Making a Joyful Noise?

It's Monday and I didn't have to get up at 5:45 this morning.  Yeah!  Praise God, I did receive a summer school job starting June 28th, but for now, I have two weeks off  and I think I will get caught upon some writing and reading. 

First of all,  I have been hearing this low humm in my ears, in my head,  my dreams.   It sounds like there is more than one thing making this noice.  It's like something out of a Steven King novel... Hummmmmmm
then again, overlapping the first hummmmmm.... I think I have been hearng it since early Saturday morning.

Vuvuzelas

The vuvuzela (English pronunciation: /vuːvuːˈzeɪlə/) , sometimes called a "lepatata" (its Tswana name) or a stadium horn, is a blowing horn approximately 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length. It is commonly blown by fans at football matches in South Africa. The instrument requires some lip and lung strength to blow and emits a loud monotone.  A similar instrument (known as corneta in Brazil and other Latin American countries) is used by football fans in South America.Vuvuzelas have been controversial. They have been associated with permanent noise-induced hearing loss,cited as a possible safety risk when spectators cannot hear evacuation announcements, and potentially spread colds and flu viruses on a greater scale than coughing or shouting.Vuvuzelas have also been blamed for drowning the sound and atmosphere of football games. Commentators have described the sound as "annoying" and "satanic"  and compared it with "a stampede of noisy elephants, a deafening swarm of locusts,a goat on the way to slaughter and a giant hive full of very angry bees.".

Don't you love these analogies?  Especially "a goat on it's way to slaughter..."  Not a sound I hear often. (well I guess I don't hear elephants too often either).

The sound level of the instrument has been measured at 127 decibels contributing to football matches with dangerously high sound pressure levels for unprotected ears.A new model, however, announced on 14 June 2010, has a modified mouthpiece which is claimed to reduce the volume by 20 db.  

 

(the above c/o Wikipedia)

 

The World Cup is on in my house, will be on for the next month. It is just the way it is, married to  a former soccer star himself  (way back before AYSO was invented).  I asked Ted who would have pictures from his soccer days, so I might be on a hunt for some archived shots.  In the mean time...

What team do you think he is rooting for? 

I am reminded of a story from the Old Testament.  It is found in Joshua Chapter 6.  There were seven priests and seven ram's horns and a city that needed conquering for the people of Israel.  Joshua was their leader and Jericho was the city. 

vs. 4 And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.

vs. 5 It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”

vs. 20 So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

 

So, maybe this "blowing horns" thing is Biblical, a way of defeating the enemy, winning a game, crumbling walls...If we could just reduce it down to seven specially chosen fans purposed to  "toot their own horn", maybe some of us could concentrate more on the actual game.