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Miscellaneous Rambling

I'm reviving a measure of my Jack Kerouac studies (he's the focus of my January Theology on Tap lecture). I'm partway through his defining biography, Memory Babe. I saw this quote at the Daily Kerouac Twitter feed. "Wake up, cease the tendency to unkindness towards others, unkindness is the murderer of the life of wisdom."

I wasn't shocked by it, but a little surprised. Kerouac had pockets of deep wisdom in an often tattered cloak of existence.

Ceiling. Trastevere

I'm not sure I would elevate silence to the level of a "right," but Dalrymple preaches to my choir in this piece. Introduction: "One of the most denied of all human rights is that to silence. . . the right not to be assaulted everywhere by extraneous and unnecessary noise." Amen. I hate noise. It's a rapist. Unlike the ugly sight that you can avoid by shifting your eyes down, noise can't be avoided. By making it, you are infiltrating the next person's space. Consequently, every decent person makes as little of it as possible. Or, more accurately, the decent person makes as little unnecessary or inappropriate noise as possible.

Ceiling. Trastevere

My top ten list of detestable noise:

10. Gratuitous honks from fire trucks.
9. The neighbor's music (the advent of ubiquitous headphone use has taken a huge bite out of this problem, thankfully).
8. Chain saws.
7. Dogs barking.
6. That damn cat pounding around! (applies only when I'm hungover)
5. The lawn mower (would rank higher, but it's kinda necessary in our culture of lawns).
4. Cars with bad mufflers.
3. Motorcycles.
2. The leaf blower.
1. The cell phone talker.

Ceiling. Trastevere

I have long maintained that there is an inverse correlation between intelligence and noisiness. The less intelligent the person, the louder s/he is. It's no coincidence that the drunk is often loud. I run across exceptions to this inverse correlation, but overall, I think it holds.

Ceiling. Trastevere

Christmas Gift Idea. We bought this to point customers to our produce stand and to list product/prices at the farmers market. Giant dry erase boards come in many sizes and prices. We bought this one after a fair amount of online research and are very happy with it. It cleans nicely and is sturdy.

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