blog_post____numbr_3__________what_i_hear

I took a stroll in the Lower East Side this afternoon. The first thing I noticed when walking out the building was the hollow, engulfing sound of the city streets. For some reason, the depth of sound transitioning from indoors to outdoors felt and heard like putting your ear inside a sea shell. I landed onto the sidewalk and headed for the street, feet shuffling like crumpled paper bags rustled from the corner. I looked left and saw no cars were approaching so I proceeded forward. As I reached the other side, a man talking on the phone trailed behind me. He was reporting a tragic incident that happened to someone he, and the person he was talking to on the phone, knew mutually. He was-- a swooshing sound coming from a swiftly opened door to my right-- telling the person that --murmurs from several tens of feet join in-- this man, a friend, perhaps had died. I turn right on Rivington, where the structure of the buildings on this particular block and its dynamics shaped the atmosphere and molded the incoming air pushing through, like clay through a press, swishing around in higher pitches and dropping down interchangeably like scripts on a seismograph. Sounds of cars approaching a stop sign squeal, men and women in the corner reverberate their conversations, all the while, the man, behind me, with stories of tragic and unfortunate circumstances gave final details of the cause of death. "Asthma attack, fuckin crazy..." I take a moment to think of how incredibly unfortunate this was... I continue to walk, and continue to listen, as if I was in the midst of an ongoing story being told by the city and had tuned out for a moment. The sound of birds chirping glide through the air like marshmallows, as if the very things their respective sound waves were bouncing off of were cotton balls. It gave me a feeling of calm, just the mere hint of wildlife in the center of this cement and iron city, was enough to cradle me back to the primal self who yearns for more, whilst sucking on his proverbial thumb. Swish swosh swish swosh, says the feet of a middle aged lady approaching me. I stop at the corner and look north up Clinton, dreaming of ramen whose shop is eponymous to mine... perhaps for dinner. Deep growls and a long, rude shush interrupt and introduces itself. This sound was quite common, as a matter of fact, in the small eight block radius I walked this afternoon. And that sound belonged to the unabashed, un-giving af (in terms of design and appearance), bodega fans, whose output, in terms of sound, I would imagine, is akin to the deep, lowly growl of a dinosaur's flatulence. The sounds continue to meander back and forth, in and out in non-linear patterns. The speed of a passing taxi might come to the fore-front, but not before two high school kids approach dribbling a basketball. The scraping of dried autumn leaves carve a path for me to walk through, just as empty swings in a park on the corner of Houston and Essex skim through space, disrupting molecules so it can whisper.

It was an informative exercise, one that is seemingly obvious, as in, the understanding of sound surrounding us perpetually seems a given, but it's amazing to see hear through this, that we are rarely present with in the cacophony, enough so, that each and every ding, crash and shout are neglected its individual identity.