barrettchase.com

barrettchase.com
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Mon, 23 May 2011

I don't like hearing other people's music. It doesn't matter what kind of music we're talking about. I'm tempted to say that it's slightly worse if the music is something I wouldn't listen to, but that isn't true. Even if the music consists entirely of all my favorite songs, if I have to hear it through a wall, my inner Tom Cruise still flips all my rage dials to max and dances on my brain stem clad in nothing but wayfarers and Y-fronts. We all know what that's like.

A few days ago, one of the teens next door must have had a sick day, because pretty much immediately after their mom SUVed herself off to work, the radio came on at full volume and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

When I say "radio" I mean radio. As in DJs and car commercials. Have I mentioned this is not an apartment but a house? There is no sharing of walls involved here. They are inside, I am inside. Windows closed. Dishwasher running. Actual earplugs screwed into my head. I could still hear every word. Maybe not every note, but certainly all of the bass notes.

Have I mentioned that I sleep in the daytime?

You can't really complain about noise during the day. I mean, you can knock on the door and try to reason with a 16-year-old who's playing hookie, if you think that's going to help you get to sleep. You can attempt to call the police, and explain to them that your neighbors are playing the radio inside their house with the windows shut at noon on a Thursday. Go ahead and try that.

So I did what I could. I dug out the fan, plugged it in, aimed it at the ceiling and turned it on. This actually helped quite a bit. Then I put swapped out the earplugs for earbuds and downloaded a white noise app for my iPhone.

And that was when it happened. That was when I found my favorite sound ever: brown noise.

I should point out right away that I'm talking about brown noise, not the brown note, which is still theoretical at this time. If there really was an iPhone app that would play a brown note, you'd know about it because all the middle-school teacher in the world would simultaneously quit without hesitation upon its release.

No, I'm talking about brown noise, aka red noise, aka the sound of heavy rain, waterfalls, rivers and the like. It's totally dope. I was asleep within minutes.

Anyway, here's my idea: We already have eyeglasses to improve your sight, and hearing aids to improve your hearing. What I propose is exactly the opposite. We need equivalent devices that temporarily eliminate your hearing and/or your sight. It would be easy, really. I mean, they kind of already exist, but they need to be made more stylish and more socially acceptable.

You want to tell me about your day at work? No problem. Hold on a second while I turn this up. While I'm at it let me put on these glasses.

Okay, there we go. Much better.

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