Last night’s magical pre-sunset hour: SoundWalk, Long Beach. Wandering around a few blocks in the East Village Arts District while keeping an eye out for sound installations, I may have reached an epiphany: the immediate blocks encircling the Broadway/Linden intersection are home to more coffee shops per capita than Silverlake’s Rowena corridor and all of Westwood combined. I’m telling you!!

Coffee in hand, it was now time to do some Sound Walking. Choices included live sound shows, interactive sidewalk installations, in-store installations and swarms of people sharing funky headphones at every turn.

Although many entries were earnest, I have to say the ones that worked best for me were the incidental, quasi-hidden speakers on sidewalks such as those placed strategically by Carrie Yury and Redux on Broadway. Example: you’re walking innocently enough under a tree until a creepy voice from the branches whispers “Raspberry compote…Flavours of nutella…” Laugh, but it worked. It also triggered the memory of listening to Barry Adamson’s Moss Side Story in high school, for some reason.

Before heading home I stopped by Machine Project in Echo Park to peek through a hole in the floor at some fake bones. I think I’ll end with a quote from the flyer I received at the show, also available on their website:

If you write upon the Palm of your Hand, or upon Paper with the said Gum, what ever you write will appear all on fire, and the Letters may be read a long time after; but you must have a great care, that you do it softly, and to put it into Water, as soon as you have done, for if it happen to fire ’twill burn the place most dreadfully.

SoundWalk Photos
[The chill-out zone]
[Spotted @ Koo]
[Please Enter Quietly]
[Coffee Cellist]