I keep soldiering on with processing and editing all this audio I’ve collected. In this piece I enter a bagel shop and order a bagel.

With a new set of mics I can accumulate these sounds with less conspicuity. My previous mics were over-ear headphones that I wrapped in windscreens normally used on Schurr brand stage microphones. They looked ridiculous and I noticed a few wayward stares from people wondering what the hell that was around my neck. These new mics go into your ears, and attempt to capture sound exactly as I hear it. It does work but it is, of necessity, imperfect in significant ways. In this recording at about 2:30 I remember being pretty focused on overhearing conversation between a customer and the cashier, hearing it above the surrounding sounds. The mind can do that but the mic cannot. That is one of the many ways sound can never be captured or documented in a way that genuinely recreates the primal experience of being there. So the charming little conversation I thought I had captured at 2:30 is in there but it swims with everything else in a non-selective pool of sound.

Spatial sense is captured well enough, at least I think it is, and communicated on playback when wearing headphones or perhaps using some kind of surround-sound stereo system. If anything playing back audio for its 3d spatiality feels more like being there than it felt actually… being there. The inability for the mics or recording device to focus on specific sounds the way a human can makes the playback of the experience seem almost hyper-real.

The new mics are made by Sound Professionals, model #SP-TFB-2-13099. I somehow neglected to notice that a slightly more expensive and presumably superior set of mics by the same company is also available, but I’ll that go. This was a Christmas gift.

The sound is generally good. My main complaint so far is that they fall out of my ears, forcing me to stuff them back in. This makes for a lot of noise in the recordings that has to be edited out, as well as the cheerful sound of me expressing my aggravation. I’ve never been good with earbuds or with sticking much of anything in my ear (heh) but these things just don’t stay put. I had used the much cheaper Andrea brand in-ear mics but those were even worse at staying put, and as far as I could tell they had no practical windscreen solution. The SP-TFB-2-13099 ship with windscreens but I’m not convinced yet that they are very effective. But it’s not fair yet to pronounce a verdict on this since the wind outside has been quite strong and blustery since I started using these mics, so much so that I don’t know that much of any windscreen could muffle out the noise.

But really it’s all about the sound. I walk and I talk, looking to some like I am talking into thin air. I’ve noticed a few curious stares from people who think I am talking to them, but I notice so many other people doing this with their Bluetooth headsets that it seems like a reasonably normal behavior in this year 2017. I used to get nervous seeing and hearing people do that. Now I am just used to it, I guess, but I try to avoid making myself conspicuous.

One time, on 57th Street, I saw a quarter on the ground. I knelt down and picked it up. As I returned to standing upright a woman’s face came right at mine. In a full voice and with a huge smile she said something like “That’s excellent! You must be really excited!” I thought she was saying I should be excited for having just found a quarter on the ground. She was, in fact, talking to someone far away through a Bluetooth headset, probably unaware in her remove that my face was but 4 or 5 inches from hers.

That is the sort of encounter I make reasonable effort to avoid. I walk and talk but I don’t talk much when others are nearby. It seems rude.

Well OK, then, time to think of something else to write about.