The Gospel of Singing
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Chris Nichol
Last week we went to church, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans, to be precise. While we were there we witnessed, and took part in, some transformative singing. The experience was something like this.
More learned people than me would find ways to explain the power of this kind of participative performance in psychological or chemical terms. They’d probably be right. But they’d also have missed the point. The point has to do with exhilaration, an elation that transported some people and will serve to sustain others through the coming week.
When your words and your body language aren’t singing the same song…
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Chris Nichol
… we know you’re lying. I’ve been experiencing an awkward state of unease for close to 50 years now. And I hadn’t been able to put my finger on quite what it was until I heard an interview on Radio NZ National’s Nine to Noon programme. Lynn Freeman was talking with Harvard Business School social psychologist Amy Cuddy about body language, and especially about the significance of dissonance between words and actions.
Donald Trump provided her with a good example. She’s identified that he tries to adapt his body language to match his words. But it doesn’t work and that’s why he seems inauthentic.
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My mother-in-law has a radio in her head
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Chris Nichol
My mother-in-law has a radio in her head. She enjoys audio hallucinations. Well, “enjoy” may not be the word. Sometimes, I think, she enjoys them. At other times she endures them. The real problem is she can’t turn them off. For the best part of a year now she’s been concerned that muzak is regularly playing in her apartment. She’s asked us to have a word with the management to get it turned off. Unfortunately we can’t hear it at all. It’s not playing for us.