[return to p5 contents]
pipeline5: An Unsilent City
A boom-box carrier recalls Phil Kline's "Unsilent Night," performed in Berlin, Jan. 1, 2001
Written by Anna Elkins
�����Berlin, night. A man pulls long, black objects from the trunk of an organizer's car. Several dozen people stand on the icy street and sidewalk passing the things around, shrugging in their dark, thick coats, waiting for a signal to begin.
�����Not a rally, riot or crime. The man is Phil Kline. The black objects: same-model boom boxes. The cold, anonymous knot of people: a mix of German and American participants in a now-traditional music performance.
�����It did feel a bit ilicit, standing there, passing around machines--as if we were arming ourselves against something. If so, it was silence. Once we inserted one of four looped tapes recorded with Phil's "Unsilent Night" piece, we began to participate in recreating a portable and flexible music that rose around us.
�����There were moments on the U-Bahn beforehand when I wondered what on earth I'd be doing on the streets of Berlin carrying a boom box with a group of strangers. But, when Lori, Adam, and I arrived at Pfefferberg, I noticed that Phil Kline and I were both wearing New Balance sneakers. That was a good sign. Then, he talked with us about his music. That was even better.
�����I was happy to have Adam and Lori carry the box first and see what the sound would be like, not having any prior experience with Phil's music. I was a quick disciple. As soon as the tapes were loaded and we'd begun working our way along the Mitte district, maintaining our balance along thickly-iced streets, I wanted to hold the music and feel it leaving the speakers.
�����How to describe the music? Perhaps by its effect. If, as we have heard certain performing artists announce, an event never really happens unless there is some effect of it (I think of a tree falling in the proverbial unoccupied forest), then without the reactions of passerby, the morphing, traveling music of "Unsilent Night" doesn't fully exist. I'm not sure that this argument completely applies, but I do say this: the experience was far more effective with feedback.
�����"Sh�nes Klang!" (beautiful noise,) said an older man, who stopped mid-sidewalk to turn towards us and smile, arms emphasizing his observation as if condoning the sound coming from our stereos. A ground-floor resident opened her outer jalousie window to lean her sturdy arms on the sill and smile as wide as she could. Couples glanced up, happily, in passing. Solo pedestrians made points of not noticing us as other stepped back and beamed.
�����Besides using the incredibly ubiquitous shards of firework packaging from the pervious night for traction--red cardboard everywhere--I concentrated on the way the music hummed and grew and rolled around itself as we walked among each other, mixing the sounds whenever someone stopped to catch their balance, or when a handful of people got stuck at a traffic light or turned a corner before the body of the group. The music breathed and solidified and then disappeared to flow into bells or something like voices. All the while, Phil kept in the front, deciding where to turn next, and looking back to make sure we were more or less together.
�����Forty minutes. That was it, though it seemed far shorter, as the best things do. And then we reconvened at the Sophiensaele to warm up with drinks or coffee. We mentioned the woman who had carried a Walkman speaker inher bike basket, someone with a Playskool tape-player, and the amazing fact that no one had fallen on the ice. Phil talked about the recording process and his childhood interest on boom boxes. I ate peanuts and kept trying to remember the music surging around in the winter air like warmth.
�����The next time I am in New York for the holidays, I'm stopping by Washington Square with a suspicious-looking bag and sturdy shoes. I will join a large crowd waiting together in the cold as they have been for nearly a decade every December to carry their part of Phil Kline's music. Of course, I'll be watching to see how New Yorkers react to the traditional Stateside "Unsilent Night." Still, I will always associate that piece with the atmosphere of Berlin: cranes and buildings and the Radio Tower manifesting themselves like pieces of sound equipment in that large and variable music studio, the city.