of her slides, which I read later.
Then David Donovan, whom I did not know, gave a fine lecture, "H.L.
Mencken: Musician and Music Critic." Again, I heard very little, but he
also gave me a copy of his talk. Of the greatest interest to me, which I
have been trying to get for years, was a listing of the records Mr.
Mencken's publisher, Alfred Knopf, gave him, along with a splendid
phonograph. The records went to Louis Cheslock, a long-time friend and
participant in Mr. Mencken's "Saturday Night Club," consisting of
professional and amateur musicians who would get together and joyously
hammer out the classics from reduced part scores, modified to suit the
instruments at hand. Once, they attempted the first eight of Beethoven's
symphonies thusly, but gave up in the wee hours of the morning. The
records passed from Louis Cheslock (whose book _H.L. Mencken on Music_
combines writings of the Sage with reflections on the Saturday Night Club)
to his son Barry. Alas, the list is quite brief and consisted of only ten
albums of 78s, all of them singles except the first symphony of Brahms,
conducted by Leopold Stokowski on Victor and the Eroica of Beethoven on by
Hans Pfitzner on Brunswick. These were both pre-1936 recordings, making me
wonder whether Mr. Mencken had already owned these recordings. Of the
Brahms, the only other early electrical recordings were conducted by Otto
Klemperer, Felix Weingartner, and Hermann Abendroth. The Abendroth was not
issued in the United States and the Klemperer, which was, was little
known. Since Mr. Mencken knew Stokowski to some extent, this is a
plausible choice. For the Eroica, Pfitzner's recording is a surprising
choice, not well-known then and processed, like the Klemperer Brahms, from
the German Polydor label. It has been reissued on CD by Naxos and is
interesting though, to my ears, rather stodgy. Mr. Mencken could have had
American-recorded performances by Serge Kousevtizky and Willem Mengelberg,
issues of recordings made in England by Sir Henry Wood and Albert Coates,
but probably not one made in Germany but not issued here of Max von
Schillings. I'd have chosen either the Mengelberg or the Coates myself. (I
have all of these in some form or another.) My bet is that Mr. Mencken had
a lot more 78s than were on the list. He once remarked that he would have
rather been present at the first performance of the Brahms first than at
the induction of General Pershing into the Elks and also that the gods
will walk the concert halls again when another Brahms is born and not
before. And he held the first movement of the Eroica in greater esteem
than any other movement of any symphony, a judgment with which I heartily
concur!
We repaired for lunch in the Walters Gallery with Sharon, our good friend
and avid worker in restoring the Mencken House, Oleg Panczenko, and the
incredibly meticulous bibliographer of Mr. Mencken, Richard Schrader.
Sarah was her usual wonderful self in getting everyone to talk, though I
more tried to listen than to talk.
Realizing that I wouldn't be able to hear, I decided to stay at the
Walters (ah, I could easily spend a whole day there), rather than go to
Mencken Day Lecture itself, "Beyond Scorn," by Anthony Lewis, a former New
York Times journalist. It will no doubt be published in _Menckeniana_. At
the reception, Sarah thanked him for speaking courageously about Israel. I
spoke to him myself, saying that the neocons were stupid for getting us
involved in Iraq. They do not realize that America is an *Old Testament*
Protestant nation. It was not the message of forgiveness of Jesus that
they carried with them when settling the West, but the heroic tales of the
travails of the Hebrew patriarchs, with whom they so thoroughly identified
in the incomparable prose of the King James Bible. (Mr. Mencken said that,
were the Bible ever translated into American, it would mean the death of
Christianity. He was wrong about this. Compare:
Psalm 23
Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!
He lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet streams.
He gives me new strength. He helps me do what honors him the most.
Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way.
You provide delicious food for me in the presence of my enemies. You have
welcomed me as your guest; blessings overflow!
Your goodness and unfailing kindness shall be with me all of my life, and
afterwards I will live with you forever in your home.
--The Living Bible, 1967
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still
waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou
anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I
will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
--The King James Bible, 1611
I told him I had direct ancestors with Old Testament names like Ezekiel,
Aaron (twice), George Washington, Job. Well, George Washington was not a
Hebrew patriarch, but he might as well have been, which was my point. I
further said that modern Americans, so strongly has the King James Bible
even now remained a major part of our national heritage, that we would
instantly look upon with great favor the travails of modern Jews in
Israel. (That they treat Palestinians unpleasantly is just as much neither
here nor there than how Americans treated the Indians.) The neo-cons are
stupid in not realizing that American will protect Israel, unless, unless
we get bogged down in unwinable wars. And then our support might suddenly
snap.
