the.com/howl
a sound built for distance, telling the dark exactly where you stand
means To make a long, loud, wailing cry — the kind a wolf, a wind, or a grieving person sends out into the open air.
from From Middle English houlen, an echo-word that imitates the sound itself — the same impulse that gave German heulen and Dutch huilen. It's onomatopoeia at its rawest: the word is shaped like the noise, a long open vowel trailing off into the dark, so that saying it is almost making it.
- wolf range
- Howls carry up to ten miles across open terrain
- vocal signature
- Each wolf's pitch is unique, like a name
- chorus trick
- Packs harmonize to sound larger than they are
- beat poetry
- Ginsberg's Howl was tried for obscenity in 1957
- dogs inherit it
- Sirens trigger the ancestral howl in pets
for instance
howl's moving castle — 1986 novel by diana wynne jones, adapted into hayao miyazaki's 2004 film
allen ginsberg howl — 1955 poem that became a symbol of the beat generation and faced obscenity trials
the howling — 1981 werewolf horror film directed by joe dante