April 25th, 2003
Look familiar?
In one of my first entries, I mentioned soundwalk audio walking tours. I snuck out of work early today cause it was so beautiful and finally got to do it with Jeremy. This was the one for the Lower East Side and it started at the corner of Clinton and Stanton. I was really, really excited about doing this. Less will be said about Jeremy’s feelings. And he was kinda vindicated cause it was super lame. I mean it’s a great idea: that you would listen to a cd audio tour in a neighborhood and it would be full of sound design and commentary. And it’s like those books I used to have when I was a kid, the kind that came with a little 45 and you turned the page when tinkerbell rings her bell or whatever. And it was really exciting to be standing in a spot exactly where the voice in your headphones tells you to stand. My favorite part of the whole thing was when we turned on the corner of Suffolk to Delancey Street and “Wildside” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch came on. I’m still really into this idea. I want to make mix CDs for people where it tells you to stand at a certain spot and walk down a certain street and you’ll hear music I want you to hear walking down that street. I think that’s kind of a cool new way to tell the story. And there were a couple of neat locals pointed out, like this unassuming gothic building on Suffolk Street that was this notorious crack/whore house during the eighties. The worst part was the narrator. They got this cheesey girl who did this dominatrix act and said things like ‘you’re my slave, do exactly what I tell you to do,” which felt so lame cause it was a nice day and the streets were full of people and I felt pretty corny. And strangely oblivious to the surroundings even though I was listening to this piece about the surroundings — which was so fucking cool!!! And there were these lame characters she kept introducing who we were supposed to pretend were walking up to us and talking and they tell us how dangerous the neighborhood was (we saw 3 different movies being shot) and said things like, ‘Only in New York!’
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Technically, this was Cuban Ice number two. Jeremy got grape, which was much better than the nasty strawberry (being made below, from a vendor on Houston Street).
A friend made at the end of the tour.
ROOFTOP HAIRCUT!
Ghost Katherine.
I don’t know enough about photography to understand how shutter speeds work, but I like how much these pix look like the NYTimes photos of Bagdad from the war.
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