Fire

How strange to wake up and smell smoke--from fires burning in the next state over!

Some coworkers said they could smell it one day last week, too, but I had a cold then and was smelling-impaired.

This morning, however, I didn't even have to get out of bed to smell the smoke.

The Entertainer!

OMG.

I just heard an ice cream truck outside.

Playing "The Entertainer." Not "Turkey in the Straw," or the whatever clappy-clap song it was that went with the little voice that called out "HELLO!" every spring/summer night on the Near West side of Chicago, and not that really weird melancholy one we heard every once in a blue moon over in Ukrainian Village, but still: an ice cream truck.

The sound of an ice cream truck is, like, a straight mainline shot of Chicago-apartment-life nostalgia.

I've never heard one here before. (Uh, obviously.)

(The fountain is still off! Well, trickling now, but not audibly, really. Trickly is A-OK with me.)

Ohhh, that was good. That was weird, and that was good.

OK, yes, I know, really, they're everywhere, them 'cream trucks. This is not such a surprising thing to happen, not at all. But somehow I never really encountered ice cream trucks until I moved to Chicago. And oh, encounter them I did, from that point on. Nightly. Nay, often daily and nightly.

Who could forget the WINDY FREZEE?

(sob)

Oh, Entertainer, what a sweet treat you were, here in Alabama on a quiet Sunday eve.

Encore! (And yes, I want my $1 soft-serve cone too, please.)

Locoaudio, part two

Well, duh.

I realized tonight why the train music seemed especially lovely last night. It was because I could actually hear it clearly. And that was because the fountain in the "pocket park" below our apartment had been shut off. It's kind of crazy that I spend a good deal of time gritting my teeth over that stupid fountain's incessant white noise, and then didn't exactly notice when it went away. But that was just because I was noticing all the other, infinitely more enjoyable sounds.

We suspect the whole point of the fountain is to mask train and traffic sound for people who live in this building and don't fancy that sort of thing. In all likelihood they're the majority. People like to install fountains in their yards for the sound of the burbling/crashing water, right? I'm probably the resident weirdo who doesn't want to screen everything else out with the racket of crashing water.

Why is it so nutty to want to listen to the sounds of the environment you've chosen to live in? I just don't get it, but not getting what a lot of people don't seem to even think twice about is sort of a recurring theme in my life. And I'm afraid it will never make me rich (as not getting it sometimes does, for some people); in fact, the opposite is probably more true.

Still, I think I may have to write the management peeps a letter, a solitary (perhaps) plea to leave the thing turned off for good. What if they actually granted my wish!? (What if, dream of dreams, they actually receive additional requests for same?)

Not only can you hear train music (and, maybe, some industrial backing notes from some plant/factory of some sort on the other side of the tracks; as for traffic, honestly, there is none worth screening out), you can hear birds. The birds were totally drowned before.

("Dear Jemison, Please don't drown the birds. I mean, please don't drown them out. Best,...")

This brings us to the reason that the fountain is off. At first I assumed "broken," because a lot of things have broken around here recently. But then--a-ha moment!--I thought, "drought." Quite likely that's it. And good for you, Jemison peeps, for shutting the thing down to save agua, if that is indeed what you did. Of course, I also feel uncomfortable with the fact that something good, for me, may be coming of the drought. What is more preferable: a dangerously dry summer with no fountain, or the fountainy status quo and healthy doses of rain? It's true that I despair to see staggering, shriveling living things; I can practically hear their wails, a tinny chorus of parched little throats screaming help meeee, feed meeee...

(shudder)

But drought or no, couldn't--shouldn't-- they just shut thing down? Wouldn't money be saved, not to mention a natural resource? Well...okay, there's probably not a lot of water usage in a fountain; perhaps it just cycles back through. I don't know. But let's assume for the sake of this blog post and my need for train music in my life that we're talking massive water waste, here. If they did shut it down because of the drought, it must be wasting some water.

So, OK, let's assume then that there are more popular reasons than train music to kill the damn fountain once and for all. If I write my argument essay-letter, I shall focus on these, not my affection for chugging engines and the screech of giant knives being sharpened and the wail of violins like Charlie Daniel's band of demons startin' in and the tolling of bells (though I doubt I'll be able to resist tucking in a plea for them, too, near the end). Meanwhile, I best get out the recording equipment, because it also occurred to me tonight (again, duh) that no decent recording could be made with the fountain doing its thing.

Will we have a summer sans infernal wet static? Stay tuned. I certainly will.

Locoaudio

I have decided that I've got to start writing down the ways the freight trains sound. I need to record them too.

Six+ months in, I still take serious joy in listening to the many variations on metal-on-metal noise (and engine thrum) here, in Birmingham, a few hundred feet from the tracks and above the street. It's one of the small but good things.

And yes, I should start right here and now, but I've got other things I'm supposed to be working on. Ain't that always the case, though. . .

Vox Populi

According to the very friendly and very tan man who rang up my smoothie today, global warming's just not the big deal the media would have us believe.