Unsilent night

WEEK 30

I read about this week’s first on a Time Out list of holiday bests. New York City goes bonkers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Midtown morphs into an impenetrable swarm of humans: the silly season on steroids. Ice skating rinks, holiday markets, window displays, lights on anything and everything. As annoying as it can be (I have to alter my subway route home given the afternoon gridlock near Rockefeller Center), in truth, with the right weather and right amount of people, the holiday season can be magical.

Tonight’s activity is a faux parade called Unsilent Night – a 27-year tradition that I first learned about two weeks ago. Each December, a New York-based composer named Phil Kline writes an original score and leads what he calls a “chorus of boomboxes” walking from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to Tompkins Square Park, a mile away in the East Village. Others have called it a “luminous soundscape.” Essentially, the audience “plays” Phil’s piece carrying boomboxes or other mobile speakers along the city streets. Did someone say live public art?

The website and FAQ are remarkably detailed for an event that appears on the surface to be haphazard and hippyish: Meet under the arch in Washington Square Park at 5:45pm. Bring a mobile speaker – preferably a boombox. Download one of four tracks. Dress warm and get ready to create a walking stereo.

As I write this first draft, it’s 4:00 p.m. on the Sunday of the event and task one is choosing my track. I listen to all four. The sounds are ethereal, with bells, some gongs, chanting. I download tracks one and four. The idea is that all of us in the audience have randomly selected a track, and when Phil counts us down, we hit play on our device. The resulting four-track piece played simultaneously becomes Unsilent Night.

Step two is syncing my cell phone to a portable speaker. I install the Libratone app. Bluetooth is buggy, of course, and when my phone goes to sleep, the signal drops. Fifteen minutes of trouble shooting later I’ve got the track playing through our stylish ZIPP speakers.

[As an aside, the fascination with boomboxes — I read in Phil’s online story – came from the very first winter in 1992 when he composed four 45- minute tracks, laid each on a different cassette, and popped the tapes into boomboxes. He still hands out vintage boomboxes at the event and apparently has a soft spot for the sometimes warbly sound of cassette tape.]

[A second aside. As I sit here writing, Irena is cooking a wild boar ragu that began with an overnight marinade in red wine, rosemary and garlic and is now on the stove at a low simmer. It smells divine. I am so excited to do this sonic festival and even more excited for dinner.]

Here’s how it unfolded.

What a cold night. We’re wearing full down, hats and heavy gloves. Thankfully it’s dry. We approach the arch and find a crowd of about 100 people. All types, sizes and ages represented. Too many people attempting to use their phone speakers (LAME!) and not enough boomboxes.

Phil attempts to yell instructions to the crowd (after 27 years he doesn’t have a megaphone?) and right at 6:00pm we count down five-four-three-two-one-play.

Slowly the sound envelopes us. Irena’s got the speaker overhead, and we shimmy our way as the crowd moves east across the park. The sound is in constant motion as we and others move. It’s like caroling, but not. We’re silent but carrying a sound sculpture.

As we file out of the park, our crowd of mobile speaker “musicians” compacts into a long line. New York City is very much part of the experience, as we snake our way along sidewalks made skinny by Sunday night trash bags and scaffolding. The crowd expands as we cross avenues – Broadway, Lafayette, Bowery, all the way to Avenue A. We lose people at crosswalks. They catch back up. Wherever you are in that very moment and whichever tracks are around you make the music. It’s organic and random and ever-changing.

I’d be walking alongside three or four loud boomboxes each with a different track, the full piece filling the air around us. Then I’d lose the boomboxes at a street crossing and end up surrounded by people trying to get music out of their phones, my speaker dominating. The experience was all-dimensional. A snake of sound.  

It was great fun to watch those we passed. Many took pictures and video. Some smiled. A lot looked confused. And – believe me, I’ve been there – a few New Yorkers in a hurry mumbled obscenities to get out of their way.

Our procession arrived in Tompkins Square Park under the large elm tree at 6:43 pm. One minute left on my recording. The final notes diminished and we let out a little cheer.