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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Via Del Canneto Blow Up - Noise

Via del Canneto Panorama From the Roof - Fall 2007 

It was like a time bomb waiting to explode, just that the fuse was not what I thought. The setup: young family in their small walled courtyard making a fair amount of noise past 10:30 pm. It’s warm, they are banging around, planting something in their courtyard, and their 2 year old is yelping with excitement. Via del Canneto (really more of an alley) is such that you can hear everything up and down it. 

I thought, Anna of the Green Door would be for sure the first out of the gate screaming “Che casino!”. But, it was the old man who leans out the second story window every morning (for a smoke) who was the first to crack. His window opens down into the alley near the courtyard. He started screaming and soon heated words were flying back and forth for about 10 minutes. I caught, “punch you in the nose”, “go ahead, call them” (the police?), “shame on him”, and others. Did I open the window to listen better? Why yes I did, it’s about the language after all. (I put Philosophy of Language on pause and darted upstairs for a look see and listen.) 

We hear the noise from this family (husband, wife, 2 year old) all the time since we are close, but it doesn’t bother us because we keep the same hours – plus it seems like “natural” noise (if you can define that). The noise of Anna of the Green Door and company is a different beast, an intentional, punctual and worst of all, slamming type of noise. 7:00 am door slam, son leaves. 7:30 am door slam, dad leaves. 8:00 am door slam, Anna's morning sweeping completed. 8:15 am swoosh and slam, a mysterious bucket of water is flung out followed by a resounding slam to make sure the door really shut well. 8:30 – 10:00 am random door slams depending on if Anna decides to accost a dog owner in the alley and if the dog left a present in the alley. If the dog owner retraces steps with no chance of getting accosted you can hear her muttering “Cane sporca” or something to that effect. Each of these door slams for me is like someone coming over and kicking me. (I know, it’s my problem.) At least the family with the kid sleeps to 10am. I can deal with that. 

I’m not glad someone else was irked at noise, but watching the situation helped me understand my own reactions and put them into perspective better.

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