Episodes

Whisper Quiet

Do you have a favorite sound?  Mike Rugnetta has a few:

  • A Snapple bottle opening
  • An orchestra tuning, with a couple instruments clearly off-key
  • A breaking incandescent light bulb

In this episode, Mike explores the phenomenon of ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.  Or, as some call it, a “head orgasm,” brought on by certain sounds, like whispering.  There are even YouTube channels dedicated to triggering these responses.  How does this all circle back to American telephone advertising from the 1970s and U.S. telecom infrastructure?  Mike explains.

PLAY ALONG AT HOME: What’s your favorite sound?  Record it, hashtag it #favoritesnd, and post it on Instagram.

Snikt!

Mike would like to talk with you about snikt.  And sploorp.  And butcher some French while he’s at it.  Today’s subject is onomatopoeia and the visual representation of sound, particularly in comics.

AMONG, BUT NOT ALL, THE THINGS MENTIONED:

  • Proust
  • Magritte
  • Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics
  • Roy Crane
  • The fadeout on the coda of Queen’s immortal “Fat Bottomed Girls” on the band’s greatest hits collection, which Mike is correctly peeved about and I’ll just add that it is a goddamn travesty THAT SOMEONE NEEDS TO ANSWER FOR
  • Time is a flat circle/The Handsome Family
  • Deadpool, elephant tusks, and Zombie Teddy Roosevelt

Go to the Reasonably Sound Instagram for more on this episode and to take part in Mike’s #mysnikt project.  You’ll be glad you did.

–Stu

The Cadillacs of Quiet

The stock photo place said these were shooting headphones. Let's hope they're right!

On this episode of Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta considers noise-canceling headphones, whether you use them for cross-country flights or to mute your Simply Red-listening neighbor.  He tells you how they work (and don’t work), why the notion of neutral technology is a bunch of hooey (sorry, Chomsky), and that silence is a lie.

ALSO MENTIONED:

  • Weird warbles
  • Rare factions
  • Oculus Rift
  • Weirdly racist film stock
  • Harvard’s anechoic chamber
  • John Cage’s 4’33”
  • Wearing noise-canceling headphones while listening to John Cage’s 4’33”

—Stu

The Voice

Why does your voice sound like your voice?  Per Mike, there are myriad reasons.  Myriad!  Things like your larynx, the size of your noggin, and … dispersive mediums?  Before you go running to Wikipedia, just know that sucking on a helium balloon or talking underwater are examples of the dispersive medium through which your voice is heard.  This also leads to the first Reasonably Sound special guest, as musician Jason Oberholtzer is Mike’s willing pawn in an experiment to make Jason’s actual voice sound like what it sounds like in Jason’s head.  This, in turn, leads to the first Reasonably Sound Contest, which you can read about at Reasonably Sound’s Instagram.

ALSO MENTIONED: I never knew about sulfur hexafluoride until I listened to this, and now I desperately want to buy a tank to carry around with me.  Does it come in tanks?  I guess what I’m asking is will anyone who is reading this give me some sulfur hexafluoride so I can sound like Prince at the beginning of the album version of “1999” that I can’t link to because Prince hates YouTube?  Thank you.

—Stu

 

PD Episode Image: “Image from page 58 of “A manual of diseases of the nose and throat” (1908)” – http://bit.ly/2Ed8vjB

The Ear

Mike Rugnetta opens the inaugural Reasonably Sound podcast with an appreciation of the pinna, which, as you know if you’re an otolaryngologist, is the visible part of the ear.  You know, the floppy, weird-looking thing on the side of your head.  Turns out it has a purpose besides stabbing holes in it or providing a gross, epochal scene in Reservoir Dogs.  Mike details that purpose, and journeys past the middle ear to the crazy-ass labyrinths that make up your inner ear, ending up at the unfairness of the “If a tree falls in a forest” question.

ALSO MENTIONED:

—Stu

 

PD Episode Image: “Image from page 248 of “Diseases of the ear : a text-book for practitioners and students of medicine” (1900)” – http://bit.ly/2EapFOV