New York’s Alright

I just returned home to San Francisco after 11 days in New York, much of it on Long Island with extended family, and a third of the trip in the city proper — hotel in Manhattan, wanderings through Brooklyn and Queens. I got as far north as 155th Street, in order to catch a fantastic concert of choral music at the massive Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. I am currently in my tiny office getting work done while listening to (and occasionally taking a peek at) an uncut, multi-hour recording out a window onto the city. (Some straightforward sleuthing seems to confirm it was shot — roughly southward-facing — on 52nd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, perchance not far from where I stayed. I walked close by a few days earlier on my way to Hell’s Kitchen for dinner.) The experience is oddly centering, maybe even assisting by taking the edge off the brain-melting jet lag I’ve experienced since my return Monday night. I recommend tuning in at the 27-minute mark to hear a street musician’s saxophone echo upward, bouncing off of — and in turn softening — the city’s hard surfaces. I listened to it on headphones for quite a while. However, it really took root — really came alive — when I unplugged my ears and let the sounds fill the room: the honking, the chatter of passersby, the air traffic, the congealed hum of urban life in the single densest city in the United States, and that saxophone. This is room sound, and it makes sense in a room: the audio of one place transported to — superimposed atop — another.