When I first started listening to the audio I found it difficult to connect the different sections of speech punctuated between the music and other sounds. Each section felt like an entirely different lecture, as I would forget the content as soon as the music started. I had compared it to a fast forwarded version of all the textbooks and readings I’ve gone through. It was confusing and nearly headache inducing, but as I continued, I gained a new clarity. I realized that I was not listening to many different articles spaced between musical interludes, rather it was the same passage, punctuated with audio bits, that, though, seemingly unrelated, felt as natural as a comma in a sentence. A nice little pause between each part.

It then began to feel like the reading of an article, with everything that went into it jammed straight into it. It was an academic scrapbook, with sources cut and pasted straight onto the page, raw and unmodified. It was the author writing at two in the morning listening to classical music, slaving away to finish that one last paragraph before bed. It was the peer reviews and the interviews, with people sneering and agreeing, and laughing. It was the true, full experience of the creation of a work of art.