Read In Pursuit of Silence Online
Authors: George Prochnik
“Enough! Stop whispering”
:
Anne Bowler, “Politics as Art: Italian Futurism and Fascism,”
Theory and Society
20, 6 (December 1991): 763–94.
“Burn the gondolas”
:
F. T. Marinetti, “Futurist Venice,”
New York Times
, July 24, 1910.
“The everlasting sound”
: Early Western Travels: 1748–1846
, Reuben Gold Thwaite, ed. (Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905), 230.
“sound out idols”
:
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols
, R. J. Hollingdale, trans. (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 31.
“Cannons gutting space”
:
Luigi Russolo,
The Art of Noises
, Barclay Brown, trans. (New York: Pendragon Press, 1986), 26.
Rome was becoming
:
“Rome Starts Drive to Suppress Noise,”
New York Times
, October 17, 1925.
“When hot-rodding”
:
Bettina Boxall, “Sound of Music?,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 16, 1989.
“A coachman who”
:
Lawrence Baron, “Noise and Degeneration: Theodor Lessing’s Crusade for Quiet,”
Journal of Contemporary History
17, 1 (January 1982): 165–78.
names like “Sound Quake”
:
Katherine Bishop, “Laws Aim to Turn Off Ear-Splitting ‘Boom’ Cars,”
New York Times
, January 17, 1990.
America’s urban traffic
:
Texas Environmental Profiles,
http://www.texasep.org/html/air/air_5mob_carred.html
driving delays in twenty-six
:
Tom Vanderbilt,
Traffic
(New York: Knopf, 2008), 131.
“These criminals are”
:
catdaddybaycali@yahoo
, e-mail to Noise Free America, Listserv posting, May 24, 2008,
[email protected]
.
CalusaCustomConcepts
:
“Who Cares About Words?,” Florida Car Radio blog, posted December 14, 2007,
http://www.floridacaraudio.com/category/rant/
.
MP3 Pimp
:
Robin Butler, interview by author, spring 2008.
If you are 3 feet away
:
Quiet Solution Decibel Chart,
http://www.quietsolution.com/Noise_Levels.pdf
.
Casey Sullivan
:
Casey Sullivan, interview by author, spring 2008.
Buzz Thompson
:
Buzz Thompson, interview by author, spring 2008.
A recent European Environment Agency
:
European Environment Agency, “Transport at a Crossroads: TERM 2008: Indicators Tracking Transport and Environment in the European Union,” EEA Report no. 3/2009 (Copenhagen, 2009).
Howard Stapleton developed
:
Compound Security,
http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/mosquito-products-0
.
“a demented alarm clock”
:
“Teen-Repellent to Be Regulated,”
Health24
(April 2008),
www.health24.com/news/Teens/1-950,45864.asp
.
Teen Buzz
:
Melissa Block, “Teens Turn ‘Repeller’ into Adult-Proof Ringtone,”
NPR
, May 26, 2006. Web site for the ringtone can be found at
www.teenbuzz.org
.
“I didn’t know whether”
:
ProSoundWeb Life Chat, interview of Tom Danley, moderated by Keith Clark, March 12, 2002,
www1.prosoundweb.com/chat_psw/transcripts/danley.shtml
.
“the Guy”
:
Michael Heddon, interview by author, fall 2008.
as Hillel Pratt
:
Dr. Amanda Harry, “Wind Turbines, Noise and Health,” February 2007,
http://www.windturbinenoisehealthhumanrights.com/wtnoise_health_2007_a_barry.pdf
.
“We’ve been punishing”
:
Clive Stafford Smith, “Welcome to ‘the Disco,’”
The Guardian
, June 19, 2008.
“masking sound”
:
Cynthia Kellogg, “Music in Dentist’s Chair Soothes
Child and Adults,”
New York Times
, August 12, 1960. Also see Thomas E. Morosko and Fred F. Simmons, “The Effect of Audio-Analgesia on Pain Threshold and Pain Tolerance,”
Journal of Dental Research
45 (1966): 1608–17.
for use in childbirth
:
Stacy V. Jones, “New Device for Seeing in Dark,”
New York Times
, June 3, 1961.
mounted a hostile campaign
:
Benjamin Schwaid, “Audio-Analgesia May Be Hazardous,”
The Journal of the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology
7, 10 (December 1960): 24–25.
