Re: GG: Eccentricities/Joakim

[Immoor@aol.com]

(I hope this makes it onto the group list... I'm new to AOL.)
I find the hyper-sensitivity angle very interesting, and agree that there
could be comething to it, but I am more inclined to think that Gould suffered
from more mental afflictions that physiological ones. I use as reference my
own mother, who developed agoraphobia (something GG has himself admitted a
suspicion of having, whether for the 'vogue' of it - as he seemed to casually
discuss many afflictions - or not) in her early thirties and remained
somewhat crippled by it for the next 8 years or so until undergoing an
aggressive therapy. During this time, she was subject to incredible bouts of
nausea that could only be soothed by a series of non-threatening stimuli such
as bland food, warm clothes, and closed-in spaces. She was always cautious to
maintain an environment that was completely controllable, so that she could
avoid any need to go outside. She carried warm cans of cola, a home remedy
for nausea, she ate mainly tea and toast, she sat constantly with an electric
heating pad. To anyone else, she seemed quite eccentric, but when you spoke
to her, she was genuinely concerned with easing the pain she could not
understand. I immediately identify this in GG; the way he developed an
inabililty to eat before his trip to Russia, as told to Jock Carroll in Some
Portraits; the fear of the AC units in the studios, his utter paranoia about
the bacteriological unpredictability of his own body. It must have been very
hard for him to balance the developing phobias he had against the very public
and normal exterior that was expected of him. I'm sure that the careless
mixing of prescription drugs and the likely discomfort of side effects was
also of concern for him. Combine this with the now-suspected spinal injury GG
was said to have sustained as a boy and the effect that it had on his
shoulders and hands (something the doctors he consulted were unable to
discover) and you have an individual, who along with the generally accepted
pains of the creative mind, had a myriad of physical ills he did not know how
to control.  Truthfully, I am hesitant to accept any posthumous
psychobiography (no offense to Joakim Thelander) because there is indeed no
way to know what made GG the end product that he was. There is certainly
enough information about his upbringing, his career, and his personal
correspondence for everyone to draw their own conclusions, and I personally
would be far more interested to read a thesis of how his music and his
ground-breaking tyechniques have affected current musical thought.
 Incidentally, my mom has made a complete recovery and is now a professor of
geology in NY... she loves hiking and going on archaeological digs...