Alphabet Soup
(by Henrik Gonzalez Wu)
The Arizona Center near 3rd St. / Taylor St.
Audio from part of a multimedia performance in a small theater at this vintage outdoor mall from the 1990s.
The Arizona Center near 3rd St. / Taylor St.
Audio from part of a multimedia performance in a small theater at this vintage outdoor mall from the 1990s.
The Arizona Center opened in 1990 as a space for offices, retail, and restaurants with a movie theater and urban garden with walking trails and fountains. It was supposed to kick off another revitalization of Downtown Phoenix, but a nationwide recession caused most of the Arizona Center’s tenants to withdraw by the mid ‘90s. In many ways, the reliance of the Valley’s economy on that of the U.S. in general is reflective of a colonial relationship. Combine that with huge number of “snowbirds” having a second house in the Valley for when the weather is cold back East, and Phoenix really does start to feel like another country—some tropical desert paradise that’s only really paradise for the people who are just passing through. For the folks who are here year-round, it’s a balmy purgatory or a burning hell, depending on the season. Today the Arizona Center is hoping to revitalize itself, with a ‘90s-themed retro movie theater, restaurants and beauty salons, a hotel, two office towers, and the same beautiful garden right between the Convention Center and Roosevelt Row. There’s even a roller rink in one of the spaces and a fine arts theater. The artist in this recording is an Austrian-Mexican-Chinese-American musician. The organization they describe in the introduction—the Cuyamungue Institute—is real and has been doing research to promote spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing since the 1960s. Originally established near Santa Fe the Institute’s directors have been COVID refugees since 2020 when it became unsafe to host in-person seminars. The Directors continued the Institute’s work remotely via zoom, operating out of a new site in view of the Red Rocks of Sedona. With the feasibility in doubt of revitalizing the original expansive and rugged facility in New Mexico, they have begun to re-build the Cuyamungue Institute’s in-person programs in this new location. The artist collaborated with the institute on research into the topic of music and altered states of consciousness, particularly the significance of the Basilar Membrane and the process of Perceptualization. During the period of our study, Wu presented a concert in the small theater in the Arizona Center of songs inspired by traditional forms of music designed to support altered states of consciousness, and this recording is from that evening. The lyrics of the song describe what it may be like to experience a powerful altered state of consciousness for the first time, based on descriptions from participants in the work of the Cuyamungue Institute. The scat/nonsense chorus is meant to represent the “language of spirit,” a postulated form of direct knowledge transmission from a universal spiritual consciousness. It’s described as a language of pure knowledge, the source of all human ideas—instinct itself—that is interpreted into thoughts, words, or actions by our conscious minds.
(Some of the information in these liner notes is fictional, presented here in the attempt of satire)
(Some of the information in these liner notes is fictional, presented here in the attempt of satire)
LYRICS
"In Sedona, Arizona, there is a group of people known as the Cuyamungue Institute, who have developed a method by which untrained individuals, without any influence from drugs or alcohol, through a simple ritual focusing on breath, sound, and smells, can enter into a posture, listen to a steady rhythmic sound for fifteen minutes, and go on journeys that reveal some of the deepest truths of the Universe. The results of their research validate the hypothesis, held by many modern philosophers, that music is God here on Earth. At the conclusion of each ritual, participants share their stories of what they saw. This is one of those stories."
Walking down the street
The other day
And I saw a beautiful lady
Coming my way
The crown of her head
Reflected like a frozen pond
I caught just one glance of the glare
And I was gone
The light pierced through my eyes
Went straight to my soul
It tore me to bits and pieces
And left me whole
Oh, I wish that I could show you
My friend
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish
It didn’t have to end
You wouldn’t believe
Unless you saw it
You wouldn’t understand
Unless you knew
You wouldn’t be able to spell it
Even if it wrote down
The entire alphabet for you
But still, it’s true
[Chorus]
So I headed up to the forest
To find my way
I was thinking to encounter a pine tree
And carve my name
Instead I met a bear
With golden claws
Carved from the hearts
Of a hundred distant stars
She pointed up to the skies
And she showed me peace
As a warm glow started emerging
From the East
Time stood still for a matter of years
My friend
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish
It didn’t have to begin again
You wouldn’t believe
Unless you saw it
You wouldn’t understand
Unless you knew
You wouldn’t be able to spell it
Even if it wrote down
The entire alphabet for you
But still, it’s true
[Chorus]
So I headed back down
To the city
And my heart felt lighter
Than a cloud
But then I became afraid
That I would forget everything that I’d learned
And I looked up into the sky and I smiled
And I looked back down
And I walked right into that crowd
I didn’t believe
Until I saw it
And then I understood
What all I knew
I wrote it down and sang it
Cause I got a lot of friends
Who’d feel better if they’d seen it too
I’m here to tell them it’s true
[Chorus]
Walking down the street
The other day
And I saw a beautiful lady
Coming my way
The crown of her head
Reflected like a frozen pond
I caught just one glance of the glare
And I was gone
The light pierced through my eyes
Went straight to my soul
It tore me to bits and pieces
And left me whole
Oh, I wish that I could show you
My friend
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish
It didn’t have to end
You wouldn’t believe
Unless you saw it
You wouldn’t understand
Unless you knew
You wouldn’t be able to spell it
Even if it wrote down
The entire alphabet for you
But still, it’s true
[Chorus]
So I headed up to the forest
To find my way
I was thinking to encounter a pine tree
And carve my name
Instead I met a bear
With golden claws
Carved from the hearts
Of a hundred distant stars
She pointed up to the skies
And she showed me peace
As a warm glow started emerging
From the East
Time stood still for a matter of years
My friend
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish
It didn’t have to begin again
You wouldn’t believe
Unless you saw it
You wouldn’t understand
Unless you knew
You wouldn’t be able to spell it
Even if it wrote down
The entire alphabet for you
But still, it’s true
[Chorus]
So I headed back down
To the city
And my heart felt lighter
Than a cloud
But then I became afraid
That I would forget everything that I’d learned
And I looked up into the sky and I smiled
And I looked back down
And I walked right into that crowd
I didn’t believe
Until I saw it
And then I understood
What all I knew
I wrote it down and sang it
Cause I got a lot of friends
Who’d feel better if they’d seen it too
I’m here to tell them it’s true
[Chorus]
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