Southside Silence
program notes

   When I was in junior high school (middle school), I
would occasionally have to wait for my mother or father to pick me up for a
doctor or dentist appointment.  In front of the school was a flagpole.  A
rope used to swing against the flagpole in the wind, producing a
characteristic ringing sound.  Standing in front of the school, with all the
other kids inside doing school-like things, hearing that noise made me feel
somehow alien and isolated.  It wasn't really a bad feeling; just sort of a
detached melancholy state of mind.  This feeling visits me often.

   The original title of this piece was "I wish I could stay in my room
at home and life would just leave me alone for awhile", but that was a
little long for my taste.  The piece was realized on a NeXT computer using
sounds in the upstairs room of our house in late May, 1993.  The name of the
school with the flagpole was "Southside Junior High".