The rest is silence

Think you know silence? Come prove it at The Silence Project!

The Silence Project

I was listening to a Sierra Club podcast today on a very noisy bus about One Square Inch of Silence. It is about a man's quest to preserve non-manmade noise from one square inch of the Olympic National Park in Washington state (U.S.A.) The podcast made me consider how noisy the world is. The mission, therefore, of this blog, is to present audio files of what we think is silence. Perhaps we may find some. Perhaps it is impossible. I don't know.

If you want to join, email me at gardnecl@gmail.com. Put "The Silence Project" in the subject line of your email. You'll have to have a blogger.com account.

The rules are simple: record less than 20 seconds of what you think is silence, post it to whatever file service you choose (I suggest the Internet Archive), and sit back and enjoy the silence.

In any case, here is my first prototype for The Silence Project:

The Magic is Lost

Remember the magic of getting a new Yellow Pages? I recall as a kid when this device of great potential would show up on our door step. Nearly as good as a new J.C. Penney catalog for fantasizing about exotic (but of course very mundane things), the new Yellow Pages offered insight into the stores and services in exotic parts of Salt Lake City that our family never or rarely ventured to. After perusing the book for hours, I would ask my mother if we could visit a certain toy store, for example, usually to be shot down with "there's no reason to drive all the way over there!" We'd then end up at K-Mart, and as everyone knows there is precious-little magic in K-Mart (aside from the blue light, that is.)

There was only one time when my cajoling my mother to go to a toy store found in the Yellow Pages actually worked, and that was for a store that used to be in Salt Lake's Trolley Square. I'm not sure why my mother agreed to go--perhaps she just wanted to get off the farm for an afternoon. In any case, the toy store lived up to my expectations--all sorts of exotic toys and games. I believe I bought a wooden yo yo, but it may have been something else.

The magic of Yellow Pages now Yellow Book, is long gone, however, and one must wonder why it even exists with the ubiquity of the Internet. When Yellow Book arrived last week on my door step I was just annoyed as I tripped over it. It went right into the recycling bin.

Ineffable

Ineffable
Originally uploaded by Theorris

It seems to be about circles lately.

To the mayor of a small village in Chihuahua

Dear Mayor,

Signifying nothing can indeed help you with your problem of marauding banditos terrorizing your once-idyllic village! Believe it or not, it is rather common for villages and small towns all over the Old West to be regularly raided by bands of ne'er-do-wells and ruffians. They regularly rob banks, start saloon fights, gun down unsuspecting and innocent farmers, and dare to impinge upon the sacred honor of womenfolk.

Rest assured, my dear Mayor, the experts from Hollywood, California have long been working on this problem and have come up with a solution! Mr. Mayor, your only salvation is to go out and find a lone gunman, who, while seeming to be despondent and angry on the outside, is willing to take on the bad guys preferably in a single-minded showdown where he will expertly pick every single one of them off until he gets to the leader who will die a suitable and often ironic death. This lone gunman must necessarily have his wife and small children killed off by either an Indian raid, or even more effectively, by similar banditos to the ones pestering your village. It is an added bonus if they are the same banditos, given that revenge is even more sweet for him and for you. This rarely happens, however, as the banditos and outlaws tend to lead short, although exciting lives, and are, apparently, a dime-a-dozen.

Once your hero has cleaned up the town (and hopefully not burnt it to the ground) do not, under any circumstances, expect him to stick around and become a regular citizen. Although the remorse for his dead wife or fiance or children or brother will be exorcized, he will still feel the need to wander off into the desert, never to be seen or heard from again.

Besides, you wouldn't want a violent son-of-a-bitch like that sticking around your idyllic village now would you? I mean look what happened to Big Whisky when Gene Hackman outstayed his welcome. They had to bring in Clint Eastwood to clean up that mess.

Where the wild things are

This is City Living
Originally uploaded by Douglas Roesch

Flickr contact Douglas Roesch indicates that Pittsburgh is being overrun by turkeys. I can find no relevant news stories by googling "pittsburgh turkey invasion" but apparently Pittsburgh has an annual Turkey Trot sponsored by the YMCA. I doubt this is the type of trot they are referring to.

I recall a few years back we had the year of the raccoon in SLC. The blackeyed critters were everywhere. This year may be the year of the Mormon Cricket, given the wet spring weather we are experiencing, and that wee beasties proclivity to procreate under such conditions. An invasion of cougars would be cool, but I fear too many of the concealed weapon carries of Utah would take vengeance on the big cats.

1000 Miles in 1000 hours! (Fascinating Fact #8)

Awesome! Robert Barclay Allardice.

Family lore suggests that my ancestors had similar ambitions as Laird Barclay. Perhaps, these feats of strength and endurance are or were just a Scottish thing. My illustrious Scots ancestor had many reputed hikes and walks and jumping over broomsticks.

I can still jump a broomstick at 3 feet standing still (as could he of polygamous fame) and can hike mountains.

Scotland! We are a hearty people. I guess it makes sense.

Fascinating fact #8: "Pedestrian" used to just mean a racer who was on foot, as "equestrian" was a racer who raced on horseback. Fascinating!

While I was on the bus and reading about Captain Barclay in The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson, I had a brief fantasy of just taking off on foot for a vacation and see where I ended up. Could be fun. It fits my heritage.

Perhaps I will jump over a broomstick or two on my way.