Monday 20 June 2011

Nobody listens, but it is never turned off

The instrument [the radio] is nearly always faulty, all these sounds, turned on full blast, are strung in the connecting thread of an unbroken, ear-drum-puncturing and bat-like scream. Nobody listens, but it is never turned off. Towns are pandemonium. Every shop and cafe sends out a masterless, hydrophobic roar. These rabid wirelesses should be hunted out and muzzled or shot down like mad dogs. In the heart of the country, the silence of the most desolate places is suddenly rent by the blood-curdling howl of a rogue wireless set. ... But, like religion, it has been late in reaching the Mani, and among the towers a blessed silence prevails.

P.L. Fermor, Mani (1958), 144

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