He thanked me for my insights, which have not occurred to him.
Well, to understand the politics of the Near East, one has to go back to
the beginnings of civilization itself. Agriculture began when the rain
belt (north) overlapped the grain belt (south) and allowed for the
planting of crops. Initially, these were just small places like Catal
Huyuk and Jericho, but eventually large-scale irrigation projects began.
In Africa, there was the Nile in Egypt, The actual region having any
appreciable population density was confined to land near the Nile, a total
land area about the size of Virginia iirc. In Asia, on the other hand,
there were several places where irrigation projects took place. The
resulting histories are different. Egypt was just one empire (going
through several phases). By contrast the history of Asia is one of
shifting coalitions of city states, A and B ganging up on C, and then A
and C ganging up on B, and with even more complicated combinations. Well,
it took over a thousand years for the Egyptians and Mesopotamians to
recognize each other and to go to war.
Guess who got squeezed in the fighting? The Jews, so obscure a people that
contemporary history barely mentions them. The Old Testament is an
account, not entirely unbiased, by the people caught in the middle and
further caught up in battles of shifting coalitions in Asia.
In time, the Turks came in a snatched up a large hunk of land in the Near
East, which was then taken over by European colonists when the Turks had
lost a lot of their importance. (Why, I am not enough to a student of
history to say.) As it happens, the British gave Jews the right to settle
in Palestine, provided they treat the Mahometans there fairly. They
didn't, as even Israeli historians are beginning to recognize. This might
not be so important, a bunch of Mahometans in Israel being pushed around,
except that, envy being a powerful motive force in history, the whole
Mahometan world got angry at the Jews. (The Mahometans are still angry
about the Crusades, which hardly anyone in the West defends, though you
can read one in _The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the
Crusades. You can't hardly get a defense of the way the British treated
the Irish or the Japanese the Manchurians, either, which defense would
consist of claiming that Japanese property in China was being seized by
warlords calling themselves socialists (Mao and Chang, called a
"conservative" only by comparison) and moreover that the Japanese simply
tried to restore civil government, though no doubt overdoing it.)
Another mini-exposition!
The biggest event was a 45-minute opera derived from a spoof by Mr.
Mencken called "The Artist." Written in 1912, it was a play in which a
Great Pianist muttered silently to himself as he played a Beethoven sonata
to an uncouth public and even more uncouth music critics jammered on
during the performance. The play was staged as the first production of
Baltimore's Vagabond Theatre on 16.11.2. Later, but we don't know when,
the aforesaid Louis Cheslock turned the play into an opera, with the
participants singing the lines to music other than Beethoven's. He also
added a song at the end, patterned after Mr. Mencken's famous desire for
his gravestone, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and
have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wind your eye at
some homely girl." (I am not sure what his gravestone actually said.) The
performance of the opera itself played excerpts from three Beethoven
sonatas, including no. 3, and a complete movement from another one. (From
the text, it seems likely to me that it was the entire third sonata that
was played in Mr. Mencken's spoof, but I am not sure about this.)
Though I couldn't really hear anything, the production was absolutely
hilarious!
Monday-Thursday at work with Sound and Beyond (September 10-13): Downs and
ups as far as my scores go. I heard Ping Pong as an sound to identify for
the first time. There are so many that I have by no means heard them all.
Pure tones: these often come on as fractured to my cyber ear, and in
different ways when I repeat them. This makes identification difficult. I
have no idea why this should happen. I doubt the problem is with the
software or my computer. I am no longer repeating anything in the sixth
and eighth modules (Word Discrimination and Music Appreciation). These
modules have no levels and to continue to use them I am making getting the
correct answers more difficult. My scores went down as soon as I started
listening to the choice only once, but they are going back up again,
though not to the best I had done before. Yet.
What is irritating is that my hallucinating tunes often rush in where
there is silence, here and generally. They can be quite loud. I must also
report that, as I go through these exercises and become more and more
familiar with them, I'll often guess by the length of the sounds when I
really can't otherwise tell.
