[szvsw]

> background car noise […] the sound of a background highway almost everywhere in the USA

To each their own I guess. Grew up in LA and the persistent thrum of the faraway highway at all hours of the night is a beautiful sound to me (but I also like/make experimental music so take that with a grain of salt).

I have so many fond but also sad memories of sitting on the roof alone at night on a relatively calm street, looking at the purple la sky (not a star to be seen) and just listening to the sound of the highways a few miles away. People often talk about how watching the stars makes you feel small but hearing the density of urban life in a way where it has just receded into a stochastic ever present hum is a wholly different way of feeling small… the life of the city goes on around you at all times, people zooming along in their cars completely oblivious to your existence and everyone else’s. All those individual discrete sonic events blending together, smearing out into a a single ambient rush. When you stay still and silent and listen for long enough that sound eventually becomes a roar to lose yourself in. When you eventually move and go back inside, climb through a window and shut it, the silence inside in turn becomes deafening and strange. Try it. Try to really listen to it.