The Entroporium

Last night I participated in Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night,” an ambient caroling piece. About 500 folks — about a quarter of which with boomboxes — walked through the Mission “caroling.” Everybody with a boombox is given a tape. Some of the tapes match, some don’t, but there are dramatic changes that happen in near unison. The sounds echoed through alleys and doorways. Every time you wound up in a different place in the crowd — with the tones of differently-abled boomboxes around you — the sound changed. Sometimes it was just a drone, other times bells rang, at other times choirs seemed to ring out into the open air. Observers were alternately enthralled or horrified. We stopped traffic for about two blocks running. The police circled and thankfully chose not to disrupt. At one point, an SUV rolled by laying the beat down, and all I could think was “Hey! It’s the remix!”

It was so great to be in a large crowd of marchers and not be angry for a change.

[Soundtrack]
Sound clips from Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night”
NPR story on the 2003 NYC performance where I originally heard about this piece