September 23, Spassland Park Pavilion, An Experience I've had along the way.

My recalled place

The place where I recorded sound today was underneath the Spassland Park Pavilion. Spassland Park is located in Germantown, Wisconsin. The specific place that I want to talk about is in the middle section of the pavilion, north side of it facing out. It was drizzling just outside the boundary of the pavilion, and there was a cold breeze blowing that was wet with moisture from the air. Although there were no raindrops hitting my face the wind brought enough of this moisture to me that it started to collect on my glasses. I was standing, hunched, over a garbage can that was hanging slightly outside of the cover of the pavilion. There was some garbage in the can, not even half full, but there was enough garbage in the can to create interesting sounds. The garbage ranged from soda bottles from the soda machine at the other side of the pavilion, to Macdonald’s bags. There was also some bags from my place of employment; Cousins Subs. It was strange to see this item in a garbage can since I usually see it in the hands of the customers I help. The rain left soft impressions in the garbage and the sound had a unique resonating chamber in the structure of the garbage can. The can was old and rusted and had a hole on the one side, which I believe added even more resonance to the sound. As I listened to the pitter-patter of the rain on this garbage, I became aware of a person walking in from the west side of the park. He was heading toward the parking lot and his car. He noticed me and just continued on his way, getting into his car and leaving. It struck me that he had no idea what I was doing. He didn’t know if I drunk hanging over a garbage can loosing my dinner, or homeless looking for some soggy scraps of left-overs. I suddenly became aware of myself in the space when he entered my vision. Before I had been only aware of the sound I was hearing in my headphones. This man had taken me out of my concentration and distracted me from my work, leaving me with thoughts of insecurity about being hunched over a garbage can. I’m sure that he didn’t care why I was there; maybe he did and wanted to know if Germantown had a vagrant problem. I don’t know his thoughts, I only know mine. I wanted to have a sign up around me saying “Sound Recording In Progress” just so he wouldn’t think I was homeless. I have a very good image of myself and I do not want that tainted. This may sound pious and pretentious, but we all have our reservations about ourselves and if we can realize this than we can either fix it, or learn to judge accordingly. My greatest curiosity would have to be what that man was thinking as he was walking towards his car. Was he worried about being asked for money, was he thinking how his community should crack down on the homeless, just what was he thinking?