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City Sounds

BY KRISTINA LJUBANOVIC
ILLUSTRATION BY JASON LOGAN

In 2008, I drove with two friends (one would later become my partner and the father of my kid) to Atlanta, Georgia, to see the honourable Tom Waits hold court at the historic Fox Theatre. We left ungodly early and drove straight through the day, arriving in the late afternoon. Checked into the hotel room (numbered, notably, 666) and exhausted, we fell asleep and woke to the sound of fireworks outside the window. It was the Fourth of July. Tom Waits was fabulous, ripping and roaring through his repertoire—the tenor and quality of his voice alone merits essays and odes. I bought a small chapbook as a souvenir, titled True Confessions (a conversation with himself). In it, Tom lists 48 sounds he likes, including “My wife’s singing voice,” “Soccer crowds in Argentina” and “A Zippo lighter.” Inspired by that list, and the city where I live, Toronto, I tasked myself with coming up with 24 (half Tom’s number) city sounds I like. It’s easy to complain about noise in the city, but there’s lots to love as well. Says Tom: “The world’s making music all the time.” Consider this my City Composition in 24 Parts.

City Sounds - 1-Watercolor-style-drawing-of-comic-sound-effect

1. The streetcar’s ding and rumble on tracks
2. The din of backyard parties
3. Piano lessons through an open window
4. Children leaving school at the bell
5. When the bar door opens and laughter and chatter roll out
6. Birds cheeping and bugs chittering in High Park
7. The opening and closing suction of a freezer door at the grocery
8. A live band performing in a bar, heard muffled from the street
9. The shocking silence when you’re positioned between two red lights
10. The sounds of street food being cooked, sizzling, steam escaping
11. A basketball bouncing on hot asphalt
12. The thwack of a tennis ball being hit on a public court

13. Splishy and splashy outdoor pool noises
14. Snow crunching under your feet on a cold morning
15. The strains of a violin as you descend underground to a subway station
16. Cats mewing and purring on sidewalks
17. Seagulls yelling at each other
18. The Old City Hall clock tower bell’s prolonged ding-dong on the hour and quarter-hour
19. The bee-boop of the scramble intersection at Bloor and Yonge
20. The musical cacophony of different languages being spoken on the street
21. Lake Ontario’s waves quietly rolling in
22. The stately and dignified ferry horn
23. The mechanical wind-through-trees sound of electric cars reversing
24. The bells and whistles (and breaking of bottles) at the CNE midway

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