Wednesday (September 12): Jogging in, I listened to the two Brahms String
Quintets. Except for the first sextet, I had only rarely listened to his
music for strings alone. Indeed, most critics regard his three string
quartets as inferior to his other chamber music. He was too much under the
shadow of Beethoven's great masterpieces. Accordingly, when I finally put
this music on my WalkWoman, so as to get to know it through twice-yearly
joggs, it was as though I were at last really listening to them. Well, I
didn't really hear the music but was nevertheless moved by Brahms'
greatness. I missed esp. hearing the third movement of the second quintet.
As played by the OLD Budapest Quartet, there is a certain mix of despair
and exaltation that is Brahms at his finest. Alas, it is ONLY this
performance that brings out this aspect. The rhythm of the final movement
was unmistakable. Happily, I got lost jogging to the MetRoRail and was
able to get through both quintets. (How can I possibly get lost over roads
I've jogged through hundreds of times? It happened east of Connecticut
Avenue just below the District line, around Military Road. My Garmin
Forerunner 101, the GPS watch I use to keep track of my distance and
speed, can display direction, but I somehow got confused. I need to
thoroughly understand how the map function works. I asked a couple of
people how I could wend my way back to Connecticut Avenue. This has
happened to me several times. (This part of my diary will be of most
interest to those who know the DC area well!)) I started getting the slow,
somber tunes in my head that I imagined would keep my mind occupied with
the greatness of Brahms for the entire day, but they lasted less than an
hour.
Friday (September 14): I backtracked on my cassette to the beginning of
the haunting third movement of the second string quintet, but I could
identify it only barely. I just said that the last movement had an
unmistakable rhythm. But I didn't hear it.
I am glad to report that I'm listening to music at home when I smoke my
pipe for sheer pleasure, even if it sounds strange and mostly
unidentifiable. I listened to two of the disks of Robert Silverman's home
recordings (Jan Narveson's home, that is, as I have already explained).
Suddenly I was able to make sense out of Ralph Kirkpatrick playing Bach on
the harpsichord. So I listened to the first two disks. Now I'm trying
Joseph Szigeti's incomparable recording of the Partitas and Sonatas for
Violin Alone. Not much identification, though I await the Chaconne and the
Preludio, which I have concentrated on earlier.
All My Children: Erica and Zak go to a teevee studio where a young boy,
Jason, talks about his cochlear implant. I was somewhat reminded of a kid
being on display. I witnessed a bad example of this, when a kid mouthed
words put into his mouth about how wonderful some education program was.
During the question period, he answered one without the cliches and spoke
like a normal kid.
Annie goes with Ryan to view the brother whom she claimed was harassing
her. She admits that she lied on the witness stand to put him away. She
faints as the sheet covering him was removed. Stay tuned.... Maybe it
wasn't him, a typical soap opera twist.
Adam was also back, arguing with Tad. His brother, who looks just like
him, was also there. They may actually be distinct people. I recall
sometime ago seeing the two of them talking to each other. Obviously they
were recorded twice, like Heifetz playing both violins for the Bach double
concerto. Elisabeth Schumann iirc did this way back in the 78 rpm days,
and there is a recording of the (newer) Budapest quartet playing Milhaud's
13th and 14th quartets (not sure about the numbers) with the two combined
into an octet on the second side of the LP. This could certainly be
reissued in stereo, but I don't think it has been.
Now these teevee shows should be training sessions for me, and I shouldn't
be watching the captions at all. I do follow the captions for Adam and
Zack and for those pertaining to hearing problems, but to too much else. I
should exercise more discipline. But, my rule is an hour of training a
day. So I do Sound and Beyond at work, the iSong Glenn Gould disk (not
disc) every day at home, except for my teevee day, Friday. And I do listen
without the captions for at least an hour. I listen to the Gould disk when
on vacation. Given a four-day work week and ample vacation time, I'm
actually in the office slightly less than half the days of the year. So it
will be three Sound and Beyond sessions at week, three Goulds a week, and
one two-hours of teevee a week. When on vacation actually away from home,
I'm spending so much time listening to others that there can be much more
than an hour of training. Andrea tells me that I am now at the point where
I should try to hear as best as I can and not worry so much about
training. So she has said it is okay for me to use a hearing aid in my
meat ear, which I do sporadically. It doesn't improve matters all that
much, though sometimes it makes a crucial difference.
