Here’s a brief but interesting TED Talk about how sound affects us. The second half is less interesting than the first, but it does make me think about the times I’ve walked out of a store because they’re playing some sort of horrible music too loudly.
(Thanks to Ray Maxwell at Eventide for bringing this to my attention.)
That’s me amongst the flowers in the back yard, bracketed by bells we’ve brought back from Japan. The flowers in front of me bear some mention because they’re actually not supposed to be there. They sprouted from seeds which fell from potted plants on the deck above and they’re growing in what’s supposed to be plant-free gravel. If I was smart, I would have pulled them when they came up, because their roots are certainly damaging the landscaping cloth which is underneath the gravel. Indeed, I did pull a number of other plants that sprouted in the same area. However, I am fond of cosmos, and couldn’t bring myself to pull the little ones. So, now I have a small forest of them. I’ve been trying to cut the dead flowers before they go to seed, in hopes of not encouraging another forest next year, but we can all guess about my willpower to exterminate that forest when it’s young.