Phoenix: Geography in Stereo

Marshall McLuhan:

Stereo sound ... is 'all-around' or 'wrap-around' sound. Previously sound had emanated from a single point in accordance with the bias of visual culture from its fixed point of view. The hi-fi change-over was really for music what cubism had been for painting, and what symbolism had been for literature; namely, the acceptance of multiple facets and planes in a single experience. Another way to put it is to say that stereo is sound in depth... Anything that is approached in depth acquires as much interest as the greatest matters. Because 'depth' means 'in inter-relation', not in isolation.[thanks MD]

Since moving out West I have developed a keen appreciation for horizontal depth. Back home, back East, in the landlocked towns, there is flatness, there are meandering rolling hills, we endure disorientation: zero-dimensionality, home with no reference, subject with no object. In Boulder, we navigate all directions with reference to our pole star, the Flatiron Range, always due West from any point in town. It is both a topographical and historic point of reference, a clear visual signifier for "The Wild West Starts Here", the clearest indicator anywhere in the nation of the end of one geomorphic personality (the Plains) and the beginning of another (the Rockies). It is the beginning of an adventure novel, the drop-cap opening of a block of text, the astonishing throat-clear at the commencement of a speech. For this very reason, however, Boulder is one-dimensional.

Contrast this to the Phoenix area, where I was a recent visitor. Rather than the constancy of mountains looming in the West, there are mountains and hills and abutments in every which direction, disconcertingly rising above a more or less flat valley (flatter than the Colorado Front Range at least). Multiple reference points, multiple choices, multiple geographic loyalties. It is no surprise that the area seems more ethnically heterogeneous, not to mention historically ambiguous. Lacking the grand promenade that is the Gateway to the West of Denver, and the Pacific finality of the California coastline, Arizona, like the rest of the Southwest, is both an in-between zone, and a scenic destination (although, if the late Bill Hicks gets his way, and CA topples at the hands of an earthquake, AZ will be home to miles and miles of beachfront property).

Concurrently, because it lacks reference to a single point, whether the mono-wall of the Rockies, or the hopeless dead-end expanse of the sea, Arizona, New Mexico, and cousins function as a geographic Cubist painting, a miasma of references, a duel of multiple polarities: East vs. West, High Tech vs. Rugged Nature, Red Desert vs. Green Oasis, Past vs. Future, History vs. Timeless Present. In Arizona, these exist simultaneously, the eternal Both/And, and humanity is the richer for it.

Now if only they'd invent Dolby.

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