Sunday (September 23): I redid my chords once again, once again. This time
I wired up the telephone adapted with my trusty soldering iron to make a
patch cord between the inner two of four wires that plug into the handset
of a Fone and a mono-mini plug. Lo and behold, I no longer get the high
pitched squealing when I listen to my WalkWoman or my stereo. This is too
much to carry around when I am out jogging, though I could probably
manage. It turns out that Advanced Bionics, which manufactures my
processor, sells a patch cord, called Audio Interface Cable #CI-5815, that
I hope will give the same result. I registered but was told it would take
72 hours to get a response. Evidently the message must go out to somewhere
over times the distance to Pluto and back, since Pluto is 5½ light hours
away. I'll TTY them and ask what this cable consists of, as I may be able
to make one myself if it only involves a capacitor or something.
"Lo and behold," I was surprise to learn, is not in the King James Bible.
But here's a famous verse:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the
kingdom of God is within you.--Like 17:21.
+++++++++++++++
Lo and behold
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lo-and-behold.html
Meaning
An exclamation, on drawing others attention to something. Used
especially to to announce things that are considered startling or
important. The phrase is often written with an exclamation mark.
Origin
The word 'lo' as used in this phrase is a shortening of 'look'.
So, lo and behold! has the meaning of look! - behold!. Lo in this
and its other meaning, which is more akin to O!, has been in use
since the first Millennium and appears in the epic poem Beowulf.
Something not very far removed from lo and behold appears in the
Bible, Genesis 15:3 (King James Version):
"And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and,
lo, one born in my house is mine heir."
lo and behold The complete phrase is first recorded in an 1808
letter in the Correspondence 1787-1870, of Queen Victoria's lady
of the bedchamber - Lady Sarah Spencer Lyttelton:
"Hartington... had just told us how hard he had worked all the
morning... when, lo and behold! M. Deshayes himself appeared."
++++++++++
Oxford English Dictionary
Lo, int.
(l {schwa} {shtu} ) Forms: 1 lá, 2-4 la, 3-4 lou, low, 4 lowe,
4-6 loo, 6 loa, 6-7 loe, 3- lo. Also 3-4 (as if imperative pl.)
los. See also LEW int. [The evidence of rimes in ME. poetry shows
that the spelling lo or loo represents two distinct words. (1) ME.
l {ohookmac} : {em} OE. lá, an exclamation indicating surprise,
grief, or joy, and also used (like O!) with vocatives. (2) ME. lo
with close {omac} , prob. a shortened form of l {omac} ke (OE.
lóca), imperative of LOOK v.; cf. ME. and mod. dial. ta for take,
ma for make, also the mod. dial. loo' thee = `look you'. The los
of the Cursor M., used in addressing a multitude, seems to be
imper. pl. The peculiar early ME. forms lou, low(e may stand for
lo we = `look we'. The present pronunciation (l {schwa} {shtu} )
would normally represent OE. lá, but it may be a mere
interpretation of the spelling, as the mod. lo corresponds
functionally to the second of the two words, which should normally
have become *loo (lu {lm} ) in mod. Eng.]
{dag} a. In early use, an interjection of vague meaning,
corresponding approximately to the modern O! or Oh! (obs.). b.
Used to direct attention to the presence or approach of something,
or to what is about to be said; = Look! See! Behold! Freq. in phr.
lo and behold (usu. jocular).
Beowulf 1700 {Th} æt la mæ {asg} secgan, se {th} e so {edh} and
riht freme {edh} on folce. c1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. iii. 7 He cwæ
{edh} to him; La næddrena cyn [etc.]. c1175 Lamb. Hom. 89 Lahwet
scal {th} is beon? Ibid., La hu ne bea {edh} {th} a {th} et here
speca {edh} galileisce? c1200 ORMIN 17964 {Th} iss blisse iss min
la fuliwiss. a1225 Leg. Kath. 2454 Low, {th} e {ygh} ete of eche
lif abit te al iopenet! a1300 Cursor M. 16411 And sua it es, La
god it wijt. Ibid. 16367 Pilat said, `los, her yur king!' c1380
WYCLIF Sel. Wks. I. 77 Lo, {th} e loomb of God: lo him {th} at
taki {th} awey the synnes of {th} is world. 1393 LANGL. P. Pl. C.
