Tag: noise pollution

I’m Not Too Hot About The City

This city is a joke, and the joke’s on me. Party people throughout the building. Tourists and shoppers on the weekend.  Cars and motorcycles screaming by at night, and buses by day. The people are squeezed, and public services have no funding. Can the police help me? Can the bus company help me? I barely got food assistance and I had to appeal my disability. Are these people really going to do anything to protect MY interests?

City life here is nightmarish. The arts are held hostage by a cage of homelessness, gun violence, and public health hazards. And there sure are hazards – potholes, screaming vehicles, construction sites, just to name a few. I’m supposed to appreciate the history? The affluence? The neighborhood charms? Give me a break. Why the rich choose to live here is beyond me. Cafes are quaint, but they’re loud and cramped. Public transportation is gross, loud, and unreliable. Parking is expensive and quite a maneuver to pull off. Clothing stores are here, but they’re for small people with money. I’m neither of these things. The highways and bridges are oddly designed and require experience just to survive without hitting anyone, and then when you do, all you have to look forward to is traffic and aggressive drivers. I feel bad that I may never enjoy the museums and the theaters, the galleries and the schools. This place sells itself as a furnace of learning and creativity, but all I’ve seen in the four years I’ve lived here are social inequalities and bombastic, disruptive events. The biggest benefit I’ve gotten for living in this city has been the access to good healthcare and psychotherapy, but I think it only serves to mitigate the damage from living here. I’ve never had a job and I’m terrified of committing myself to new people and new situations, but I have to get out of here.

Going To The Theater is Hard

There are at least 3 draws to going to the theater that I can see, and I seem to have problem with each of them.

  1. The history. When you go to the theater, you’re taking part in the history of live performance as well as the design of the theater itself. You’re part of a tradition but perhaps more important, you can step into the past and experience something that others before you have experienced. You have the chance to see through their eyes and to sit where they sat. It’s all the more impressive if you know figures in history that have visited the theater or been on stage. For me though, “history” is code for “outdated” or “dangerous.” The seats are too small for me, it hurt to twist my body to see the stage, and it’s a germ hazard. I have no romance for the experience of those who came before me if new technologies render these hazards unnecessary.
  2. The collective. The theater experience is a group effort, where people from diverse backgrounds have an opportunity to convene, cooperate, and enjoy an experience they can share with each other. For me, this is harrowing. We all have different physical and emotional needs and it’s difficult to compromise by sitting next to many strangers and following directions from theater personnel. Also, you’re deferent to market forces when it comes to the loudness of the speakers. For example, I’ve been to a small theater where the noise from the seats would often go above 100 dB, and when I asked the technician about it, they said that people really like it (and in this theater, BYOB is allowed). Besides my hearing issues, this is proven to be a dangerous level of sound. I’m in danger because the theater has to sell enough tickets to keep afloat, and to do that, they have to give the masses what they want. No amount of imagined camaraderie could grant me enough deindividuation to ignore the discomfort and danger I’m exposed to.
  3. The aesthetic. In a large, ornate theater, the architecture is often impressive. The set design and the costumes can be rich and ingenious. When it comes to musicals in particular, you can hear live voice, dance, and an orchestra. You can be dazzled and surprised by all the sights and sounds. While I admit that there is a quality to this experience that is not replicable by viewing media at home, I’m an investigative person and I like understanding how things work. Often when I’m at a show, unless I’ve studied the aspects of the craft beforehand, I feel assaulted by the experience someone else wants to give me, with little context as to how it came together and why the members of the production made their creative choices. These questions bounce around in my mind and I’m usually unable to take in the sensations, or even follow the plot or the dialogue.

But wait! I forgot to mention how theatergoing is divorced from its historical context. I live in the city, so if I go to a show it’s typically in a busy downtown area. The obnoxious street noises alone makes getting there and waiting outside an extremely miserable ordeal. These theaters were built many decades ago, before highways and sometimes even the automobile. When I go to the theater, I feel like I’m part of a forced nostalgia where I have to experience the inconvenience of the old without being able to escape the nuisances of modern life. Sorry, but pass.