Remembering Gould

At work, we’ve been doing this thing where we share songs with one another, based on various topics. A recent one was: “Songs from a Movie Soundtrack.”

Whenever there are contests or things of this nature, I tend to lean towards finding the oddest, most a-typical example that still meets the criteria. There are any number of popular movies and popular songs to choose from, but I always enjoy the idea of searching at the parameter borders. That always feels more fun to me.

In terms of movie soundtracks, I was thinking about a film I saw back when I was an undergraduate at Indiana University: Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. I’m not sure how I happened across it – best guess is I borrowed it from the Monroe County Public Library, which was just up the street from my house and where I worked part-time.

They had a great AV section, and you could borrow any number of things. This was in the mid 1990’s, and you could check out VHS tapes, CD’s, computer books with diskettes, and even 16mm film and film projectors!

I’m no music buff. And I strated from the classical music path a long while ago. So I mostly know of Gould through this film. That is to say… “the idea of Gould,” if you will. A horribly inside joke there, for anyone who’s seen this film.

It’s pretentious at times. But I still have a fond memory of it. I don’t know whether this qualifies as an art film or not, but it’s definitely not your typical film.

The thing that I remember most fondly is that there were a few moments – a few select segments/scenes… that caught me off guard, and made me rethink how I listened to the world. One of those moments from the film was called “Truck Stop”:

Interestingly, I seem to remember and go back to this film every 5 years or so. I’ve also got a music playlist of Gould performing Bach (Goldberg Variations), but just the faster pieces.

I seem to shlep this with me, from music streaming service to music streaming service. Let’s see how long this one will remain viable:

Lastly, I’m a bit bummed that Flash is now gone. I had an old experiment I did around one of Gould’s pieces, and there’s no good way to view it now. May have to see about converting some of these .swf files into .mp4s.

Related:
Bach’s “The Well Tempered Clavier,” Visualized

Glenn Gould: Bach, Goldberg Variations, 26-30
Glenn Gould: Bach, Goldberg Variations