Modern life brings with it many wonderful opportunities. We have many time-saving devices, so many, in fact, that we don’t actually save time using them. There are so many to use that we end up devoting more time to using, managing, and maintaining devices than we save by using the devices.
Modern life in Honolulu brings with it something else. Noise. Surround Sound 5.1 noise. Noise is everywhere and all the time throughout much of Honolulu’s city areas.
In our neighborhood, someone is coming or going every hour of every day and they do so by making noise. Doors slam. Cars start up. Car alarms sound. Engines rev and horns blare.
If it’s not neighbors, it’s the garbage trucks, on the streets and in your neighborhood long before the decent waking time of 6:00 AM. Want to bet me that garbage is not picked up near Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s house before 6:00 AM?
If the noise isn’t coming from neighbors or garbage trucks it comes from mopeds which shriek up and down every street, every hour, every day in an orgasmic frenzy, a single note blast, an irritating song which startles into consciousness car alarms, dogs, chickens and me.
Honolulu residents have adopted a sound defense of sorts, notable via the ubiquitous white earbuds emanating from noise numbed ears to tiny iPods which cling for dear life somewhere, somehow to clothing or bags. The blaring noise of circumstance and chance is traded for the comfort and privacy of the soothing noise of modern music.
Most of us in the city are surrounded by sound, numbed by noise, Honolulu style. Is it any wonder that iPods are so popular among young and old?
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