{"id":97876,"date":"2016-05-09T17:10:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T21:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=97876"},"modified":"2016-05-09T17:34:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T21:34:37","slug":"noisy-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/09\/noisy-neighbors\/","title":{"rendered":"Noisy Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

You heard the man.<\/p><\/div>\n

As I write this, there are six workmen constructing a building within five feet of the window, as has been the case for the past eight months and will be for the foreseeable future. It\u2019s not a quiet business at the best of times, and at the moment they\u2019re blasting \u201cRockin\u2019 Robin.\u201d They start work at seven A.M.<\/small>, and they have one of those special permits from the mayor\u2019s office that allows them to work on Saturdays, too. Along with the two preschools and the slew of amateur musicians who inhabit the surrounding buildings, it makes for a cacophony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I used to wear noise-canceling headphones and sometimes earplugs, and I\u2019d fume like an angry cartoon character, but now it doesn\u2019t bother me much. In balmy weather, it even feels sort of\u00a0Rear Window<\/em>\u2013ish and picturesque. Or so you can tell yourself, especially when one amateur musician noodles on his sax for several hours at a time. I realize I have come to love it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But recently, things took a turn that even I found unbearable. For some time a child has been learning the theme to Star Wars<\/em> on his or her electric guitar. (At least, I choose to believe it\u2019s a child. The alternative is too upsetting to contemplate.) I privately cheered the young guitarist along, rejoicing in improvements, admiring the diligence of the practice. I even applauded the brief, recent foray into \u201cPomp and Circumstance,\u201d because what\u2019s a graduation march without electric guitar?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then it started. \u201cSweet Child O\u2019 Mine.\u201d Endlessly. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH-duh,\u00a0Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH-duh, ad nauseam, a nightmarishly imperfect riff waiting for a bass that never, ever comes. This went on for three days. I heard it in my dreams, which were creepy and disturbing. And finally, on the third day, someone rebelled. \u201cCLOSE YOUR WINDOW!\u201d he screamed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By urban standards, it wasn\u2019t much of a rebuke. But it seemed to open the floodgates. The next night, a neighbor screamed at the workmen. \u201cGO HOME!\u201d she shouted. Soon thereafter, I heard my own husband yelling \u201cKNOCK IT OFF!\u201d for all the world, like a character in\u00a0The Honeymooners<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It had never occurred to me that this was even an option. I had always tacitly believed you allowed innocuous things to go on around you so as to store up goodwill and a sort of credit, in case one really needed help. Crying crank, to coin a phrase, seemed to me a very dangerous precedent to set. And it destroyed that precious illusion of loneliness\u2014that\u2019s what we love so much in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides which, hadn\u2019t my neighbors enjoyed the terrible sound of it, on some level? I felt like we were all watching the same movie with completely different expectations: I had loved hating the \u201cSweet Child O\u2019 Mine,\u201d they had simply hated it. And had made it go away. We are all so very powerful. We have the power to ruin someone\u2019s night sleep or their day or even several days. The entire concept of close quarters depends on leashing that power, or not acknowledging it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We voluntarily sacrifice privacy to live in cities\u2014or, rather, a certain kind of privacy. Strangers make noise, they hear us, they spy on us, they sometimes burgle us, but it\u2019s all pretty impersonal. When I hear that construction noise (and now they\u2019re playing \u201cP.Y.T.\u201d) a little part of me smiles, like we\u2019re all in on the most obvious joke in the world, and in it together.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this, there are six workmen constructing a building within five feet of the window, as has been the case for the past eight months and will be for the foreseeable future. It\u2019s not a quiet business at the best of times, and at the moment they\u2019re blasting \u201cRockin\u2019 Robin.\u201d They start work […]<\/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":[1180,12511,13826,1088,12777,125,13075,15289,22266,22267],"class_list":["post-97876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-apartments","tag-city-life","tag-construction","tag-guns-n-roses","tag-neighbors","tag-new-york-city","tag-noise","tag-screaming","tag-sweet-child-o-mine","tag-yelling"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Neighbor Is Practicing \u201cSweet Child O\u2019 Mine.\u201d Help.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 9, 2016 \u2013 As I write this, there are six workmen constructing a building within five feet of the window, as has been 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