Posted on 08/02/2022 4:11:49 PM PDT by TexasKamaAina
Edited on 08/02/2022 5:04:40 PM PDT by Chris Robinson. [history]
New York in the summer is a noisy place, especially if you don’t have money. The rich run off to the Hamptons or Maine. The bourgeoisie are safely shielded by the hum of their central air, their petite cousins by the roar of their window units. But for the broke—the have-littles and have-nots—summer means an open window, through which the clatter of the city becomes the soundtrack to life: motorcycles revving, buses braking, couples squabbling, children summoning one another out to play, and music. Ceaseless music.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I take pride in being humble. :-)
I generally appreciate my quiet house which is so largely due to good windows.
Oddly though, some noise I have no trouble with and actually like for sleep purposes.
When there’s a grand cacophony of frogs, crickets, and cicadas night, it puts me to sleep pretty fast. Have to open the windows for that one.
Probably most odd is when I visit family on vacation I have no trouble w/their kids playing loudly. I’ve napped right through it at times. However, if I had a playground near my house, it’d bother me (but the windows would preclude that anyway). I’m obviously biased towards “my own”.
At a good distance, I like the sound of lawnmowers and trains. Has to be far enough away to be fairly “soft”. About a quarter mile for a single lawnmower and a good 2-3 miles for trains.
Perpetual city noise is nothing to sleep to for me. Never had much occassion to do so, but I was 10 floors up in Chinatown NYC once, and it wasn’t high enough. Heard every dumpster lift at 4 in the morning. It was an improvement though over my first night in NYC, which was at ground level by the battery - fish carts running over cobblestones over and over. Generally terrible but served as a good alarm clock.
My humility fills me with pride!
extremely close, and incredibly loud
Thought I did. The Atlantic even told me it was my last free article. Don’t know what happened. The excerpt isn’t even what I entered. Apologies for the offense.
I lived for a few months across the road from a freight yard. Not much sleep the first week or so, then I wouldn’t even hear the racket. Amazing what you can get used to.
To own a home you should want peace and quiet but.... there are others who do not.
My parents in Minnesota had a neighbor who made all sorts of noise except a radio. They had leaf blowers and hedge trimmers and played basketball at night with a street light they had installed that lit the home across the street so bright the neighbor complained and the light was then half blocked up. It still blocked out the stars we used to see from the front yard.
They souped up a riding lawnmower with a bigger engine and their kid used it to ride around the yard for fun at night.
In the winter the father put up a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood and flooded his backyard patio for an ice rink and slapped a hockey puck all night against the plywood. My parents were about 20ft away in the basement that opened to the backyard....whack! whack! etc.
Worst of all was the wind chimes. 24/7 nothing but that noise.
They did not want to hear the wind thru the leaves of the trees or the songs of the birds or the water gurgling from the creek in the backyard.
My parents moved away eventually!
I visited the area many years ago and they had since installed a swimming pool and a deck above the patio to add more noise.
My goal has been to buy a home on a couple of acres for peace and quiet.
It could be that they love quiet not because they're rich, but that they're rich because they love quiet.
As I look around me it seems that those who are the loudest and who crave constant stimuli also tend to be the least intelligent. Families I know that are on the dumber end of the scale seem to always have TV's blaring in the background and are constantly trying to talk over each other, jockeying to dominate a conversation. The more intelligent ones tend to have quieter households and more civil conversations among themselves. At least that's what I've noticed.
May she be blessed with tinnitus so that she can have her own private noise 24 hours a day from which she can have no respite.
Sounds like she likes it noisy so she can distract herself from the fact that she’s a miserable person.
Fun song.
Kristin Chenoweth - The Girl in 14G (2001) - MDA Telethon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5Cp2qxBr8
Why do rich people and rich colleges keep giving money to people like this? They want to change you. They want to bring their chit with them.
I have been bless (cursed) with very acute hearing. Especially at the high end of the scale.
I used to be able to walk past a house and tell if their TV was on not by the volume but by the high pitched whine of the CRT. Probably the reason I never was very fond of TV.
I love silence.
In places where the homes are close, like apartments, trailer parks, or the suburbs, it is mind-blowing that people put up windchimes 10 feet from your place.
The idea that I am going to install a permanent 24-hour noise maker for you to listen to for the rest of your life here, Oh look! this one is pretty too, let’s make it three sets of windchimes.
How about the outdoor dog that barks all day and night, listening to classical music or reading a book, or thinking, are out of the question.
I am going deaf as I get old. Now I just need to get rich and I will have it all!
I am broke and love my peace and quiet.
Author should have learned to read silently.
leftist idiots at atlantic have cause and effect reversed: most people want peace and quiet, it’s just that wealthier folks have better shot at living somewhere to achieve that
they might as well have written “Why Do Rich People Live Near The Ocean?” [because they can]
Once, when our son was about 5, he went to spend the night at a friend's home. He was brought back (to our surprise as he never had separation anxiety) by the mom late in the evening. Her only explanation was, "We're a loud home". Our son later told us the siblings and parents continuously yelled at each other and constant bicker. He went and sat in an empty room. I guess the mom understood it wasn't our way and brought him home.
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