xx. 4 Loo, here {th} e lettere..in latyn and in ebrew. a1400-50
Alexander 399 Lo, maister, slike a myschefe! c1425 Crafte of
Nombryng (E.E.T.S.) 11 {Th} ou schalle do way {th} e hier figure &
write {th} ere a cifer, as lo an Ensampull. c1450 Merlin 77 Open:
lo, here the duke. 1480 CAXTON Chron. Eng. ccliii. (1482) 325 Lo
what a mariage was this as to the comparison of that other. 1532
MORE Confut. Tindale Wks. 574/1 When they suffer wrong, they
cannot forgeue loe, and when men take away their goodes they be
angry, so they be lo. 1562 A. SCOTT Poems (S.T.S.) i. 53 For
lymmer lawdis and litle lassis lo [rimes scho, {th} ^rto, do] Will
argun bay^t w^t bischop, preist, and freir. 1590 SPENSER F.Q. I.
iv. 42 His dearest loue the faire Fidessa loe Is there possessed
of the traytour vile. 1611 BIBLE Haggai i. 9 Ye looked for much,
and loe it came to litle. 1630 PRYNNE Anti-Armin. 167 Loe here wee
haue expresse mention of seuerall sorts of worlds. 1735 BERKELEY
Free-think. in Math. §34 Lo! This is what you call `so great, so
unaccountable'. 1758 C. WESLEY Hymn, Lo! He comes with clouds
descending. 1807 J. BARLOW Columb. III. 177 The prince drew near;
where lo! an altar stood. 1808 LADY LYTTELTON Let. June in Corr.
(1912) i. 20 Hartington..had just told us how hard he had worked
all the morning..when, lo and behold! M. Deshayes himself
appeared. 1841 LYTTON Night & Morning II. III. v. 144 The fair
bride was skipping down the middle..when, lo and behold! the
whiskered gentleman..advanced..and cried {em} `La voilà!' 1849
DICKENS Dav. Copp. (1850) xxii. 234 What does he do, but, lo, and
behold you, he goes into a perfumer's shop. 1859 FITZGERALD tr.
Omar vii. (1899) 71 The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly
{em} and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. 1930 J. B. PRIESTLEY Angel
Pavement ii. 60 And then {em} lo and behold {em} it was there all
the time. 1947 T. WILLIAMS Streetcar Named Desire x. 151 You come
in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and
cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the
place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile!
behold, v.
(b {shti} {sm} h {schwa} {shtu} ld) Pa. tense beheld. Pa. pple.
beheld, arch. beholden. Chief forms: inf. 1-2 biheald-an, 2
-helden, 2-5 -hald-e(n, 3-5 -holde(n, 6- behold. ind. pres. 3rd
sing. 2 bihalt. pa. tense 1-4 beheold, -hield, -held, -huld,
-heild, -heeld, 5- beheld, (4 beholded). pa. pple. 4 bihalden, 4-
beholden, 4-5 beholde, 7- beheld, (4 behelded, beholdyd, 4-6 -ed).
For other forms see HOLD. [OE. bihaldan (WSax. behealdan),
identical w. OS. bihaldan, OFris. bihalda, OHG. bihaltan, mod.G.
behalten, Du. behouden, f. bi- BE- 2 + haldan, healdan to HOLD.
The application to watching, looking, is confined to English.]
I. To hold by, keep, observe, regard, look.
{dag} 1. trans. To hold by, keep hold of, retain. Obs.
a1000 Cædmon's Gen. 366 (Gr.) {Edh} æt Adam sceal..minne
stronglican stol behealdan. c1380 WYCLIF Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 384
Men that biholden [MS. E holden] bileve of Crist. 1525 LD. BERNERS
Froiss. II. lxiv. [lxix] 222 Euery man behelde the same oppynyon.
b. intr. (for refl.) To hold, keep to.
a1300 Cursor M. 9483 To quas seruis straitly he bi-held.
{dag} 2. trans. To hold by some tie of duty or obligation, to
retain as a client or person in duty bound. Found only in the pa.
pple. BEHOLDEN, q.v.
