route 66

I have the pleasure of sitting in rush hour traffic on route 66west when I leave campus and head towards my house. Firstly, I noticed the noise emitting from my own car. Even with the radio off, there is a subliminally low, yet high pitch whirrrrrr of my car, esp. when the a.c. is on.  When I’m not moving on 66 (which is most of the time), I can hear other people’s cars. Some have a death rattle, others sputter, others purr. Trucks roar. Pistons steam, pssssst. When there’s a gap of movement, usually someone accelerates too enthusiastically, and then has to stomp on the brake. Tires screech. Cars jolt. Trucks’ chains clank. Now and again, someone’s radio will be ridiculously loud. Salsa music to 80’s elevator music mashes in the air. People get irritated and horns honk. Cops eyeball the hov lane and turn on their sirens. They speed past in the shoulder – whooooosh. There is electrical wires like a thin bridge over 66 – with my sunroof open and stuck in the jam, I can hear a sizzle and crack of the power jumping overhead.

So what symbols can be inferred from all these noises? Obviously congestion. People on 66 become drones. Together the pack of people forfeit their true enjoyments and passions and clamor in line to be safe, boring: to make the safe dollar at a boring office. Then, with all the whirs, purrs, clanks, and honks, symbolizing their impatience to get home, so they can have the few hours left of the day to really do what they please. The snapping and sizzling of the electric current over 66 is a powereful oppression. Even off the road, above us to spacier levels, power and waves congest the air.

For me, all this white noise “pyschic data” in the mundane stretch of 66w from 5-7, is intelligible. And its codes and messages are rather depressing.

-laura kelly