Sound Pain Relief
:
Sound Pain Relief,
http://www.soundpainrelief.com
.
“awful sounds of the city”
:
Ron Alexander, “Stereo-to-Go and Only You Can Hear It; For the Thinking Man,”
New York Times
, July 7, 1980.
“There are buses”
:
Georgia Harbison, J. D. Reed, and Nick Balberman, “A Great Way to Snub the World,”
Time
, May 18, 1981.
When Sony initially
:
Steve Crandall, “Sony Walkman History,” tingilinde blog, October 19, 2003,
http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/2003/10/sony_walkman_hi.html
.
One of the popular
:
“Classic Sony Walkman Commercial,” YouTube, June 8, 1985,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8FDPtN_8M
.
220 million had been sold
:
Phil Schiller announced this figure at the Apple Rock and Roll Event, Yerba Buena Theater, San Francisco, September 9, 2009.
a total of 150 million
:
Priya Johnson, “Timeline and the History of the Walkman,”
Buzzle.com
, April 30, 2009,
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/timeline-and-history-of-the-walkman.html
.
New York City population
:
Census figures,
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/1790-2000_nyc_total_foreign_birth.pdf
the population of inner London
:
http://www.demographia.com/dm-lonarea.htm
.
Tokyo, which also saw
:
Tokyo Statistical Yearbook 2005,
http://www.toukei.metro.tokyo.jp/tnenkan/2005/tn05qyte0510b.htm
.
“filter out distractions”
:
Dawn Foster, “Why I Love My iPod (Yes, This Is Work-Related),” Web Worker Daily, January 2, 2009,
http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/01/02/ why-i-love-my-ipod-yes-this-is-work-related/
. See comments especially.
one in ten
:
Gina Hughes, “One in 10 Minor Traffic Accidents Caused by ‘Podestrians,’” Yahoo Tech blog, October 9, 2008,
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/34543
.
When Dirksen Bauman
:
Dirksen Bauman, interview by author, winter 2009.
nine states banned the use
:
Joyce Purnick, “Council Bill Seeks Headphone Curbs,”
New York Times
, August 19, 1982.
Woodbridge, New Jersey, went further
:
“Jersey Township Passes Curb on Headphones,”
New York Times
, July 12, 1982.
The most authoritative
:
“New iPod Listening Study Shows Surprising Behavior of Teens,” ScienceDaily, February 28, 2009,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090218135054.htm
.
Noise-Con 2008
:
Noise-Con 2008, Hyatt Regency, Dearborn, Michigan, July 28–31, 2008.
when John Deere proudly
:
Marlund Hale, “Noise Control Foundation Session One,” panel discussion at Noise-Con 2008, July 29, 2008.
“viscoelastic material”
:
Green Glue,
http://www.greengluecompany.com
.
the giant theater of Epidaurus
:
“Ancient Greek Amphitheater: Why You Can Hear from Back Row,” ScienceDaily, April 6, 2007,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070404162237.htm
.
by way of “pugging”
:
Theodore H. M. Prudon, “Deafening: An Early Form of Sound Insulation,”
Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology
7, 4 (1975): 5–13.
“SILENCE, SILENCE”
:
Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine E. Jewsbury, June 15, 1840, The Carlyle Letters Online: A Victorian Cultural Reference (Durham, NC: Duke University Press),
http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/12/1/lt-18400615-TC-GEJ-01?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22SILENCE+SILENCE%22&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
.
“vile yellow Italian”
:
John M. Picker, “The Soundproof Study: Victorian Professionals, Work Space, and Urban Noise,”
Victorian Studies
42, 3 (April 1, 1999): 427–53. The subsequent quotation from the
City Press
is also taken from Picker’s wonderful essay, which helped shape my thoughts on the Victorian soundproofing enterprise.