{dag} 3. a. intr. To hold on by, appertain or belong
to. b. trans. To pertain, relate or belong to, to concern. Obs.
a1067 Chart. Eadweard in Cod. Dipl. IV. 214 God eów {asg} ehealde
and alle {edh} e {edh} at beholde intó {edh} áre hála {asg} en
stowe. c1175 Lamb. Hom. 65 {Th} e pater noster bihalt me noht,
bute ic {th} is habbe in mi {th} oht. a1250 Moral Ode 156 in
E.E.P. (1862) 31 Al hit hanged and bihalt bi {th} isse twam worde.
c1449 PECOCK Repr. I. ix. 45 Ech of hem [gouernauncis] whiche
biholden the making..of the said sacramentis.
{dag} 4. trans. To hold or contain by way of purport or
signification, to signify, mean. Obs.
c1200 ORMIN 13408 We mu {ygh} henn sen whatt itt bihallt. a1225
St. Marher. 7 Whet bihalt,.. {th} at tu ne buhest to me?
{dag} 5. trans. To hold in regard, keep, observe (commands,
appointed days, etc.). Obs.
971 Blickl. Hom. 11 Symle bli {th} e mode Godes beboda utan we
behealdan. 1387 TREVISA Higden (1865) I. 243 {th} e
Romaynes..byhelde {th} ilke dayes and wrou {ygh} t nou {ygh} t
{th} ilke dayes.
{dag} 6. a. trans. To regard (with the mind), have regard
to, attend to, consider. b. intr. To give attention or regard,
have regard unto, to. Obs.
c825 Vesp. Ps. lx. 1 Bihald to {asg} ebede minum. a1000 Ags. Ps.
lx. 1 Beheald min {asg} ebed. a1300 E.E. Psalter lxi. 1 Unto mi
bede bihald {th} ou. c1300 Beket 760 Al this (ho so ri {ygh} t
bihalth) thu gynnest forth to drawe. 1382 WYCLIF Gen. iv. 5 The
Lord bihelde to Abel and to his {ygh} iftis. ?a1400 Cato Major.
II. xxv, Ende and biginnynge of {th} e werk Bo {th} e {th} ou hem
bi-holde.
7. trans. a. To hold or keep in view, to watch; to regard
or contemplate with the eyes; to look upon, look at (implying
active voluntary exercise of the faculty of vision). arch. This
has passed imperceptibly into the resulting passive
sensation: b. To receive the impression of (anything) through
the eyes, to see: the ordinary current sense. (It is not easy to
show the beginning of sense b, as nearly all the early instances
have some suggestion of the former: the earlier quotations under
b. must therefore be treated as merely introductory.)
a. 971 Blickl. Hom. 11 Englas hie {asg} eorne beheoldan. a1200
Trin. Hom. 29 {Th} e wimman bihalt hire sheawere and cume {edh}
hire shadewe {th} aronne. c1250 Owl & N. 1323 On ape mai a boc
bi-halde, An leves wenden. a1300 Cursor M. 290 Behald {th} e sune
and {th} ou mai se. c1450 Merlin xiv. 225 The maiden hym be-heilde
moche, and he her. 1523 LD. BERNERS Froiss. (1812) I. 423 They
brought him to the princis..who behelde hym right fersly and
felly. 1530 PALSGR. 447/1 To se an olde ryddylled queene to
beholde herselfe in a glasse. 1605 BACON Adv. Learn. I. §2 (1873)
1 Beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption. 1667
MILTON P.L. IX. 1080 How shall I behold the face Henceforth of God
or Angel, earst with joy And rapture so oft beheld? 1676 HOBBES
Iliad 291 And when enough beholden them he had. 1718 POPE Iliad I.
553 From far Behold the field.
b. c1175 Lamb. Hom. 177 He muwen ben of-drad {th} e hine sculle
{edh} bi-helde. a1225 Ancr. R. 106 He biheold hu his deore
deciples fluen alle vrom him. 1382 WYCLIF Gen. xxiv. 64 Rebecca,
Isaac biholdyd, descendide of the camel. 1483 Cath. Angl. 26/1 To
behalde: asspicere casu. 1565 STAPLETON Fortresse 56 And such as
haue not heard haue yet beholded. 1596 SHAKES. Tam. Shr. II. i.
11, I neuer yet beheld that speciall face, Which I could fancie.
