Evil and criminal, but evil evil, not Carmen Sandiego evil. Shenanigans that are tragic and cruel, not cheeky and fun. Twirl of a mustache? Gently petting a cat? Nope. Snap of fingers = half the world's population evil.
AnimalsDogParrotMineYogurt, I think?Not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the bird?
The town of Cremona, Italy is trying to record the sound of Stradivarius string instruments for posterity. It's a race, too. The instruments only are playable for so long. There's a real sense of urgency—but also a need for quiet:
In 2017, the engineers thought their project was finally ready to get underway. But a soundcheck revealed a major flaw.
“The streets around the auditorium are all made of cobblestone, an auditory nightmare,” Mr. Tedeschi said. The sound of a car engine, or a woman walking in high heels, produces vibrations that run underground and reverberate in the microphones, making the recording worthless, he explained. “It was either shutting down the entire area or having the project not seeing the light of day,” Mr. Tedeschi said.
Luckily for the engineers, Cremona’s mayor is also the president of the Stradivarius Foundation, the municipal body that owns the Museo del Violino. He allowed the streets around the museum to be closed for five weeks, and appealed to people in the city to keep it down.
“We are the only city in the world that preserves both the instruments and their voices,” Mr. Galimberti said. “This is an extraordinary project that looks at the future, and I’m sure people from Cremona will understand that closing the area was inevitable.”
The 464-seat Auditorium Arvedi was designed around around the sound of the instruments. For the recordings, every light bulb in the hall was unscrewed to eliminate a faint buzzing sound.
You can read more about the town's efforts at The New York Times.
MusicViolinsStradivariusQuiet on setFor the childrenElementary, my dear Watson?