I am one of the hordes of people in New York and other cities who listens to an iPod or other listening device almost constantly when “out and about.” I’ve had some form of what used to be called a “personal stereo” device since the end of the ’70s. And my use of them has increased along with the increase in the quality/utility of these devices. Currently I use both an iPhone and an iPod (I need the larger capacity of the iPod to keep all the music I need to carry for professional uses).
So I am very used to the rather Cageian phenomenon of whatever I was listening to becoming a surprisingly perfect soundtrack for whatever was going on in the “external” world. I’m frequently amazed by how shuffle seems to be controlled by some kind of deeply intuitive, sentient intelligence. I remember an afternoon, walking around Paris and my iPod seemed giddy with the excitement of being there, and was shuffling up an almost painfully perfect playlist.
But I had something very interesting happen yesterday…
I was on the subway listening to the podcast version of “This American Life.” The story was about Haiti, and during one particular section there was a scoring track of what sounded like some kind of Mariachi-esqe band. It didn’t really occur to me that it was a bit incongruous, mostly because it was fairly evocative emotionally, and the musical choices in TAL are often surprising.
But I happened to look up and was surprised to realize that the musicians were not in the podcast. They were on the A train. Three elaborately costumed gentlemen; two guitarists and a small accordion were playing right in front of me.
The effect of this was heightened by the fact that I was listening to my iPhone with my Etymotic hf2 in-ear earphones (yes I know they’re pricy but I’m sticking these things into my head repeatedly. I’m going to skimp?), which cut out almost all sound from the outside world. If I run out of things to listen to (not likely) I can turn the pod off and pretend I’m in space ala 2001: “Open the iPod-bay door HAL.” or walking around in a personal anechoic chamber.
This isolation allows these beauties to actually protect my hearing when I’m in the sonorous bowels of New York’s subway system. But it also means that for the external world to interject, it has to put a band of Mexicans three feet from my head…
Ahh New York…
Ahh 2010…
Ahh Ira Glass…
