Monday, December 07, 2009

"Field Recordings"

The sound of two-inch tape hisses and rustles in the weeds. Someone's forgotten they were supposed to be making field recordings, left their gear behind. That was 1971; since then kids have been discovering the machine and replaying the sounds the tape never captured. They don't know how it works- the batteries are corroded slugs- and they don't care. They press play, rewind, play again, fast forward, rewind, judging the permutations of blank soundscape. Nobody thinks to take the machine home, clean it up. It's been in the same empty lot forever, as much of a secret landmark as the curb behind the convenience store, the crucifix nailed upside down to that one tree in the woods. Silence, waiting for encroachment from a child's aeon ago.

(12.3.09- revisions 12.7.09)

1 comment:

Shade said...

like the forests of blair witch growing over the rest of the east coast, all the jolly moments collected on middle class shelves and all the hard drives full of babies in mothers' arms. These are the strange ghosts encoded in the post apocalyptic shallow shores.