It’s Hard To Be Quiet

I exist on the Intertunnel. The Intertunnel doesn’t like “quiet.”

Not much of any form of mass media likes quiet anymore. The first sound you hear at a movie theater is the THX sound — the idiot love child of Doctor Moreau and Marconi — all the foul noises in the world compressed into one giant blast of entertainment flatulence. It’s a warning that you’re not going to be left alone for a moment from here on in.

Everything that comes out of the pop radio has been beaten on with audio spanners until it is uniformly loud at all times, lest you notice for a moment that’s it’s not very good and hie thee a button away.

On television the programs mumble loudly and the ads scream and it adds up to a sort of commerce raga.

You forget sometimes if you’re paying to watch Billy Mays sell Oxy Clean or for the entertainment.

Quiet’s dangerous. People could hear the sound of fear in your voice when it’s quiet. The average person wants a lot of spackle to cover up their cracks. We live in a world of bluster.

But then again, some people don’t have any fear, and play it half as fast and half as loud as the others. You can’t look away, when it’s quiet like that.