From Jennie Winter and John Guyon I just received a padded envelope with a compact disk and a card of about the same size. The card, produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, shows two puffins. Besides the printed holiday greetings, it bears two signatures only. The disk is homemade and unmarked. A mystery. Suspecting a prank of some sort, I put it on at once. I was startled by what I heard, but I listened to it to the very end. I jacked the volume up, too. Although the recording starts with a buzz that suggests a circular saw, and although that buzz recurs sporadically throughout, the disk contains the so-called white noise. Twenty-two minutes and thirty-six seconds of it, to be precise. Perhaps there is another sound to it, a distant and slow throb suggesting a ship engine, but it is so indistinct that one cannot be sure about it. The recording ends with another buzz, but its length suggests that it was deliberately selected for the end. In short, the compact disk contains gray noise, or white noise adulterated but sparingly. Now I have to figure out whether this is a subtle criticism of the music I used to select for my many parties in Reading, which Jennie and John came to quite regularly, or a veiled comment on my electronic postcards, all of which they receive as dear friends. Or maybe both?

Addendum (December 27, 2003)

John’s comment: “No comment.”