Well, it’s possible. you can call yourself from a Link, leave the line open, and make contact with passing strangers. It’s like The Payphone Project reborn. instead of calling payphones and making contact with random strangers one can turn the tables and call themself from one of these things and broadcast their voice into the sidewalk hustle and bustle. I had a brief conversation with someone today, saying that someone had called me and that I was waiting for them to come back. The dude “It’s a glitch in The Matrix.” I laughed heartily, even though it was quite difficult to distinguish what, exactly he was saying. The VOIP call quality is, as one might expect from VOIP call quality, atrocious, and made all the worse by the noisy urban environment in which Links are found. Today I confirmed that you can plug your headphones in to a Link to make the callee’s voice audible only to you, but the only way to talk to that person is through the air and via the device’s built-in speaker. This was a little off-putting since the icon on the Link suggestss that you can plug in a headset/microphone combination device and (implicitly) make use of both functions of said device. But this apepars not to be true. Headphones only.
I was surprised how quickly passers-by responded the the audio emanating from the Links. I called a somewhat racy/tawdry chat line in San Francisco, where I heard a man and woman talking about what I do not know but peppering their chat with obscenities and racial epithets every 4th or 5th word. The call volume was LOUD, virtually booming into the urban space during the ebbs in noise from passing automobile traffic and other aural detritus.
I was reminded of what a pathetic anarchist I am. i felt a twinge of guilt when, as tawdry conversation simialr to described above was heaving from the Link i saw a small child react to the unexpected noise with a gleeful smile, while the gentleman who appeared to be the father left the child with the presumed mother as he turned right around to hang up the phone call and disable the call. That occurred within a minute, I think. The child certainly had no concept of what the conversation streaming from the Link was about but still, dumping that kind of shit onto children sounds troublesome. And just to clarify, I don’t have problems with kids being exposed to tawdry stuff, within limits of course. It’s the righteousness of their caretakers and the blowback one might face from them that worries me should they find that I am responsible for letting this stuff flow dangle in the thin air..
It was hard for me to connect with the soundscape and the lunacy of it all. I was too engaged with the logisitcs and conspicuousness of this pursuit. I would have needed better sound gear and at least one conspirator, either someone to dial the phone numbers or someone to hold a video camera and long-range microphone. I did both (sans microphone) but only managed to get video of 2 encounters. One elderly woman seemed to have disabled a call, and as she walked away i heard her chuckling and saying to a passing stranger “Voices!”
The most promising encounter was when I called myself and left the call open, engaging a stranger in conversation. I coudl see him from about half a block away, but he had no idea who or where I was. He seemed perfectly happy to chat in this manner. So this is a callout to comedians, radio show hosts, and whoever else takes joy in engaging passing strangers in conversation. The Links are coming!
I think this will have to wait a while before its sails really catch the wind, and the streets come alive with random contacts. There will simply need to be more Links. At present, with so few of them in working order, it might not take long for people to realize that repeat calls are emanating from one of these devices and that it might mean someone has to approach the phone and use it to make a call. The caller would get busted eventually, unless of course on hires passing strangers at the rate of $5 a pop to “Hey, dude, go to that Link and dial this number. No questions, ok?” hah.
…
In other news… A few days without booze has equaled a few days without sleep. i was wide awake until way past 4am, maybe even 5am, and up around noon after a thin façade of sleep only nominally separated me from the passing hours. More of the same tonight, or do i succumb to the tempatation of beer & gimlets? The last time I took a few days off and did my beer/gimlet routine I slept like a boulder and felt as good the next days as I had felt in a long time.
I have not spent a lot of money on a small amount of food but today i revisited the Comfort Diner, among my favorite NYC dining establishments. I thought I heard it had closed down long ago. The Fish & Chips was adequate, but not exactly what I expected. I thought they would have a payphone somewhere but noooo. Actually I think I looked for a payphone last time I was there, years ago.
