Sonic Youth

In high school, I had a progressive Honors and AP English teacher, who taught us how to write, and think, like adults, and also the proper way to eat salad. Mrs. Condon was not universally beloved, but those who did love her loved her with the passion of religious converts; her words were doctrine, and to this day I find myself quoting her or self-editing my work with her hawk-eyed, zero-bullshit-tolerance approach.

As she was a progressive teacher, we never had to suffer the indignity of by-the-numbers, question-response regurgitative assignments. Oh, no. Mrs. Condon wanted our malleable little minds to think for ourselves, to take in information and synthesize it in such a way as we’d be served by it long after our standardized testing days were in the murky past.

To this end, our assignments were always unique. She had a very strict system for writing papers; there were several formats which needed to be followed. Deviation from the correct format resulted in a failing grade, regardless of the quality of the writing. I deviated once, I got a D, and I learned my lesson. The lesson was discipline, and it stuck. I loathed her for the first semester I had her, in my sophomore year. Finally what she was trying to do sunk in, and by my senior year, we’d often have lunch together, where I’d sit by her desk and try and absorb her fierce sense of reason, logic, and authority.

Our untraditional assignments frequently included analyses of art and music in conjunction with whatever text we were working on at the time. On in-class writing days, we’d bring in our walkmans, pop in our choice of music, and start writing. The classroom was silent, save for the scurry of pen on paper.

On one such day, a classmate leaned over to me, headphones in, and yelped, “Liz! Do you have an extra pen?” in what she clearly thought was a normal volume, but was actually incredibly loud. Everyone jumped, then started laughing. I learned that day that what sounds normal to you, when you’re wearing headphones, is probably closer to a shriek.

Cut to my subway ride home on Friday. The past week had been outrageously stressful, and I just wanted a seat, some peace and quiet, and a filthy dirty Stoli martini (not necessarily in that order.) I snagged a seat at 34th, by the sweet grace of Jebus, even though it was next to a leaning sleeper and a man of larger than average girth. Beggars can’t be choosers, so I inserted myself into the middle, opened up my New Yorker, and settled in for the ride home.

The leaning sleeper leaned and slept, and the man of larger than average girth rustled around in his bag for his iPod headphones. I tucked my elbows in and picked up the opening brass strains of “Can’t Take That Away From Me” leaking from the big guy’s headphones.

All right, whatever – it’s a little loud, but I’m really into the fiction piece. Then it starts up: Dude, oblivious to where he is, starts yowling along to his music. Pitch? Not so much. Volume? Check! He is loud, he is proud, he’s not so solid on all the lyrics. But, bless him, that big band is blasting in his ears, and he’s probably sure he’s humming just under his breath, not belting it out louder that Old Blue Eyes. People’s heads are swiveling to take him in, and his eyes are closed, so he’s clueless that not everyone is thrilled about this spontaneous concert.

We went through most of the damn album – “Luck Be a Lady,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “A Very Good Year,” and homeslice howled through them all.

The learning and takeaway: your headphones do not give you sonic immunity. Tone it down, and save it for the shower, not my Friday subway ride home.