• Apple cores disappearing into the garbage disposal
• The turbulent grumble of idling diesel engines
• The entropic crackle of a television set not tuned to any signal for longer than a few seconds
• Other people’s music or ringtones sneaking from ear buds or stray sonics from open-air restaurant/bar PA systems as experienced from a disadvantageous remove or a moving vehicle, thereby rendering said sounds suitably alien, intriguingly unfamiliar, and convincingly desirable
• The context-obliterating roar of leaf blowers
• The harsh, ominous buzz of parking-lot lights, after sundown
• Muskrats in heat
• Buckethead, generally
• Chewed-to-the-quick nails on chalkboards
• Accidentally or not-so-accidentally dropped dishes shattering
• The greedily insatiable vroom of ancient vacuum cleaners
• The lulling hum of airport people-movers and mall escalators
• The sharp, piercing beep of cheap wake-up alarm clocks
• Air-raid sirens, or recordings of air-raid sirens that you find yourself revisiting for no apparent reason
• Obliviously off-key whistling jags in enclosed spaces that result in a bracing echo
• The Darth Vader-reminiscent rasp of microphones used by aged smokers who, while they no longer possess tracheas, still have a great deal to say
• The combat-zone shudder and thump of jackhammers and other jarring sounds that imply the onward march of progress
• Radio static, for any stretch of time longer than 20 seconds
• Asylum ambiance, or no-fi field recordings from your local Denny’s
• That rattling grind that makes it seem like wasps have established a base of operations within your air conditioning system, but really just means that your dust filter was inserted improperly or that your air conditioning system is so old
• Sudden expressions of physical suffering that are difficult to peg as producible by another living creature but which you instinctually know were produced by another living creature, somehow
• Loose belts snapping and flapping under the hood
• Tiny Tim’s singing voice