1697 DRYDEN Virg. Georg. iii. 711 On Winter Seas we fewer Storms
behold. 1850 MRS. BROWNING Poems I. 90 These are stars beholden By
your eyes in Eden. 1860 TYNDALL Glac. I. §16. 109 Anything more
exquisite I had never beheld.
{dag} 8. intr. To look. Const. with various adverbs and
prepositions. Obs. (exc. as absolute use of 7.)
c1175 Lamb. Hom. 133 Bihald he seide up to heouene. c1200 Trin.
Coll. Hom. 153 Bi-hold up to heuene and tel {th} e sterres. c1325
E.E. Allit. P. A. 809 Hys face.. {Th} at watz so fayr on to
byholde. c1386 CHAUCER Frankl. T. 135 Thanne wolde she..pitously
in to the see biholde. 1393 LANGL. P. Pl. C. I. 14 Esteward ich
byhulde · after {th} e sonne. 1491 CAXTON Vitas Patr. (W. de W.
1495) II. 210b/2 The holy fader..beholdynge upon hym. 1509 BARCLAY
Ship of Fooles (1570) {page} {page} vj, Beholde vnto the shore.
1601 SHAKES. Jul. C. V. iii. 33 Come downe, behold no more. 1634
Malory's Arthur (1816) II. 95 They took their horses, and beheld
about them. 1795 SOUTHEY Joan of Arc VI. 277 The Maiden's host
beheld.
{dag} 9. a. intr. To look or face (as a building) against
or to (a direction). b. trans. To face. Obs.
1382 WYCLIF Song Sol. vii. 4 The tour of Liban that beholdith a
{ygh} en Damasch. c1449 PECOCK Repr. III. i. 280 At the see that
biholdith to the west. 1593 T. FALE Dialling 8 Let the arke behold
the South. 1634 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. 209 The Land is high..chiefly
where it beholds the Sea. 1677 MOXON Mech. Exerc. (1703) 310 The
South Erect..whose Plane..directly beholds the South.
{dag} 10. trans. To look upon, view, consider as (something);
to consider or hold in a certain capacity.
1642 ROGERS Naaman 344 To behold himselfe the true bread
and..water of life. 1650 FULLER Pisgah III. i, It is beheld in
Scripture as most solemn and of highest importance. 1662 {emem}
Worthies (1840) II. 223 Though beans be generally beheld but as
horse and hog-grain. Ibid. 551 He is beheld one of the first
merchants.
{dag} II. Senses apparently derived from HOLD at a later
period. Only in Sc. Obs. (Some of these are doubtful.)
{dag} 11. intr. To `hold,' stop, wait.
a1670 SPALDING Troub. Chas. I, I. 143 (Jam.) They beheld but
keeped still the fields. 1768 ROSS Helenore 21 (Jam.) `That's
true,' quo' she, `but we'll behad a wee.'
{dag} b. trans. `To await.' Jam.
1639 Act Chas. I, Addit. (1814) V. 665 (Jam.) To behold the
treattie with the commissioneris. a1662 BAILLIE Lett. (1775) I. 24
(Jam.) To behold the event of that meeting.
{dag} 12. trans. `To connive at, take no notice of.' Jam.
a1670 SPALDING Troub. Chas. I, I. 154 (Jam.) To understand if his
lordship would behold them, or if he would raise forces against
them.
{dag} 13. `To permit.' Jam.
a1670 SPALDING Troub. Chas. I, I. 117 (Jam.) They..desired him out
of love..that he would be pleased to behold them to go on,
otherwise they were making such preparations that they would come
and might not be resisted.
behold, int.
(b {shti} {sm} h {schwa} {shtu} ld)
The imperative of the preceding verb, used to call attention;
= LO int.
[c1440 York Myst. xx. 193 Be-halde howe he alleggis oure lawe.]
1535 COVERDALE Mal. iii. 1 Beholde, I will send my messaunger.
1590 SHAKES. Mids. N. I. i. 147 Behold, The iawes of darknesse do
deuoure it vp. a1764 LLOYD Dial. Wks. II. 2 Behold! to yours and
my surprize, These trifles to a volume rise. 1831 CARLYLE Sart.
Res. III. viii, Fortunatus..when he..wished himself Anywhere,
behold he was There.
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