Turn Down That Music!

“Turn that stereo down or I am calling the cops!”
 

Sometimes I listen to the police scanner (it's legal). Noise complaints abound, as would be the case in densely populated areas where multifamily housing is predominant.

And let's face it, the construction of most residences isn't exactly designed to withstand the decibels of many sound systems, from the old-fashioned stereo receiver or boom box to streaming on computers and Amazon Echo and what-not.

That bass beat, probably more insistent and all-powerful than even the dreaded leaf blower, can cause floors and walls to vibrate and created a scene of physical and emotional horror for those forced, yes, forced to listen to it. No, I do not exaggerate.

Yet, before the advent of such systems, most noise complaints resulted from domestic arguments (still the case) or babies crying.

(And come to think of it, probably not too many sex noises before the days of sexual liberation. And I haven't heard a complaint about that on the police scanner … yet.)
 

Anyway, it turns out that a woman known only as Eva N. in Slovakia tormented her neighbors for 16 years, not with rap or heavy metal (the usual means of sonic torture, but apparently loud classical music has been used to disperse loitering teens), but with opera. Specifically, Verdi. She supposedly put one aria from the opera La Traviata sung by opera superstar Placido Domingo on a timed loop from 6 am to 10 pm every day (she apparently was careful to not intrude on legal quiet hours for her jurisdiction).
 

Why? According to the story which went viral, she was exacting revenge on her neighbors for a barking dog which also at one point bit her. The dog is now mercifully deceased. She no longer lives in the house, but she kept the music going. (I wish I could read her blog, but it is in what looks like Hungarian.) She has finally been detained and arrested, and the music stopped, but not after some difficulty. Apparently, because of the way she had set up the music on a timer, the authorities had to turn off all the electricity for the block to stop the music.

Neighbors called the house the Opera House or the Singing House. One woman said she liked Placido Domingo, but that this situation was ridiculous.
 

I also found another YouTube video (it has since disappeared from the internet) which seems like the selection is not from La Traviata (which doesn't really have a loud tenor aria), but the fiery, loud vengeance aria "Di quella pira" from Il Trovatore. It makes more sense it would be that one, given her goal of sonic revenge.
 

What does this story have to do with me, or for that matter, porn? I was guilty of the same action. And yes, with opera. I did it to blast out punk-loving and heavy metal-loving neighbors in one of my first apartments. My sonic weapons were primarily Verdi (the Act I ensemble from his opera Macbeth and the soprano-mezzo cat fight duet from La Gioconda. I was given a telling-off by the management company. I had to move. I was young. (At least I didn't put them on an endless loop, then leave.)

And I was also guilty of loud sex noises. I moved into another apartment, and the maiden lady (I am being kind) accused me of doing sits up exercises in bed. Yep, I was jacking off and screwing my first boyfriend on a futon I had on the floor. Poor soundproofing, as usual. I had to move. (Why was she listening?)

I was young.

Eva N. is not young. Is that the point? Maybe it's true to some extent that good fences make good neighbors, as proclaimed by Robert Frost. But if the fence (and one should think of the fence as more psychological than physical) is ramshackle, good can become bad, and a boundary based on respect can become a pit of contention.
 

I would argue that good neighbors build good fences but also are willing to build a bridge over that fence. So often in dense cities a neighbor is only a slamming door, a pounding footstep, a flushing toilet. Not a person who goes to work and laughs and loves.

In the ideal good old retro days that some people have mischaracterized as some kind of white person's pastoral paradise, people knew their neighbors. I must agree that in many communities, this situation was true.

I was raised by my mother to get to know the neighbors, and, if possible, cultivate some level of friendship. My mother is still friends with neighbors that she knew more than fifty years ago.

It does take a village to raise a child, mold a mind, open a heart. And to also know when to turn the music down. Or at least invite the neighbors to your party.

(And maybe, as is the case in some porn fantasies, invite the cute upstairs neighbor to a really private party.)