Friday, February 27, 2009

Tone deaf and all washed up

I hesitate to share this, it so depresses me, but maybe you'll fare better than me.

Train Horn

Created by Train Horn

Via Caitlin R. Kiernan, who passed.

I am trying to write books for teenagers, and I do not know what they're listening to.

Also, I love this vid from Jackson Pearce, "about giving cats baths, also giving up on your novel." Via Cynsations.



I'm not giving up on my novel (not all of it anyway), but I am more aware than ever that all this writing I've been doing has been me learning to write, which is a good thing no matter what comes of it.

3 comments:

david elzey said...

I'm pushing, uh, middle age and I heard it. But I've heard it before: and my ENT, and it's not really indicative of anything other than your ability to respond to a particular frequency.

Women have, in general, more sensitivity to sounds on the lower end of the spectrum, guys to the higher end. Also, generally speaking, as we age we tend to lose sensitivity to sounds at either end of our spectra which isn't unusual.

What apparently is unusual is that I still have some of this sensitivity despite all those very loud punk shows I attended in my youth. I can hear whether or not a TV is plugged in a room away if the conditions are right - even turned off, a plugged in piece of electronics has a sound in "stand-by" mode. And a room full of florescents at the right frequency will give me a migraine in under twenty minutes.

I know you didn't take the test seriously, but I'm sure many will. Especially those malls that will pay some company a LOT of money for their "scientific" anti-teen devices.

When my mall wanted to clear the teens, they went to the organ store (yes, we had a store that sold organs) and hooked it up to the PA and had some salesman demonstrate the various organ features while playing Lawrence Welk favorites. Nothing like "Lady of Spain" on an organ with a samba beat to clear kids out of Hot Dog on a Stick.

taipalmgren said...

I heard it. Ow.

Rachel Wilson said...

HAHAHAHA!!!! I'm so jealous of both of you! But thanks David for suggesting that it's not entirely dependent on age. I was getting ready to blame my dad who likes to blast the stereo and who hears constant ringing of varying tones all day long.

And the florescents thing -- I've heard some rooms can have negative (or positive I guess) effects on people because of the combined frequencies of all their white noise. Spooky.