Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Water, water, everywhere!

I love the sounds of water: rushing over rocks, languidly rolling past logs, being pushed aside by paddles (my favorite), and general liquidy goodness. I've never really pinned down why that is, but the noise is so unique, so instantly recognizable, that it puts the sounds of water into a category all its own. Either way, we couldn't live without it and it provides some pretty fantastic settings for stories.

One of my favorite films starring water is: "Lifeboat" by Alfred Hitchcock. It's about a bunch of people stuck on a lifeboat after their ship is sunk by a Nazi U-Boat. Naturally there's mystery, but the real tension is that there is only water all around them. And, since we can only see the top of the water, we don't know what's underneath them either. It's a wonderful movie, and I encourage any who haven't seen it to find it somewhere, because it's one of Hitchcock's best.

Water places limitations on a story, sets boundaries, and forces characters to come up with clever solutions to problems they otherwise wouldn't have. And, it's another thing we can all relate to. We know what it feels like, tastes like, and understand the paranoia of being trapped under it. But, I always come back to the sounds it makes. My wife loves to fall to sleep with the sounds of a rainstorm tickling her ears, while I could sit and listen to the sounds of a gurgling spring for hours and never notice the time go past. And, it tastes so very delicious!

- M

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