The Din Of Disparity
Plus, an embarrassingly addictive track, ecological dystopian novel and full-circle career moment.
With each place I’ve lived, I have an associated sound. In my childhood townhouse, it’s the passing streetcars that would rattle the burners on the stove. In the suburbs of Calgary, it was the muted stillness of the dry winter air. In my last apartment in Brooklyn, it’s the sound of birds in the trees against the near-constant din of sirens. Since moving back, I’ve noticed a new sound has entered the New York airspace: helicopters.
Whenever I hear a plane, I fantasize about my next trip and think of all those lucky people heading somewhere new. The sound of an airplane, to me, represents freedom. The sound of a helicopter has the opposite effect, it makes me feel claustrophobic. While I’ve never lived in a war-torn country, helicopters remind me of conflict. They signal surveillance, being under watch. They make me think on the aggregate; as I imagine they are looking for activity on a mass scale. In short, they make me anxious.
And I’m not t…