A man yesterday was telling me a great story about noise. The story he told was about someone telling him to be quiet. As he told the story we were both running side by side and as the story concluded or then repeated its last loop, we became louder and louder until when I clarified one detail he had to shout it across to me. We laughed a great deal at the story. It seemed apt to laugh loudly at a ridiculous story about telling someone to be quiet.

Vancouver is a city fixated on silence and instruction at times.  This can veer into instruction on silence as the man told me in his story. What’s curious is yet its located on these serious fault lines and we know that with earthquakes comes a horrible first sound. Is this why people are instructing each other on volume?