At the risk of veering off into something that's not quite philosophy I must forward the argument that the ultimate dimension which makes the world intelligible is provided by the face of the Beloved, understood as a person. Concomitantly, irreplacability of the singular face rather than the reversibility of relationship to the world characterizes the drama of existence. It must be acknowledged that not everybody knows the Beloved, or any beloved of any kind. Existence on this planet is such that faces may become strange and even horrible and still possess the semblance of being faces, appearing to possess the power, even in shock and pain, of calling upon an ethical, indeed a loving relation. Are we dealing with masks or faces, persons or persons? If faces change, how do we know which face is deepest or truest? Is it a question of which face calls for love? How do we recognize the beloveds of this earth?
In one aspect the problem of the world of the face has everything to do with persons (personae). It is the face who speaks, the face who expresses, and the manifestation of the face within the visible is only this inchoate power of dramatic expression. The face is always on the verge of saying something. But why should that something be "love me" much less "I love you"? What does the inchoate have to do with love? We risk confusing what we wish the face would say with what the face means stripped of our narcissisms—is this, though, realistic, this stripping away of narcissism from reality? Quite possibly it is. Somehow we find ourselves taking responsibility for faces as if we could love them in spite of any realities to the contrary, in spite of other feelings that more or less directly contradict love. Does the world laugh at the sense of responsibility engendered by the face of the beloved? Only love would allow such a stupidity as responsibility for an other to be tolerated, and if love didn't enable such stupidities it wouldn't be love. It should be of the utmost concern to philosophy to know whether the absence of love indicates something like a hard, cold reality or, rather, something like the blues.
A cryptic statement from Lefebvre: "The–recent–irruption of pure rhythm is found in all memories, as it often is when listening" (Rhythmanalysis, p. 61). He's talking about music (I think). Perhaps melody, which is always rhythmical to some degree, would be associated with memories because in listening to melody we exercise our mnemonic faculty, and the mere use of this faculty is enough to stir the irruption of memories. Or, perhaps, we exercise a musical faculty when forming memories, an idea which might be close to Lefebvre's, and merely using our musical abilities makes whatever we are doing musical. However, are we sure that this isn't a single faculty at play? In our everyday understanding do we forget that our memories are also musical? Do we forget our own musical abilities in order to experience memories in something like a reverie?
With respect to memory, how would quiet listening differ from the listening that goes with a more active participation in the creation of music? Does it help us to experience memories if we are able to forget or lay aside our capacity for making music? In that case we would rely on both the ability to "make" rhythm, or to rhythm forth, and the abilty to be made by rhythm, to be touched by rhythm, shaped. Would listening then be something like an acquiescence to a shaping force, or even an acquiescence to a plasticity? A plastic faculty.
Vibration represents the perturbation of a continuum. Rhythm is a play of perturbations, or disturbances, which typically means a play of vibrations, plural. Are all dynamic conducts (guidances) of perturbation to be subsumed under the heading of "play"? If the player of rhythm can't be certain that he isn't being played by rhythm, then the benignant nature of the play of disturbances is thrown in doubt. Discontinuation, like play, must always be ambivalent. Does memory cover over this ambivalence even as it thrives on it as one thrives on a rhythm? Quietly and–and being the irruption of a rhythm–to the sound of music, an inner melody, we remember. How will we remember beginning to think that memory is not automatic and still, in that moment, be able to remember?
In response to Lyotard I had asked "Does one have a sense of rhythm about thoughts one is not prepared to think? What sort of phenomenon would this be?" Could it be a phenomenon of the unconscious? Lacan speaks of the pulsative function of the unconcsious, "the need to disappear that seems to be in some sense inherent in it" (The Four Funamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, p. 43). Does a sense of rhythm touch on that? If so, are certain forms of musical praxis more attuned to the pulsative function than others, or is this attunement more generally an aspect of having a sense of rhythm? I wouldn't know for sure, but I can comfortably speak of the blues.
Playing the blues doesn't feel like sublimation. It feels like exposure. It's as raw as sobbing, crying, shouting or laughter. But it does come and go. There are moments where the form comes to the fore, and moments when you play on riffs or licks. The form is most prominent in the turnaround, which has the effect of wiping the slate clean. The player's time, his or her sense of rhythm, is constantly on display. What is the relation between this display and blues feeling?
If you will allow that a sense of rhythm touches on the pulsative function of the unconscious, what then does the musician do with this? Is it a question of mastery, or rather of allowing oneself to be open to the unconscious? Is it more simply a mode of bodily praxis that lends itself to the ruptures of the unconscious?