One problem with LA is the traffic never really stops, it just subsides. It goes in patterns, waves, and occasionally spurts. But never is there a complete emptiness of the streets. Even in Culver City, where life moves pretty slowly compared to the downtown and Westwood areas, Washington Boulevard is a never-ending stream of workers in Mercedes and Beamers, Venice Beach buses, police and emergency vehicles, slack-jawed tourists with their rented Kias and Hyundais, and lately, skateboarders. If it’s got wheels, eventually it makes its way along the two lane city bloodstream vessel. And at all hours of the morning too. Just when it seems quiet, a Harley with an engine so loud it causes eardrums to spontaneously burst into bloody pulp roars by.
That’s the other thing. This isn’t traffic with ordinary volume control. Well, it is–here’s the problem. Sony Studios occupies the entire block across the street from our apartment. It’s a grand facility, and we can sometimes spot studio parties taking place on weekends. One of these days we’ll set up a zip line in, but for now, we must simply watch and wonder. But the Sony structure, like all studios, is enclosed in a huge wall of stucco and bricks and is a perfect reflector of all the sounds on the street. Everything that happens streetside is amplifed and bounced up to our apartment, like we’re our own dish receiver.
This explains the strange buzzing I heard last night as I was reading in my room. It sounded like a tiny electronic device, like an alarm clock whose alarm has been turned on but the volume turned very low, and instead of beeping, it was one sustained sine wave. It took me moments to determine it wasn’t either my or Tim’s alarm clock, both lights in the room were operating normally, and Tim’s cell phone wasn’t going off. Then it hit me; it was coming from the wall!
I cocked my ear out the patio door in our room and voila! the electronic buzzing had taken on a fuller nature, and it was clear the source of it was emanating from the auto body shop just below us. Another audio mystery solved by the sleuth of Vinton Villas.
For the most part I don’t mind it. You get used to the traffic sounds at night; the scraping; the metal screeching; the ticks and taps of construction; the morning garbage man who thinks that banging the dumpster against the sidewalk repeatedly with force will somehow loosen that piece of tissue paper from its bowels; the morning street cleaners (Bah!); the ever-present din of a city so huge Atlas shrugged in weariness when he saw the work cut out for him.
I haven’t had trouble sleeping above the fray. It’s waking up to it that is more difficult. It seems, philosophically, that mornings are meant to be peaceful just as night is peaceful. The idea behind a morning in solitude and silence seems nearly impossible here. To shut out the din is not in keeping with the wholeness of the city. Something else must be done. It’s become my tradition to shower and then walk to the coffee shop a block away. The din of a coffee shop is more than bearable, especially with a cup of joe in my tired hands.