Author: Marc Weidenbaum

New York’s Alright

Bringing back the city from the city

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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.

“In One Place (Second Attempt)”

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I recorded this in an apartment I was staying at in New York. It was early in the day. I was the only one up. I had another hour before my solitude was scheduled to be interrupted. The building’s HVAC each night disturbed my sleep, but as with a nightmare, those same sounds were tranquil, even beautiful, come morning. I had attempted another 30-second recording before this one. While it was underway I noted several disappointing disturbances — creaks and pops, the aural detritus of a building waking up. Apart from them I heard an extraordinary spatial drone, a manifestation of overtones, a symbiosis of modern domestic infrastructure and a room of high ceilings, a hard floor, and a wall of glass at one end. When the first attempt ended, I took a slow, deep breath and hit record. I knew in the moment that it would work out well. There is something of Schrödinger’s cat to the act of field recording. A place is many places when you listen to it over time, but when you hit record, it gets clarified (reduced, flattened, distilled) to one specific environment. This can feel like an exertion of influence when you undertake the recording process consciously, when you have situated yourself in the moment. I felt a kind of authorship as the second recording was underway. It was precisely what I had heard beneath the extraneous noises the first time. After 30 seconds had elapsed, I ceased recording. I had a sense it had worked out, a sense confirmed many hours later, when I listened back for the first time, on the flight home. Just minutes after this recording ended, the room went suddenly silent. The air conditioning system had reached a point — whether barometric or calendrical — that caused it to shut off. Minutes later, the lawnmowers began their prowling. I had been even more fortunate than I’d known when I hit record that second time.