Have you ever wanted that tense scene of a camera following Danny through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel, but for eight hours? We’re back at the movies this week, and obviously, we are racing through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel.

Get ready for tricycle-pumping action over carpet and wood flooring as we get tense strings and maybe random voices from the beyond. 

As usual, this is ambience to (ostensibly) relax with, so there will be no jump scares, yelling, or weird ladies from room 237.  

We're expounding upon the unease and urban landscape that open the director's cut of the Exorcist. Perched above the ominous stairs that lead to doom (or towards the Key Bridge and expensive shops for the rest of us), a light switches off, the bushes rustle in the wind, and then come the cymbals.

It's a solid opening that proves the power of ambience — without the added sound, the visuals become voyeurism of wealthy people.  

For those concerned, this week's ambience does not include jump scares, screaming, or exorcisms: just cars, people, wind, and unease.

I'm leaving out my favorite funny moment from the film — I'm always tickled by (fictional) all-caps screaming (ATTICA ATTICA).

The possessed shouts calling for "MERRIN!" after the priests enter the Exorcist house are undoubtedly terrifying. But imagine if Lankester Merrin's name was instead Amish Pickle. Amish Pickle would be engaging in pre-exorcist niceties in the foyer, and a blood-curdling  "PICKLE!" would fill the air. That would be great (although not as great as a Richard Pryor exorcism).

And then imagine the backstory of Amish Pickle earnestly searching faraway lands for ancient evil. Finding artifacts, that's Priest Pickle, stealing from Iraq.

Staring down a waving statue amidst a desert dog fight, Pickle.

Happy Halloween!

Go island hopping in the South Pacific, or fly to Nantucket or some remote Alaskan village. And do it without checking your bags. This week, we are going up in a very chill prop airplane. 

Whenever I fly, I'm reminded of a favorite DJ mix from the 90s, Cold Krush Cuts. It included a spoken word segment about getting into ⁠the sky and seeing your problems from a new perspective.⁠ It was the closest I ever came to an epiphany listening to danceable music.

Below is the message from the mix, but I suggest ⁠you listen to it yourself.⁠

"It was about a bug who spent his entire life in the world's most beautifully designed Persian rug. All the bug ever saw in his lifetime were his problems. They stood up all around him; he couldn't see over the top of them.

And he had to fight his way through the tufts of wool in the rug to find some crumb somebody had spilled in the rug. And the tragedy, of the story of the bug in the rug was this: That he lived and he died in the world's most beautifully designed rug. But he never once knew that he spent his life in something which had a pattern.

That's why I want to get you up in the air tonight; to see something the old bug couldn't see in the rug. Because even he, this bug, if he had once got above the rug so he could have seen all of it, he would have discovered something: That the very things he called his problems were a part of the pattern."

See y'all in the air!

Doomed fishing boat cabin ambience — We’re back at the movies this week, spending an entire night searching for a great white on the Orca. The engine idles, the waves splut and gurgle, a tracking buoy bleeps in the waters just outside… (Ambience was inspired by the cabin conversation about scars and past traumas).

That’s right, we are off the coast of Amity Island and smack in the middle of the No Country for Old Men of fish movies: Jaws.

I wouldn’t want to run into either film’s villains in some fictional back alley. But at least Anton Chigurh’s methodical carnage was contained in realistic modern depravity and Texas. Bruce did his murders amongst the frolicking salt water taffy set on the Mackinac of Massachusetts: Martha’s Vineyard. 

But don’t worry — Bruce and Anton are not in this episode (nor are John Williams, Richard Dreyfus, and Mr. “SmileYouSunavaBitch”).

In this episode, we are expanding the background interior cabin and outdoor sounds of the Orca (from around the chat about scars). 

It will be you alone on an idle little ship, waiting for a shark.

Also, thank you, Kyle, for the Jaws suggestion — the original episode photo by Daniel Torobekov on Pexels.

Mad river Ambience, and you read that right. Vermont has a Mad River. It flows North toward payback and revenge. And it’s a great place to swim.

Spend an evening on the rocky bank listening to a small angry river gush by.

Small (and maybe the wrong waterfall) waterfall ambience — Okay, so this is my first waterfall, and I’m not psyched about misnaming my first waterfall ambience. But here’s the deal. My buddy, Ed, was like, “Yo, you have to check out Moss Glen Falls. They make Warren Falls look like some ****.” So I consulted Google and was served this.

“Yeah, that does makes Warren Falls look like some ****.”

So I brought my microphone up to Vermont and drove to the falls. And… the bridge was out. The footbridge had been damaged by weather and had some “keep out” -ish signage. 

I was bummed but undeterred. I could see the falls back in the woods (from this vantage point, looking to the right of the bridge). These falls looked less impressive (see episode cover image) than the pictures the internet had fed me — yet, I’ve online dated before, and I know the drill between Glamour Shots and reality. And it may have been a dry summer in the Green Mountains. 

