I even made the Minneapolis Star Tribune! They have a story about my griping about the damned annoying cemetery bells that plagued us for years.
Some neighbors were less enthusiastic than the visitors. Local blogger and biology professor PZ Myers railed for years against the bells that tolled near his home, rousing him from sleep with the sound of “hymns. Cheesy hymns, played mechanically on an electronic carillon.”
Myers, who lives two blocks from the cemetery, said the clangor of bells started at 5 a.m. and continued until 10 at night, despite his protests.
I wasn’t the only one complaining, as the story makes clear, but now the guy who thrust the chimes upon us is busily nailing himself up on a cross.
Storck and Morris officials had wrangled for months over the bells. The city manager didn’t want the sound of the bells to travel beyond the walls of Summit Cemetery, where they had chimed for more than a decade. Storck said he first tried relocating the system to a remote area of a neighboring cemetery, but gave up and removed the system entirely this summer. If the chiming of the bells was too quiet to carry past the cemetery walls, he decided, it would be too quiet for mourners to hear — and in that case, what was the point of ringing the bells at all?
It’s impossible to confine the music to the cemetery,Storck said.More than once I said, ‘Why? Why did I try to do something nice?’ After a while, I just took them out.
You know, the choice of carols and hymns was all over the map — none of it was particularly the kind of music I associate with mourning, nor was any of it the kind of stuff I would want to hear if I were visiting a grave. And face it, this is a small town cemetery — it’s pretty dead over there. There weren’t long lines of funeral attendees queued up to listen to the same hymn played every 15 minutes.
And really, it is not doing something nice
to demand that others share your taste in something against their will. You might like it, but that doesn’t mean everyone else will, and it’s the height of privileged obliviousness to assume your preferences in music are perfection, and therefore ALL WILL LISTEN. NOW. ON A CRAPPY LO-FI CARILLON SYSTEM.
Well, he’ll teach us. He’s gonna take his ball and go home.
Storck had intended the carillon system to be a gift and a comfort to the community. After city officials called for a limit on the volume and frequency of the bell ringing, a discouraged Storck headed to Surprise, Ariz., for the winter — and the bells went with him.
The system was scheduled to be installed Monday at St. Clare of Assisi; a new church, without a bell tower. They’ll ring out for the first time before Christmas Eve mass.
The bells will call the worshipers to mass each Saturday and Sundays, plus play hymns before and after the masses,Storck said. They’ll also play during the week. There’s a housing development nearby, but he said they’ve angled the speakers away from the homes.
I’m so sorry, Arizona. The horror of Morris, Minnesota has relocated your way.
Storck clearly doesn’t understand when enough is enough. Bells before and after Mass on Saturday and Sunday wouldn’t have stirred up any objections here, not even from me. The chilling phrase is They’ll also play during the week.
You know what that means…every 15 minutes, every day, all day long, Storck will be assaulting the neighborhood sonically, while he sits smugly, savoring the offense if you tell him you’re not enjoying the noise.
What an asshole.
Surprise, Arizona, is in for a surprise.
Maye they can face the bells towards Mecca.
It’s surprising how flexible “I’m just trying to do something nice” can be. The people doing things you don’t like are usually trying to do something ‘nice,’ too. Removing that damn sound system was the kindest thing possible — even for the mourners. Rest in peace. Peace.
So, basically, they’ll be playing all the time. Oy. The church across the street from us plays bells on Sunday, which I don’t mind at all when I actually hear them (most of the time, I don’t). It’s a nice sound, not intrusive, and only on Sunday morning.
I wonder why this man is so insistent on inflicting this on people. It’s an odd obsession.
Wouldn’t the Easter Bunny’s cave be more appropriate? You know, the place where he ate chocolate for three days before returning with an awesome bellyache and wearing, for some reason, a fur-lined red coat?
(Thinks about it for a bit… Hum, have we just found the origins of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog?)
I should follow Storck’s example. There are so many ways I could do so.
I actually like the taste of lutefisk. You should too! Therefore, I should come by your house with a big platter of the stuff and share it with you.
But once is not enough. I should come by every day with it.
Oh, hey, people typically eat 3 meals a day! I’ll stop in and make sure you’re eating lutefisk at every meal.
And snacks!
Face it, I’m just going to have to come to your house every morning, and set a bunch of those hard slabs of fish soaking in your refrigerator. And then we’ll have some constantly cooking on the stove. And as always, a nice big hunk on your table for whenever you’re feeling peckish.
Hey, I’m just trying to do something nice! There isn’t a scrap of malice in my actions anywhere.
Maybe he could point the noisemakers at Joe Arpaio’s house.
