Crumbs From the Corner: Adventures in Woolgathering

Friday, December 7, 2007

The Bugs Are Back Inside



"Talent develops in quiet, Character in the torrent of the world."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Spouse and I have often considered purchasing a decent sound system for our home, one luxury for the fact that we adore music. After all, it is what we love so investing in such would be only fair if we use it and enjoy it.
We never did bring ourselves to buy one, though, at least not yet. In summer, you see, it is positively not necessary. We can listen to our heart's content to other people's.
We live in an apartment next to a frightfully busy road and a set of traffic lights. Summer is the worst: that is when windows are rolled down, volume control is cranked up, and it appears that all the people in all the world who love rap music glide by our house, pausing, of course, for the red light to turn green. It takes forever for the light to change and by the time our volume-loving drivers move along, Spouse and I have become experts in thudding, shock-enhancing music.
I have gleaned the lyrics to a number of the songs and find myself on the brink of singing along as I do the washing-up.
Sharing is all well and good but I wish that for once, somebody would pass by our home who enjoyed, say, Tom Waits, Carla Bruni, or even Nightwish who are not at all 'quiet' but nevertheless a group we are very fond of.
Once, somebody did pass through playing a favourite Slade tune of mine: 'Come on Feel the Noise.' I certainly did but unfortunately the light was green at the time and they were gone, all too soon.
I don't mind any kind of music, really. The volume, though, is another matter. It shakes our apartment and interferes with our peaceful existence.
Spouse and I refer to these creatures as 'bugs.' They come out when the weather is warm and they are interminably annoying. Sometimes a rider on a bike will grind his or her motorcycle over and over even though they are obviously going nowhere; they want the world to know they have a motorcycle.
There are no bugs out and about these days, and for that we are glad.
This week we are up to our ankles in snow. The world is crisp and clean and very, very cold. There are no buzzing, revving motorcycles and nobody at all has their window down.
So we might, perhaps, in this season of silence, 'treat' ourselves to that music system we have discussed for so long.

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