“We are again building”
:
Thomas Carlyle to James Marshall, September 19, 1853, The Carlyle Letters Online,
http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/1/lt-18530919-TC-JMA-01?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=We+are+again+building &searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
.
“Irish laborers fetching”
:
Ibid., Jane Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle, December 19, 1853, under Sourcenote,
http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/1/lt-18531219-JWC-TC-01?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22our+house+once+more+a+mere+dust-cloud&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
.
“Now that I feel”
:
Ibid., Jane Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, July 27, 1852,
http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/27/1/lt-18520727-JWC-JAC-01?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22Now+that+I+feel+the+noise%22&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype= HWCIT
.
shut himself up
:
“Carlyle’s Soundproof Room,”
New York Times
, February 24, 1886.
“was a flattering delusion”
:
Jane Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle, July 21, 1853, The Carlyle Letters Online, under Sourcenote,
http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/1/lt-18530721-JWC-TC-01?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22was+a+flattering+delusion%22&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT#FN6_REF
.
Franz Kafka grew reliant
:
Franz Kafka,
Letters to Felice
, Erich Heller
and Jurgen Börn, eds., James Stern and Elizabeth Duckworth, trans. (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), 449.
Floyd Watson, author of
:
Floyd Watson,
Sound-proof Partitions: An Investigation of the Acoustic Properties of Various Building Materials with Practical Applications
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Bulletin, March 1922),
http://www.archive.org/stream/soundproofpartit00watsuoft#page/n1/mode/2up
.
When Shepherd Ivory Franz
:
Shepherd Ivory Franz, “A Noiseless Room for Sound Experiments,”
Science
26, 677 (December 20, 1977): 878–81.
“There is always something”
:
John Cage,
Silence
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 8.
“thick, elastic cushion”
:
advertisement,
Western Architect & Engineer
52–53 (1918): 152.
“If it isn’t sound-proof”
:
Ibid.
A captain affiliated
:
“Use Seaweed for Soundproofing,”
New York Times
, February 17, 1929.
At a London trade show
:
“Silent House Shown: Doors of One at London Can Be Slammed Without Noise,”
New York Times
, September 21, 1930.
Even the stolid United States
:
“Problem of Sound-Proof House Engages Bureau of Standards,”
New York Times
, October 2, 1927.
A new chapel at Sing Sing
:
“Sing Sing Chapel Opened: Sound-Proof Partitions Permit Two Services There at One Time,”
New York Times
, September 2, 1929.
“We don’t need any more”
:
“Lighter Views of Life in New York City,”
New York Times
, May 2, 1909.
“Preventing noise”
:
R. V. Parsons,
Station WJZ
, December 26, 1929. Transcript in
City Noise: The Report of the Commission Appointed by Dr. Shirley W. Wynne, Commission of Health, to Study Noise in New York City and to Develop Means of Abating It
, Edward F. Brown et al., eds. (New York: Department of Health, 1930), 238.
“punctuated by the penetrating
:
“Anti-Noise Experts Experiment in Secret: Find Their Sound-Proof Room a ‘Torture Chamber’ When City’s Clamor Is Reproduced There,”
New York Times
, April 24, 1930.
scientists from the Tokyo Hygienic
:
“Longer Life Amidst Noise but Bad Effects Noted Also,”
The Science News-Letter
30, 802 (August 22, 1936): 119.
“You can make your own”
:
Super Soundproofing Community Forum, May 7, 2008,
http://supersoundproofing.com/forum/index.php?topic=2262.0
.
already patented Silence Machine
:
Marina Murphy, “‘Silence Machine’ Zaps Unwanted Noise,”
New Scientist
(March 28, 2002).
“a very, very, very large”
:
Andy Pollack, interview by author, 2009.
“the quietest products”
:
Jeff Szymanski, Noise Control Foundation, Session One, panel discussion at Noise-Con 2008, July 29, 2008.
“Clamor Against Noise”
:
Gladwin Hill, “Clamor Against Noise Rises Around the Globe,”
New York Times
, September 3, 1972.
On October 1, 1935
:
“Mayor La Guardia’s Plea and Proclamation in War on Noise,”
New York Times
, October 1, 1935.