I noticed a collection of rocks that could lead me to the other side of the ditch so I could skip the battered bridge. My mind easily picked out the route across boulders, and I stepped one, two, and into the creek I went. 

My kid laughed. 

And it was worth it to capture my first waterfall. I climbed out of the creek with one sloshing leg limping the rest of the way.

I set up the mic and let it roll.

Later, I realized I had found some bastard Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree waterfall. I should have turned left at the bridge; if I had, I would have wound up here.

So… enjoy whatever these falls are called.

___________

Oh, and we're on youtube now! Come check us out.

Late night rural road and gushing water ambience.

So, I have a favorite road, Route 100, in Vermont (especially from around Pico to Waterbury). And obviously, this isn't a trade secret. Route 100 needs no hype, judging by the traffic we wreak in rural Vermont. The road delivers miles of Vermont quaintness: New England churches, cute light festivals, towering trees, and rounded green mountains. Every inch is a photo op.

Route 100 dominated my college years for bar and ski traffic. I used 100 when going home to the 518 or returning to Norwich University. Windows down whenever possible to smell the Earth.

We would park on the side of 100 and venture into the woods for the Warren Falls with a portable grill and a bunch of 40s. The falls gush water into chest-high pools you can wade through, and for those looking to impress, the falls offer rock formations you can flip off of and hope to wow someone. In my increasing age I am recognizing that the women I tried to impress probably just wrote me off as foolish — but in my defense there is at least a mythological precedent in the Appalachians for launching off of rock formations in front of women.

Lately, my Route 100 experience has revolved around alumni weekends, and I've been exploring things I missed when I was there in the 90s (we will have a Moss Glenn Falls podcast coming soon). 

This recording is Route 100 in the Stowe area from a favorite lodge (The Warren Lodge) — next to a bridge over gushing water. And thank y'all for letting me set up my mic on the premises!

And for some house cleaning — I would like to announce the uncommon ambience, YouTube channel. I will start adding a video to accompany the audio on many of my favorite episodes, so give us a thumbs up, subscribe, and whatnot.

Late-night laundry — No one likes laundry, but I have some fond memories of the sights and sounds. The flickers of evening traffic flashing by the windows in yellows and reds. The crisp autumn air waiting to cleanse you of the steamy confines.

When I lived at the top of Winter Hill, I frequented a laundromat at the confluence of Broadway and Main. You could look south from there and see Boston towering in the distance. Her high-rises twinkling.

Next door to my old laundromat was a liquor store—I would pick up Smirnoff Ice and drink that **** surreptitiously while folding boxers.

Alcohol can be pretty great on laundry night because, sentimentality aside, doing laundry sucks. Especially if you have to do it in public. It can be simultaneously tedious and stressful. The way I've heard war described by soldiers.

Obviously, laundry is lower stakes. Yet not without its own cast of belligerents. I had a lady dump my sopping underwear into a cart that wasn't even mine. She kicked it down the aisle toward me as I returned from a smoke break. Me and the dude that had dibs (and clothes already in the cart) were like, "Hey!"

That lady was a peak-hour lady. Don't do your laundry during peak hours — folks do not play during peak hours. If you want to learn about a laundromat's institutional knowledge, how it operates, and what is expected of its clientele, subject yourself to peak hours. It's going to suck.

I learned a bunch from my one stressful peak-hour laundry visit. Most notably, how to change a dollar and avoid the nickel "convenience fee" on the dollar changer. A lady grabbed my wrist as I went in on the changer. "Use the soda machine," she said, pantomiming, feeding my dollar, and then pressing the white coin return button.

Off-hour laundry is less stressful. When regular folks are outside being social, doing homework with the kids, or whatever peak-hour people do at night.

I washed my dirty drawers with the lady who cordoned off the back corner with universal dibs, the unkempt dude and his stash of Reader's Digest, the repairman making his rounds, and the ever-changing couple propped against the window making out.

Episode photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

Otherworldly office ambience — we are back at the Movies this week for ambience inspired by the original ⁠Beetlejuice⁠.

The paranormal office the Maitlands enter after waiting months in the Neitherworld waiting room (⁠see it here⁠).

Skeletons typing, paper rustling, a gongy drone, a PA directing souls, et al.

BTW based on the ⁠upcoming sequel's⁠ title, I assume the Beetlejuice franchise will wind up being a trilogy. I haven't seen the sequel, but you don't get anything from saying "Beetlejuice" twice. And that the movie is not Beetlejuice 2 tells me we will get a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

Oh no!

And as the title suggests, this is a minisode of a precocious little thunderstorm that came and went (even knocked our power out for a spell). And there must be situations in your life that are perfect for a ten-minute boomer. Dental appointments are totally ten-minutes in length.