when sebald discovered the new ocean...

“how often, i thought to myself, had i lain thus...with my hands clasped under my head, listening, not to the stillness, but to the roar of the traffic, with a mounting sense of panic. that, then, i thought on such occasions, is the new ocean. ceaselessly, in great surges, the waves roll in over the length and breadth of our cities, rising higher and higher, breaking in a kind of frenzy when the roar reaches its peak and then discharging across the stones and the asphalt even as the next onrush is being released from where it was held by the traffic lights.”

w.g. sebald, vertigo