PZ @ 5:
I don’t, so I now declare this is an exemption to the non-malicious invasion of lutefisk! (There’s already an annual invasion of lutefisk – http://mainstreetmoments.com/living/northdakota/events/?article=437)
Change “lutefish” to “cheese” and the mildly deranged penguin will adore you. Unless, of course, it’s British Industrial Cheddar, in which case she’ll abhor you. Yer probably better off — certainly safer — staying with the lutefish…
British Industrial Cheddar? Is that like American Government Cheese, which they give out for free, has a slightly wobbly, gelatinous texture, and tastes vaguely of motor oil? Because you might like that better than lutefisk.
My sympathies to the bells’ new neighbours in Surprise Arizona :-(
Noise pollution all day every day is clearly cruel and inhuman punishment.
I suspect that if it were buddhist gongs going off at all hours, the christians would have been the first to complain and file motions to try and silence it.
PZ @ 5:
Did not know PZ was so anti-Hobbit *smirk*
.
music over a cemetery must be played 24/7 cuz the audience is there 24/7 with nuthin to do but listen to the sounds above their restin places.
..
I wonder if “housing development” in SURPRISE, Az is euphemism for low-income housing? If so, then I could see them having the least amount of clout when complaining about all the noise coming from those bells 24/7.
I can’t help but giggle at the phonetic similarity of his name to “stork” and him giving unwanted “gifts” to the people around him.
Don’t think so, unless American Government Cheese is the larval stage or something. British Industrial Cheddar is this inexplicable substance which is indestructible (some say it was used as the foundation for Stonehenge, but that’s backwards — Stonehenge was built to weigh down a buried landfill overfilled with the stuff), has even less taste than peas, a texture than reminds one of being lovingly flayed alive with a rasp, and is sold to unsuspecting tourists as “a real British taste”. Which it is, in the same way Dwarf Bread is a light snack and Donald Trump is a humble socialist monk with a lifelong vow of silence.
“…is busily nailing himself up on a cross.”
I can help him, if somebody pays my airfare. But it may be difficult to explain to TSA personnel what my reason for entering USA is. Helping somebody with a carpentry project?
“lutefisk”
I will one-up you on that. I will bring North Swedish fermented herring, and catapult it in through the closed windows!. And so make sure they get the full olfactory enjoyment, I will spray the juice into the apartments with a high-pressure hose.
Possible, I suppose, but don’t think so: According to Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge, Surprise, Arizona, is mostly(?) the walled retirement community, Sun City Grand (c.75000 people out of a population of c.120000), with much of the rest apparently being young, first-time homebuyers, families.
It’s obviously a much larger place than Morris (population c.5000), so it seems possible the arsehole will get a lot more grief unless he really has taken sensible steps to control the noise.
Nooooo! My grandfather used to eat that kind of stuff all the time, but only because his sensory apparatus had all been burned away by his habit of drinking Everclear.
Change “lutefish” to “zucchini” and in places where a lot of people have their own vegetable gardens it starts to resemble a more familiar situation.
That would explain why poopyhead’s computer is acting up. It must have got a sniff of the gas and its innards are now slowing dissolving. (Check underneath for liquefied Silicon — or, more likely, small piles of sand — with bits of plastic and metal.)
Wasn’t fermented herring banned by the Geneva Convention, several strategic arms limitation treaties, and even the pope?
Since they guy took his bells and went away, this is a moot issue. However, one response might be to take a car over to his house and park in the street. Set the car alarm to either go off continuously or, if possible, go off for a minute or two, go silent for 15 minutes and repeat. Check back later to see how much he’s enjoying the noise.
“And face it, this is a small town cemetery — it’s pretty dead over there.”
Hehe.
He’s taking his bells to Arizona, eh? I hope Sheriff Joe Arpaio lives within earshot. Mr. Storck might look good in pink.
I live in Surprise, AZ within biking distance from the church (and walking distance if you’re used to walking a decent distance).
It most definitely isn’t a low-income area, and the church itself is quite nice. I’m not sure how I’d feel about the bells every day though…I have a feeling that I’m far enough away that I won’t be able to hear them, but there are quite a few houses near the church to the south and west.
If you miss the sound of the bells, I’d be happy to record them and send you a video any time you like. And no, Sheriff Joe is not particularly close to the church.
Perhaps instead of lutefisk…awfully complicated…you should set up a really bad PA system on a pole outside his house playing “Hurt” every 15 minutes. I’m sure he would appreciate a little “crown of shit” 40 times a day. And to lighten the mood during the holiday season, intersperse “Santa Baby” now and again. “Eye for an eye” and all that.
