Talking, Thinking Head
When the winter wind is at its coldest, the summer its hottest, the garbage at its height of putridity and the street preachers at their most aggressive, we often say, "Honestly, why the hell do we live in New York City?" But then:
Starting May 31, visitors to New York's Battery Maritime Building will be able to take part in [David] Byrne's interactive music installation called simply "Playing the Building." Like its self-explanatory title implies, the Battery will be fitted with devices that will allow visitors to make music off of the piping, pillars and more. It's an interesting way to view the structures we take for granted in everyday life. According to Byrne, it could be the future of music itself.
Oh, that's why.
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David Byrne is so awesomely creative and eccentric. And, BTW, it's his birthday.
That sounds really unsanitary. I wouldn't want to play a pipe someone else already played, gross.
I work in lower Manhattan, and my offices look out over the Battery. We already have a huge construction project (new South Ferry subway station) that creates a lot of noise. Is this necessary too?
Sounds pretty cool, I am too poor to check it out though. Damn California.
So the building will be like giant xylophones? Or something to that effect? Hmm…I wonder how much that costs. I can't imagine the noise of people randomly banging on buildings to make "music" very, very strange.
In 1983 part of my birthday present was my parents taking me to a Talking Heads concert because I had a huge tween crush on David Byrne (I also had one on Henry Rollins and Joe Strummer, so David Byrne could be said to be the most normal crush I had at the time). I thought he was awesomely eccentric. Now when I watch Stop Making Sense I realize he was seriously coked up AND awesomely eccentric, but that doesn't taint my crush. I see he's as wonderfully weird as ever. Yeah, I might still have that bit of a crush.