GREATEST HITS
BY: KATIE PAOLOZZA
Hello fellow Musers! For my inaugural post in
the "Greatest Hits" column I want to talk about Madeline Smolarz's
discovery of the Museum of Endangered Sounds.
It's quite telling that the website chose the
word museum to define and describe its collection of nostalgic technological sounds.
It implies that a lot of care and specific planning went into the selection of
these retro sound bites. As Madeline highlights in her incredibly fun blog entry, the creator Brendan Chilcutt justifies the existence of the website in a
clever and intentionally dramatic blurb that pokes fun at our post-modern
obsession with nostalgia while also embracing it.
So why do we find nostalgia so enticing? And why
is the Museum so much fun to visit and write about?
I think a partial answer to
my latter question lies in the novelty of sound-based media. We are so often
bombarded with visual nostalgia. Auditory nostalgia? Not so much. Even
modernized or repurposed retro objects still usually have the insides of
contemporary technology. I could go out and buy a beautifully designed modern
radio that looks exactly like one made in 1942, but it wouldn't be the same. I
wouldn't want to sacrifice things like modern sound quality, or wifi
capabilities. Even if I could somehow program this radio to sound retro when I
wanted it to, it still wouldn't be the same. And it really shouldn't be. A
reproduction can enhance but not replace a real artifact.
What makes the Museum such an interesting
little detour is its simplicity. It's fun to reminisce and take stock of where
we once were. Michael Enright's CBC podcast "Rewind" does this as
well, and audio is once again front and centre because the CBC archives are the
source material. But as with any podcast there is a time commitment and there
are underlying themes in play. With the Museum of Endangered Sounds, you can
pop in and out of the past at your leisure. You can combine random sounds from
different generations, or listen to your favourite sound over and over, just
because.
Familiar sounds and smells can trigger strong
emotional responses. Sometimes we just want to go home again. And sometimes,
however briefly, we can. Do you agree?
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