Listen
I

一耳 · First Ear

goomimi

Provisional Bureau for the Study of Audient Beings

On First Hearing

Welcome, traveller, to a museum that does not exist. The Goomimi is a nine-eared listener spirit said to dwell in the rafters of Korean village granaries, where it absorbs the rustle of grain, the snore of sleeping oxen, and the unspoken sentences of farmers who believed themselves alone. We curate, on its behalf, a small collection of audient artefacts

GOO-1874-I · Hall the First

Brass listening tube at rest, walnut velvet, plate i.

II

二耳 · Second Ear

The Granary at Suanbo, 1874

In the eleventh month of the year of the wood-dog, an itinerant scribe named O Hyeong-jun took shelter from snow in a granary above Suanbo. He wrote, in a margin of his almanac: I heard, above me, an attentiveness. He found, in the morning, a small impression in the floor-clay that resembled nothing so much as the print of an ear

GOO-1874-II · Originating Note

Clay shard, ear-print impression, Suanbo, 1874.

III

三耳 · Third Ear

The Nine Ears, Catalogued

  1. 一耳the ear that hears the moth at the lampshade
  2. 二耳the ear that hears the unspoken sentence
  3. 三耳the ear that hears the grain settling at midnight
  4. 四耳the ear that hears the snore of the sleeping ox
  5. 五耳the ear that hears the pinewood beam recall its forest
  6. 六耳the ear that hears the kettle considering its boil
  7. 七耳the ear that hears the snow before it falls
  8. 八耳the ear that hears the shape of an absence
  9. 九耳the ear that hears, finally, itself listening

GOO-1874-III · Taxonomic Schedule

IV

四耳 · Fourth Ear

Audient Phenomena (a partial inventory)

  • the click of a grain-scoop against an iron-banded barrel
  • the small report of a beetle's wing-case opening
  • the floorboard which has not yet been stepped upon
  • the held breath, prior to the sneeze
  • the moth at the lampshade, undecided
  • a far bell, considering its hour

GOO-1874-IV · Inventory, Partial

Moth on lamp shade, gallery iv, undated.

V

五耳 · Fifth Ear

The Wax Cylinder Affair

In the spring of 1923, an enthusiast of the Edison phonograph attempted to record not the Goomimi itself — for that would be a category error — but its listening. He suspended a horn beside the spirit's rumoured perch and waited. The cylinder, on playback, produced a hush of nine distinct silences, each subtly differently weighted. The recording survives only in description

The Bureau holds the cylinder in trust, and refuses to play it.

GOO-1923-V · Methodological Footnote

Wax cylinder, recording of nine silences, 1923.

VI

六耳 · Sixth Ear

On the Ethics of Eavesdropping

It is the conviction of the Bureau that all listening is a form of trespass, and that the most courteous trespass is the one which leaves no mark. The Goomimi, by all accounts of the unverifiable witnesses we have consulted, practises the latter. It hears the unspoken sentence and does not repeat it; it attends the moth's hesitation and does not name it. The Bureau, in compiling these pages, attempts the same restraint, and fails, and tries again.

A creature with nine ears might be expected to know nine times as much. The folk of Suanbo say, instead, that the Goomimi knows the same as anyone else and merely holds it more carefully

GOO-MMXXVI-VI · A Position Paper

Empty hexagonal vitrine, gallery vi.

VII

七耳 · Seventh Ear

The Bureau's Method

  1. i.Enter the granary at the hour of least breath; carry no instrument.
  2. ii.Sit beneath the rafters, palms upturned, eyes lowered to the grain.
  3. iii.Note, without naming, what becomes audible.
  4. iv.Resist the impulse to attribute.
  5. v.Resist, more vigorously, the impulse to record.
  6. vi.At dawn, leave a small offering of unmilled rice.
  7. vii.Withdraw, having heard nothing, having heard everything

GOO-MMXXVI-VII · Protocol of Attendance

Half-open notebook, methodological draft, undated.

VIII

八耳 · Eighth Ear

Field Notes from the Equinox

Third lunar month, the day after the rains.

The granary's pinewood beam settled three times between midnight and the cock. Each settling was a different vowel.

Eighth lunar month, the night of the harvest moon.

An owl declined to call. The Goomimi, presumably, attended the declination.

Eleventh lunar month, snow on the lintels.

The kettle considered, at length, its boil. We did not interrupt.

GOO-MMXXVI-VIII · Equinoctial Notes

Single feather, granary threshold.

IX

九耳 · Ninth Ear

goomimi

Provisional Bureau for the Study of Audient Beings

Colophon and Closing Bell

The Goomimi has never been photographed. This is, of course, by mutual agreement.

GOO-MMXXVI-IX · Closing Note