Jul 02 2008
birdsong
Sometimes I’m on skype with a friend, and - because the sound quality is pretty good - I can hear the most fantastic birdsong in the background. Formerly, I relied on written communication more: it was almost always easier to reach me by email than by phone. Now, I’ve started using my voice more, so, it’s skype more than anything. As the audio is very clear, many background noises at the other end of the line are audible. I love that. I love the proximity of voice, and the existence of a context, a background to the mental landscape making itself heard. It’s an added bonus to a conversation that I didn’t previously consider. J. asked me, the other day: “Are your other senses sharper? Do you hear more?” I’m sure it often seems that way, like a while back, when I was inside Latei and could guesstimate A’s arrival by taxi when I made out a Mercedes’ diesel against the background noise. I’d say I’m hearing different things, and I construct meaning differently, from sound. I was in a discussion on hybridcars.net on plans to add a noise generator to hybrid cars. When I’m in traffic I - like many people - rely on the noise of cars to cross safely. Hybrid cars make as much noise as bicycles do, so I don’t hear them, which makes them a danger to me. It’s striking that there is a lot of opposition from hybrid car owners against adding some sort of sound device. They consider that “sound pollution” and want to keep their cars “clean” in all respects. It was quite a heated discussion. I thought I would add some practical perspective by pointing out some facts about how blind people move in traffic. This was hard going. Again and again I wrote that I don’t need a very loud sound to make a hybrid car announce itself, just a different sound. One from which I can reckon direction of travel and when a car waits on a traffic light. Perhaps a specific type of birdsong would be appropriate here, or the sound of rain.
moving musings, as always from this brother. it is good to be reminded of “chopping wood, carrying water”, because as a crowned falcon these days, or (have) even been spotted as a high flying eagle.. what rumblings do call my attention are those of the mighty father sun rising in all its (res)plendor and glory, and the crackling of thunder over dark summer skies. so, let the mountains again be (just) mountains..
The hybrid sound needs to exhibit a good Doppler effect. My guess is that something could be engineered that drivers would never notice, but we would.
yes why not. it seems like such a reasonable request. I was very much surprised by the scorn and ridicule directed at the organisations that requested this. and I had to laugh at the techies’ dream solutions (like some sort of gps triangulation that would pinpoint the position, direction and speed of travel). I kept saying: I do that by sound. But it went unheard. Someone went as far as telling me that I wasn’t hearing anything now anyway, so my worries were unfounded. Tja.