A musician and student of mine, Matt Howell,
recently traveled from Boston to Southern California
to visit a friend.
The visit was the first trip Matt had taken to the West Coast,
and he was looking forward to exchanging a stale, predictable scene
for the experience of a vibrating, unfamiliar environment.
When he arrived in Los Angeles,
he asked his friend to blindfold him.
He then marked the afternoon by
WALKING through the streets, a Homerian poet,
LISTENING to the modulating pulsations
of the electroacoustic, urbanized metropolis;
selecting, recording, and mixing-down events
within the sensory landscape of the mind’s ear.
His hope was that without the benefit
of normal visual stimulation,
the first impressions of this new world city
would stick with him for a lifetime.
The Chicken and the Egg 