The ears

Kapel’s ear pages rhyme kidney-essence with hearing and with the canals that tell you which way is up. That rhyme is old. It is usable as a map: reserve, fear, the horizon. A person who cannot stand a tone is telling you about load. You listen. You may ask the kidney pair. Selective-frequency, on this desk, means the field reports through one band of hearing and not another — observational, not a hunt, and not a diagnosis of the canal.