Silence!

After another night of “tickling the ivories”   - of my computer keyboard – into the wee hours of morning, I was none too delighted to be serenaded by the sounds of souped up car dragging Main Street.  Followed by some pavement sweeper – oh – and the police siren at what seemed another regular interval later.  Of course, the simple solution was to close the window and open one that faces out to the trees - and the birds.  

There's a app for that!

On moments like these, I wish I were living in an ICF house, where the sounds are completely isolated from the interior.  But other times, I think the real benefit of an ICF house would be to be able to selectively bring in the auditory cues from the outside environment.    For example, the reason I keep that particular window open is because of the little morning bird that greets me about 6:30 am. If it doesn’t, then I know it is raining outside – and I can often hear the rain. Or it is winter.   During the day, I can hear the chatter of students as they pass on their way to school, and I can smell lunch being cooked up at the Chinese place. 

I’ve often thought about inserting a type of stethoscope into the walls of an ICF.   These could be located at strategic spots – like close to the driveway when you are expecting someone, or even if you are not, as a measure of safety.  My preference seems to be for sounds of animals, and people – which are the nocturnal animals in this college town.   What I would like to filter out are the noises of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, police sirens, and other machinery.   This isn’t as crazy a request as it might seem, since the technology already exists in the form of hearing aids and is used commercially in music studies.  My guess is that these "annoying" noises are really based on the extremities on the sound register  – both high (siren) and low (machines). 

All of which goes to prove what I have long suspected, and that is that  my best moments of creative thinking happen when I am slightly sleep deprived.  Or at least, I am deluded into thinking so. Back to the drawing board. Maybe I’ll design a prototype.