Monday, August 6, 2012

The wearing

The sound of car tyres on road could be a gust of wind across long grass but it is not! It could be the movement of air as a skein of pelicans flies overhead, gaining hight to take a journey working hard to discover the thermals to bear them aloft. Car and truck tyres passing in the far distance can provide a kind of sonic cairn that civilization, the possibility of travel, of movement a sense of comfort at being rooted in this spot in space and time. The constant fading and resumption of this noise, sometimes with a discordant rhythmic quality in rush hour then add water and the sound is different but still deeply wearing cutting sonic tracks across my thinking and breathing as I walk along the footpath. Drivers enclosed listening to music as the world passes by are immune to this wearing sound of tyre on road. I too contribute to this wearing pollution that must for so many living creatures be a stressful burden to constantly bear. When out with the dog I wear earplugs until turning off the road, the sound fades and I remove the earplugs to be refreshed by the song of birds, the movement of the air through trees, the distant cry of children and a violin being practiced in a nearby residence. Tyre noise the monoculture of a restless capitalism and a disconnected world from the landscape of a rich diversity of sounds.

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