A reasonable noise level at a restaurant should be about 65 decibels. But many easily top 85. Little wonder noise is the most common complaint about eateries of all sorts.
These days when the New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells writes reviews, it’s not uncommon to read about sound levels in expensive establishments that are “abusive” or “overpowering.” That’s not always the case. But high New York rents dictate small rooms with many tables. And the bar culture especially in after-work watering holes nearly duplicates the sound intensity of the beachside runway on St. Maarten’s. We have all had the experience of spending an evening with others where our time together was defined less by the food coming from the kitchen than our skill as lip-readers.
OSHA
The World Health Organization notes that the normal nighttime noise level for a large city should be no more than 40 decibels. (This measurement scale is logarithmic; every three decibel increase roughly doubles perceived sound intensity.) Continuous sound topping 55 decibels can leave a person at risk of cardiovascular disease. That’s a considerable distance from the 120 decibels that can produce permanent hearing loss: a real risk for musicians of all sorts.
A reasonable noise level for a busy restaurant should be about 65 decibels. But many restaurants easily top 85 in their bars and main dining areas, a fact aggravated by the tendency of well lubricated patrons to talk even louder. Maybe the hard stuff should come with a noise warning as well as a proof number. Little wonder noise is the single biggest complaint leveled against eateries of all sorts.
The problem is common enough to get a separate web page from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Their recommendations:
Spare your kids the noise.
Eat at off times.
Request that music or the sound on televisions be turned down
Ask for a quieter corner away from loudspeakers or loud groups.
There is a curious fact about excessive noise. Many of us don’t notice it. We are used to moving through environments that push at the margins of comfort. Some of us are natural stoics, bearing the burden of too much noise until it is mentioned by others. This is one reason excessive sound volume is a contributor to stress. As ambient sound turns into a roar it stretches the natural elasticity of our patience. In the end, we feel drained and fatigued without exactly knowing why.
Sometimes the best we can do as advocates is lend our physical presence to a cause.
Evangelicals often talk about their modes of worship as forms of “witnessing.” Their lives and the ways they live them are meant to be “testimony” for what they believe. But the term can also be used more broadly. We can see another form of witnessing at weddings. The point is to be in the same space with the new couple, endorsing their union by our presence. With less fanfare a notary exists to attest to the signing of a contract or legal document. And we may be asked to stand up and be counted at a municipal meeting, if a leader wants a sense of how many supporters for a proposed ordinance are in the room. And, of course, there is the unforgettable young man who placed himself in front of Chinese military tanks during the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Sometimes the best we can do as advocates depends less on what we say and more on the fact that we have lent our bodies to a cause or way of thinking.
This idea rose recently as I was canvassing for a political candidate with a partner. The homes we visited were all connected, one front door just a few feet from the next. Our job on this warm afternoon was to go to a number of houses, knocking on doors and expressing our enthusiasm for the candidate we favored.
After perhaps ten homes with few doorbells answered my partner began to wonder whether the effort was doing any good. Why wouldn’t a phone call been just as effective? It would certainly be a lot easier.
My answer spoken with more conviction than I’d earned was that it was good for the people who were home but stayed behind closed doors and open windows to know that others cared enough to try to connect. They surely overhead our conversations. Our physical presence in their neighborhood was its own act of testifying; just being there ‘performed’ our conviction in a public way. And that’s the thing about witnessing; it has to be seen by some audience; it can’t be totally anonymous.
We witness for the cameras and for each other, sometimes using disruptions of the routines of a public space to make a point. Think of protests carried out by the Black Lives Matter movement, Occupy Wall Street, or the silent strike vigils that happen in front of troubled businesses. If we need to give our cause gravitas we can also draw comparisons to Gandhi, to mid-Century freedom rides through hostile Southern towns, or to the current encampments of native Americans near the Dakota Access Pipeline.
We flatter ourselves with what may be unearned leaps up into the thin air of high moral purpose. For sure, our silent presence is not likely to register with anything like the poignancy of the man in Tiananmen Square. But the fact remains: sometimes the simplest way to make our case is to lend our bodies to a cause, “witnessing” even in silence.
