Third week of April

4/17 PM Ringing Bells with My Next-door Neighbor on the Left
Several months ago near the beginning of this project, I had asked my neighbor, Helen to come ring the bells with me. She was in the middle of watching a Chinese Opera on television and couldn’t do it then but she joined me this evening. Thanks, Helen.

4/19 AM Enough with my Yard Already...
Everyone who has been following this project knows what my yard looks like. They know what the front and back of the house looks like and what my neighbors’ yards look like. I have covered both corners and gone around the block many times. I think that’s enough for a while. You get the picture. See if you can imagine what the morning looks like from listening to the audio recordings. I thought it would be a nice change for a while to concentrate on the audio for the mornings when I stay close to home.
SILENT MOVIE
LISTEN. It was so windy this morning. More windy than I remember in a long time. Except for those big winter storms. Usually it’s almost impossible to record the wind. However, when I set the microphone down this morning, there was none of that boomy,popping mic distortion- just a beautiful and clean apprehension of that powerful wind. It was so rare and amazing that I continued to record even after the sun was up.

4/20 AM For Whom the Bells Toll
Enjoy another
Listening
morning. When Norman returned from the East coast last night, he brought a bell that had belonged in his brother-in-law’s office. It used to hang over the door so that when people came in, the bell rang. His brother-in-law no longer works, and his office is now empty. This morning I honored that little bell and Norman’s brother-in-law as I rang it 56 times for my friend, Ann.

4/20 PM Our Other Next-door Neighbors
While Norman was away, he missed the big bell. So at sundown he went out to the car to get reacquainted with it. Soon after he started, our neighbor on the other side came out of his house with his young daughter. We rarely see this neighbor, so it was a pleasant surprise.

4/21 AM The Ferry Building again.

Norman and I met the 6:twenty-something ferry. I like greeting people as they come off the boat. After a few days when the sun rises too early for this group of people to be there for the bell ringing, maybe they will miss the noisy greeting. Wouldn’t it be amazing if by the end of the year everyone coming off the sunrise ferries would be ringing little bells as they walked off into the city? I need to find a cheap source of little bells to give to people if they ever get curious enough or interested enough to come and find out what’s happening.
Ferry Building Info
Vallejo Ferry Schedule
Other Ferry Schedules

4/21 PM Visiting the Visitors

We have some visitors from New York who just arrived today. They rang bells with us at sunset. Friends of their drove up to meet them for dinner and one of them joined in. It was great to have someone pull up in a car, hop out and ring bells.

4/22 AM Stairway to IceBox

Mornings at home are sound only. I went out to the porch that is sealed in between our building and the one next door. It’s the space where the iceman used to deliver blocks of ice from the street. Now it’s accessible by the door next to the cat’s litter box. It’s a sheltered space and I thought the staircase might make for an interesting architectural feature- both acoustically and physically.

4/23 AM Ringing for the Gull

Back to the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero. Norman stayed home this morning. Some people actually said good morning to me.
Ferry Building Info
Vallejo Ferry Schedule
Other Ferry Schedules

4/23 PM How Many Bells Do You Hear Here?

We were in the backyard with our visitors from Brooklyn accompanying the sunset when the phone alarm rang followed by a call from Ann’s sister Lucy. We had been taking pictures of each other while waiting to hear from Lucy to see if she wanted to join us for dinner.