One aspect of the subject that I was - and still am - fascinated by is the use of sound as a weapon. Whether used as a slow "erosive" technique to push people to their very edge over periods of time, or as a short sharp aggressive burst to create pain, both are - to me - intriguing. I was once at a demonstration of .an "acoustic canon". It is used to emit a short sound-wave blast at a very low frequency. The bloke giving the demonstration asked for a volunteer. It was a joke, but I was in there straight away. He laughed it off but I insisted, and I'll tell you this for nothing: it was bloody painful, in a way I never knew pain existed. I honestly thought my organs were going to burst out of my body.
The most common use of noise as a weapon is over long durations, effectively breaking an individual's will with repetition. White noise (and variants of it) is usually used for this.purpose. However, there are other ways that noise is used. In a recent case, British Police decided to create sleep deprivation amongst demonstrators at a climate camp by playing I Fought The Law!
The theory behind using white noise is simple; the constant endless tone simply cannot be tolerated. the key is repetition. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. It is, I suppose, a bit like courgettes.
Last year I grew courgettes, of a type, and ended up with the Donkey Pizzle. This year I opted for ordinary courgettes. People warned about gluts, but I figured I'd kill so many of them it didn't matter. Then they arrived, at first a few, and then a few more. I ate many, and gave the rest away. They kept on growing. Bastards. They just grew and grew.
Summer turned to Autumn, and they grew. The neighbours stopped opening their doors. As soon as I hit the street with courgettes in hand, you could hear the locks clicking shut. I used them everywhere I could, but they grew faster than I could stomach them.
Last night we had our first frost. I laughed as I imagined the courgettes dying in the cold. Die, you bastards, die! These bloody things are eternal, they're mocking me, growing and growing and laughing, even though I have stopped watering them.
I gave up and left them to the slugs. I walked away. However, every time I see them it feels so wrong to ignore them. WRONG. That's food, that is. Food. Some starving child in Africa would have to work days and days on starvation wages at a plantation (obviously not a Fair Trade one - why don't they just call Fair Trade stuff "Over-priced to sooth your conscience") just to be able to afford one courgette to put in their Venison Ragu.How can I let them harvest sugar cane for weeks just to earn enough to get that courgette for a King Prawn and Summer Squash stir-fry when I'm feeding them to the slugs?
I hope they die soon. I really do.
As soon as my squash showed the slightest hint of powdery mildew (it could have been a shadow or sunlight, however) I gleefully ripped them out of the earth.
ReplyDeleteI planted 2 varieties, 2 plants each..and had enough to feel the eastern United States.
Why do we keep planting the damned things?
courgettes would survive nuclear war
ReplyDeleteI hate them more than common people and that's saying something
I'm assaulted with noise torture every time I hear a Journey song. Chuck knows this and turns it up when it comes on the radio on purpose. AND sings along to it at the top of his lungs. He doesn't like that song either, he just does it to piss me off.If you ever see my mugshot on the front page of Yahoo convicted of his murder, you'll know what the motive was.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame your poor neighbours. If I was an old lady and I saw you striding up to my door with your courgette in your hand, I'd lock my door too.
I don't think I've ever had a courgette. Looks like a zuchini. Although, with the hate, I'm surprised you didn't throw in an inferiority joke about them compared to that cucumber. Huh. I wonder of courgette's grow in the desert. I need crap I won't kill or this whole vegetable experiment will be for naught.
ReplyDeleteKyna, don't stop believin'!! Hold on to that feelin'!!!
This brings back horrible memories of endless supplies of zucchini/courgette "cake" as a kid, as it was one of the few things my mother couldn't kill off. She even froze the crap, too. Some of those suckers grew to the size of baseball bats!
ReplyDeleteI somehow manage to end up with the gigantic ones, I swear they hide the little ones from me when I go looking for them. I would much rather eat them when they are tiny, cooked in some olive oil and garlic. But no I get gigantor that isn't edible.
ReplyDeleteFeed the compost pile.
ReplyDeleteHello from canada. We call them zucchini over here. Funny post. be kind to your zucchini
ReplyDeleteDear IG,
ReplyDeletenoise - Lärm - can drive one crazy (our hearings were tested when studying literature - because if you can't hear how the British "th" is spoken, you can only make an application as actor for 'A German in Tsse War trying to speak English in a British film" - and they said to me "You hear 150%". That is not always a blessing: in Hamburg in one flat - hastily built up after the war, from the outside beautiful Art Deco - I could hear what people 2 storeys underneath were speaking into their telephone - husband with "normal hearing in his age group" didn't - but he can sleep with an earthmover outside...
For courgette I have translated a recipe for "Courgette-bread", it sounded convincing. Though I didn't bake that - at that moment I had no courgettes...
I'm with you there, got fed up with them a while ago off just two plants. They're composting nicely now!
ReplyDeleteGie's peace big yin. Next year try Taxi, a tasty wee yellow courgette that doesn't cook to a mush. And go mad, break the habit of a lifetime and spend some of your ill-gotten gains on fair trade/Oxfam goods or if you can't bear the thought of giving money away lend it through Kiva on micro-financed businesses. Sara Raven et al will manage somehow! x
ReplyDeleteif your a idiot and you have courgette's coming out of your *****, and are waiting for them to die, then what does that make me, when mine had a mere month of life before being eaten alive by squash vine borer?
ReplyDelete