{"id":74787,"date":"2014-07-31T17:43:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T21:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=74787"},"modified":"2014-08-01T10:14:13","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T14:14:13","slug":"sound-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/31\/sound-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound Off"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Library-Card-Catalog-1\"<\/a>

The Cincinnati Public Library card catalog. Image via Retronaut<\/p><\/div>\n

The other day, a friend sent me a link to a Reddit conversation: What common sounds from a hundred years ago are very rare or just plain don\u2019t exist anymore?<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

This, in turn, led us to the Museum of Endangered Sounds,<\/a> which I highly recommend to anyone with a pair of headphones and a few hours to kill. Of course, we can\u2019t even document some of them\u2014the early-morning scuttle of coal, for instance, was probably too humble ever to rate a recording. I mean, how many of us have bothered to record the hiss of a radiator\u2014and presumably that won\u2019t be around forever. For that matter, someone ought to memorialize the rattle of a dead, incandescent bulb.<\/p>\n

I must have had this in mind when I ran across this image on Retronaut<\/a>. Because the sound of a card catalog\u2014the squeak of the drawer, the slight ruffle of the stiff paper, the sliding noise as a card is pulled from the file\u2014is almost certainly on the endangered list. (To say nothing of everything else in the picture.)<\/p>\n

\"Library-Card-Catalog-5\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, a friend sent me a link to a Reddit conversation: What common sounds from a hundred years ago are very rare or just plain don\u2019t exist anymore?\u00a0 This, in turn, led us to the Museum of Endangered Sounds, which I highly recommend to anyone with a pair of headphones and a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[14810,7148,10071,13157,14809],"class_list":["post-74787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-card-catalogs","tag-libraries","tag-retronaut","tag-sounds","tag-the-museum-of-endangered-sounds"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSound Off<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on what common sounds from a hundred years ago are very rare or just plain don\u2019t exist anymore.\" \/>\n<meta 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