Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk.
This is what passes for civilization.
People who would never throw litter from their car will drive past you with their radio blaring. People who’d never blow cigar smoke at you in a crowded restaurant will bellow into their cell phone. They’ll shout at each other across the space of a dinner plate.
These people who would never spray herbicides or insecticides will fog the neighborhood with their stereo playing Scottish bagpipe music. Chinese opera. Country and western.
Outdoors, a bird singing is fine. Patsy Cline is not.
Outdoors, the din of traffic is bad enough. Adding Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E Minor is not making the situation any better.
You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours.
You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don’t win with a lot of treble.
This isn’t about quality. It’s about volume.
This isn’t about music. This is about winning.
You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword.
You dominate. This is really about power.
and I suppose that is the explanation. the arms race of sound came from an excerpt from the very first Palahniuk book that I had read. bring from the music background that I am, it kind of just stuck and became a recurring theme in my thought process, because in a sense, I contribute to the arms race of sound. I turn up my music to hide out everything else around me, whether that be traffic noises or my own mind. the volume, the bass line, the lyrics. it's who I am.
as for the iamredefined portion of my name...well, that one is a story for a rainier day.
and since I suppose this is the end of the post, a quote shall follow.
I think it is quite appropriate that the quote come from Chuck Palahniuk.
the unreal is more powerful than the real. because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. stone crumbles. wood rots. people, well, they die. but things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. if you can change the way peple think. the way they see themselves. the way they see the world. you can change the wya people live their lives. that's the only lasting thing you can create." Chuck Palahniuk
