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The idea of North

January 23, 2006

The destruction of the quiet northern winter by the jamming of snowplows and snowmobiles is one of the greatest transmogrifications of the twentieth-century soundscape for such instruments are destroying the “idea of North” that has shaped the temperament of all northern peoples and has germinated a substantial mythology for the world. The idea of North at once austere spacious and lonely could easily throw fear into the heart (had not Dante refrigerated the center of his Hell?) but it could evoke intense awe for it was pure temptationless and silent.

R. Murray Schaefer