Wired 13.11: My Bionic Quest for Boléro
He’s been haunted by Ravel’s masterpiece since he lost his hearing. A deaf man’s pursuit of the perfect audio upgrade.
By Michael Chorost
With one listen, I was hooked. I was a 15-year-old suburban New Jersey nerd, racked with teenage lust but too timid to ask for a date. When I came across Boléro among the LPs in my parents’ record collection, I put it on the turntable. It hit me like a neural thunderstorm, titanic and glorious, each cycle building to a climax and waiting but a beat before launching into the next.