Two Very Different Approaches to Saturday Night

Well, I stand corrected. I know that in my last post I promised an evening of magic and wonder tomorrow night, but when I went to check up on it I found they'd gone and switched the date on me! (Gigs -- go figure!) This doesn't leave you a lot of notice (those of you who haven't already made plans to attend the wild west saloon poker party at the White Belt House), but hey -- you know what to keep your eyes open for around this time next year!

-- I speak, of course, of Unsilent Night, our favourite annual seasonal tradition of contradiction wrapped around a chewy centre. It's a local -- or is it international? -- performance with no audience members; Christmas caroling without any words, singing, or even instruments!

I'll get less perplexing while you get your coat on, but I'll warn you -- breaking this gestalt down into its constituent components dismisses its magic until such a time as they are reassembled right in front of you.

Start with Phil Kline, a composer operating out of New York City. (No, he's not going to be here tonight.) He has composed this piece of music as one might arrange for an orchestra or big band, with different sections carrying the weight of different volumes, rhythms or melodies, passing the theme back and forth between each other. In a live performance this would ordinarily be directed by a conductor or bandleader, but tonight giving detailed instructions to musicians is unnecessary because there are none involved in the performance.

Are you sure you aren't going to want to wear a warmer hat than that? Each section has recorded their part -- what they play, when -- in such a way that when all the parts are played together, at the same time... you hear the complete work as it was intended to be heard. A studio engineer might refer to each part as a track or channel, but you don't have to worry about these details or the nomenclature. Multiple copies of each part have been copied to audiocassette tape in roughly equivalent proportions and dozens of people are preparing (even as we speak!) to descend upon the Alexandra Park bandstand (where Bidwell meets Beach) tonight at 7 pm with a battery-powered boom-box, ghetto blaster or otherwise portable audiocassette tape player, where they will be issued a copy of a channel of the work.

Gloves, maybe? If this were the Beatles, each tape might consist entirely of John, Paul, Ringo or George's contributions to their songs... but this is Unsilent Night. "Play" is pressed more-or-less simultaneously on all the sound machines, and the performance begins! The sound sources begin winding out of the gazebo and the music with them, filing through the streets, alleys and parquets of the West End. Residents come to their windows to see the band in the parade, but there is no band, except in the Robin Hood sense -- of merry men.

Do you remember where I put my scarf? We are not electrons in Bohr's atomic model, not following a set path but occupying possible indeterminate positions in a cloud; the parade proceeds but every individual's position in it shifts and changes, now speeding up, now slowing down, in order to influence the listener's experience and relationship to the different parts of the musical composition. Perhaps you're between two Georges and behind a Paul? What you hear is going to be very different from if you were strolling hand in hand with a John and a Ringo, and you get to man the mixing board just by turning your head or slowing your pace a bit until you're immersed in a different sonic wash.

Do these boots match my toque? Downtown is a splendid intertidal zone of architecture styles and construction materials, and you will discover that the sound bouncing back at you from certain streets will sound like it's coming at you from a warm vinyl turntable while others seem to reflect in-flight movie headphones. What you hear depends not only on where you are in the parade but where the parade is in the city.

It all wraps approximately an hour later, in the rarified acoustical space of Robson Square's former ice-skating rink. In the meantime, you've had a nice urban hike, gotten to participate in an annual sound art tradition, and perhaps best of all, received more than a handful of very confused looks from the various denizens of Robson Street. Now let's go and get some hot chocolate.

-- I've got ten words for you: Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Bubble Bobble, Galaga, Pitfall! If this was a game of Jeopardy!, the correct question would be: What do I have the chance to re-experience tonight from 8 pm on at Video In? (1965 Main Street, between 3rd and 4th) As a fundraiser for their facilities, so often playing host to activities flying under the radar of popular interest, they've busted the nostalgia vaults way open for an all-night video gaming spree on original period home console units, from an Atari 2600 to a Sega Master System, from the Mattel Intellivision to the PS2, from the Famicom to the Dreamcast... all this and more, hooked up to eight television sets and four big-screen projectors (for crowd-pleasing competitive play). In case the bleeps and bloops are a guaranteed one-way ticket to the nuthouse, DJs will also be on hand, presumably to spin some remixes and impose some sanity on the proceedings.

All this can be yours (plus a chance to dethrone that jerk AAA from the top of the high-score listing) for as little as $3. If you've got extra gear or games, you're encouraged to bring them along. The best part is: it starts as Unsilent Night wraps so you can catch both of them! See you out there!