The advantage of lutefisk, fermented herring, and similar, is you only have to make it once. Almost no-body actually eats the stuff (it’s like Dwarf Bread in that respect), so all you need to do is lob yer fermentedluteherringfiskbomb, wait for it to be lobbed back(usually with added screams), lob it again through another window, wait, lob, wait, lob, until someone appears with a baseball bat and a desire to lob your head. Then it’s time to do a Brave Sir Robin…
I wonder how this asshole would like it if another asshole put speakers in their nearby backyard, then played pop music through them so the whole neighbourhood was forced to listen to it?
dick #25
Instead of pop music, Koran readings…..
dick (#25) –
There’s more than one horror story – and not just in the US – of people resorting to guns or other violence after being assaulted with noise. There are also numerous cases of suicide by the victims of the assault, and little action by the authorities…though perhaps this first story led to police taking action in the second story.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/554768/Woman-hanged-noisy-neighbours-Prince-Anne-charity-work
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-seven-who-played-adele-6757153
While it’s good to see a noise polluter taken to task, it’s too bad the authorities weren’t as concerned about the effects of the noise and parties on the seven kids.
Doesn’t matter what is played. If people pray for it to stop — mission accomplished! They found God.
The divine Slyboots is hiding, and thus must work in mysterious ways.
If there are “speakers” doesn’t that imply that there is some sort of amplification going on? So why is it so hard to control the volume?
It thought it was just electrically driven bell ringing, but is it all just electronically generated? Or are they amplifying physical bells? Either way, it sounds like it’s engineered to be a nuisance.
Bells can be annoying and this guy seems to require someone to pass him a hammer and a couple of nails. I don’t know why he thinks he is doing people a favor by making noise.
P.S. I spent some time looking for “Lounge” thread before remembering you shut it down some months ago. Is it okay if I post a link to my friend’s crowd-funding campaign here instead? He is a really nice guy, trying to become a web developer. His dog’s picture on a t-shirt is one of the rewards :D
Presumably, it’s just that he’s hard-headed and didn’t want to turn it down. He got to play the part of a persecuted Christian. Turning a knob or pushing a button isn’t dramatic enough.
I’m sure it’s an electronic carillon. Cemeteries by themselves rarely have bells of their own. Because, seriously, why would they need any? The ones I’m familiar with do have electronic sound systems, apparently only for playing Taps at military burials — if people can’t/won’t hire a bugler/trumpeter (not bell ringers obviously) and of course want the veteran buried in a public cemetery instead of a military one. If there’s an adjacent church associated with the cemetery, it would be the place with some actual bells (which aren’t all that loud), but most churches these days have cheaper electronic sound systems for indoors and/or outdoors (which could be extremely loud if you’re willing to pay for it).
The church mentioned (Ste Clare of Assisi ) looks to me to be the Catholic equivalent of a mega-church. Really huge parking lot, really big building, ugly mustard-tone stucco. At least they made an attempt at some mission architecture with an incongruous onion dome stuck on for luck. Well whatever. I’m glad I live some 20 miles away.
‘kay, so he shouldn’t mind if I set up industrial amps outside his home and blast Iron Maiden 24/7, right?
#30: no more lounge, but we “discuss” threads on somewhat more specific topics. Look for one on the sidebar that might fit the subject.
Nah, not really a mega-church. It’s got a decent sized parking lot but mostly because they have a huge plot of land and not many buildings on it. It’s still not big enough to hold all of the cars on the big holidays. The inside is actually quite pretty. It’s nowhere near what I would think of as a mega-church – it’s about the same size as some of the other nearby Catholic churches.
jo1storm @ 30:
You could post about your friend here or here.
I lived in Arizona for 20 years. You know what else they have there? Lots of GUNS. An outdoor noisemaker won’t last long.
>And face it, this is a small town cemetery — it’s pretty dead over there.
I see what you did there.
A small confession. It was about 1976 in the middle of the night in a laundromat in Tennessee. I’d been irritated by the radio that constantly played from a speaker in the ceiling. Never stopped, no matter what time of day or night I did my laundry. In this instance I was the only person there. I sat, trying to read, waiting for my laundry.
Pulled a table over. Climbed up. Lifted ceiling tile. Ripped out wire. Silence.
No one ever fixed that speaker. I guess none of the other customers complained. If the owner of the laundromat is reading, I hope they’ve forgiven me.
Just be grateful that Change Ringing isn’t a thing in the USA. Just imagine 22 hours 24 minutes of tuneless (but mathematically significant) bell noises.
Carillons are for weaklings. electronic carillons multiply so .
Never lived close enough to a church for bells to bother me, but some pet owners can be as oblivious and/or selfish over their barking dogs. They seem to believe that it’s not their fault if their dog barks all times of the day and night, and not their responsibility to do anything about it.
Got new neighbors arriving next month. Keeping my fingers crossed that they’re not “dog people.”