Okay, now to the above promised story ... The other night, I am studying, trying hard to focus and I keep hearing this high pitched, non-ceasing resonant tone, kind of like an alarm only higher in pitch. Ken always jokes that I have dog hearing, so I figure I must be hearing someone's far away house alarm going off. I try to shrug it off, but the sound is incessant and absolutely annoying. It begins to affect my ability to concentrate, so I pry myself away from my books and the computer after verifying that the strange tone was not in point of fact issuing from the PC right in front of me. I begin to wander around the house checking various electronic components. I find nothing, so I venture outdoors to see if I can locate the source of the odd pitched-tone out there. As soon as I walk outdoors and close the front door behind me the sound stops. I therefore reason the sound has to be coming from inside the house, so I go back indoors. Everyone in the house is supposed to be asleep, but as I glance up the stairs I notice a faint light emanating from the bedroom. Ken must have left the TV on, I think and head on up stairs to turn it off for him. To my surprise, Ken is wide awake. He's lying in bed watching this black and white expanding kaleidoscope-like screen cycle from open to closed and then open again, as this tone continues to scream out loudly from the television. He looks like he's in some kind trance and suddenly my mind flashes to all the creepy sci-fi "aliens take over the planet" kind of movies I've ever seen.
"Ken, what the hell are you doing?" I shout over the noise.
He smiles, finally breaking from his trance-like stare. "Oh, I'm watching this cool documentary on the tone of "A." "
"Okay?" I reply. "And how exactly does that translate into the incessant bellowing of this obnoxious tone in the middle of the night?
"Yes, well you see
432 Hz is considered to be a pure tone that is in harmony with the universe. But 440 Hz is the standard that was adopted, in the US, as the ISO standard for the "A" tone/note. Interestingly enough, there is documentation which shows that 440 Hz was widely broad-casted throughout Nazi Germany in order to disrupt people's reasoning capacity and to promote obedience." Ken explains.
"Yah, well the disrupting thing is certainly working. What's
not working, however, is my studying with this awful sound buzzing throughout the house. So can you please opt out of zombie-mode for now?"
Ken laughs. "Yah, can do. Time for me crash anyway."
And so goes yet another interesting day in the life in our household .... Hey, at least I cannot complain about things ever being dull around here, right?
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