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| He clearly loves the silence of it all. Photo by Out.of.Focus via flickr |
When you think about it, it’s sad that we drink bottled water. In so many ways.
I still remember the days when you drank water that came out of the tap at the kitchen sink. That’s where water came from. Then people started getting all snotty about it and buying filters and refrigerators that dispensed water out of the door. Suddenly, plain old tap water was second-class and the next thing you know real water is not free and comes in cases of clear plastic bottles.
It’s dystopian.
It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before we started recording silence. We live in a noisy world where even Gregorian chants are too much stimulation. But, instead of just turning off the television and your phone and sitting in a quiet room (girl, please), now we have to listen to pre-recorded silence.
Today it’s the silence of St. Peter’s Church in Seaford, East Sussex (my god, but don’t you love British locations?). Next up it’ll be a silent morning in the forest and a silent hour in a vault. Pop in your silent CD and enjoy. Turn it up really loud to drown out the neighbor’s dog or car alarm. Somehow, I don’t see that working.
I still remember watching a television show that aired on Sunday mornings; I think it might have been called Sunday Morning. Each episode ended with a minute of a serene morning scene somewhere in the world. The silence was wonderful, yes. But it was the scene I was after. And while it was quiet by inner-city standards, there was wind and the baa-ing of sheep on occasion.
How do you even know the silence of the church is there? Why don’t you just put your headphones on and listen to real silence? Like, real silence and tap water aren’t good enough for you?
The church tells us that there are actually some quiet noises in their thirty-minute CD: the creaking of a pew, the whisper of footsteps. That’s just freakishly eerie. The least they could do is add in some moaning or praying. I hear Yoko Ono is into that sort of “artistic expression.”