All Ears: Listening In Isolation
I woke up to birdsong this morning. That might seem idyllic, but it is odd. Flocks of sparrows regularly fight over snack debris near the bodega on my corner in Ridgewood, Queens, but I usually wake up to car horns or chatter on the street outside my window. When I sleepily registered the birds, something that sound artist Maria Chávez retweeted popped into my head: A wildlife sound recordist had noted that birdsong is more noticeable right now because noise pollution levels are down. "We're hearing the world as people heard it decades ago."
A lot of things about the way I listen, and what I hear, have changed since New York's been on lockdown. One of the upshots of spending all my time in my apartment is that my ears have become attuned to the shifting soundscape of my neighborhood, and each sound elicits a different emotional response in me than it used to. Birdsong feels uncanny. Sirens, a lit match to anxiety. And the ice cream van's persistent tune carries a newly sinister edge; not least because it drives home the fact that much of America's workforce can't afford to shelter in place, with devastating results for the most vulnerable.
As a freelancer, I am used to working from
