Mon arrière grand-père Ukrainien est arrivé à New-York sur ce bateau, pour échapper aux massacres en Ukraine…Depuis longtemps en Ukraine, on parlait autant le Russe que l’Ukrainien. Petite, mon arrière grand-mère Ukrainienne apprenait aussi le Français (8ème colone)! Elle ne savait pas qu’elle aurait deux arrière petits enfants Français… Les deux apprendront le Russe au lycée avant même de savoir que leurs quatre arrières grands parents venaient de Kiev et Odessa.
Chez moi, l’ouie est un sens primordial. L’oreille est un organe réceptif évidement, mais elle est aussi partie intégrante du processus d’émission, d’expression, en tant que musicien, luthier, et amoureux des langues, c’est une sensibilité liée à des choses en profondeur…
Au début de la période de collapse, d’oblitération générale, un acouphène est apparu – un bourdonnement intense et constant à l’oreille gauche. Je n’arrive pas à comprendre comment j’ai pu le « supporter », mais surtout les dégâts qu’il a provoqué sont allés jusqu’au point où je ne pouvais plus du tout écouter de musique pendant plusieurs mois. J’ai eu à me représenter de ne plus jamais pouvoir jouer un instrument. Une perspective terrible en plus de la douleur physique.
Ce site, « One Ear » on « Two Legs« , c’est aussi l’histoire d’une guérison (en grande partie mais pas que) par le sport.
The Ear – source: the Best Sounding Banjo, by Roger H. Siminoff
Circa 2013 I was solicited on short notice to build a specific apparatus. This device was absent from the market for scientific research and had to be custom made and sent to the field in Kenya a.s.a.p. otherwise the experiments would not resume with the expected data.
Five years later, a publication (PMID: 29439024) came out with a major breakthrough! A monumental 10 years of research came to a conclusion — the research team did some very heavy lifting, I am glad I was able to provide just one piece that unclogged a bottleneck!
I donated some of my music for documentaries on occasion, here is one example with Gotas Del Sol, about an almost zero-cost method for making water drinkable in critical living conditions.
While living in Seattle in 2008, I was hired by a man from Kirghizistan. He had been half-paralyzed by a strike of lightning 10 years prior, and had healed thanks to strictly following the teachings of a Qi-Gong master. The day before we met, I was telling a friend the first story in the book « Musicophilia » (by Oliver Sacks): a man was struck by lightning, survived, started hearing piano in his head. He got so obsessed that he bought a piano and started practising. His wife left him, he left his job as a surgeon, and became a renowned classical concert piano player. So I was intrigued. To make a long story short, I became his assistant and translator, because his english was poor – Russian was his main language. His thing was to teach Qi-Gong together with « The TRIZ method« , a method invented by a Russian engineer to face unusual situations. So here we were, in a facility with social workers and educators in Renton, way south in the suburbs of Seattle: a Kirghiz guy teaching Qi-Gong and Triz in Russian to teenage high-school dropouts in a re-engagement program, translated by a Frenchman! After a few months, he let go and quit because he didn’t find satisfaction. I held on and became a taijiquan instructor for these kids. I loved it.