Thoughts from car park rooftops

Since the janitor deemed it necessary to cut the whole of 14 Whitaker Place of electricity on Sunday afternoon*, I decided to have a stroll around Auckland.

I had a mission, actually, and made my way to an alley at the far end of Queen Street in my quest for the CD of Avalanche City, because that’s where the internet said I had to go buy it. I buy hard copy CDs, I'm that kind of person. Avalanche City, whom I had by the way only first heard of yesterday but instantly fell in love with. I don’t often buy CDs based on half a minute of a single song, so this was a very big deal.

The shop owner asked me if I wanted the latest Avalanche City CD. I smiled and asked if there were others then, knowing there weren’t. I had done my research, and I had done it thoroughly. The feeling of satisfaction when I’m the one teaching music facts to music shop owners! Not that that's a recurring thing.

So my quest proved successful, that made me rather happy. It's good to know that sometimes love at first sight can be a two-way thing. My blue with little white clouds CD and I are happily together and cuddling up in the couch as we speak.

While I am listening to it for the first time** - that magical first listening, you know what I'm talking about - let me tell you about the other magical events that unraveled during my afternoon. I like High Street more than Queen Street, so that's where I was headed next. I sat down on Freyberg Place for a while, unaware of anything in particular, just enjoying the afternoon breeze and minding my own business when suddenly, a girl in a fluorescent jacket hands me a sheet of paper and asks me to read it. In a matter of seconds, I found myself in an everyone move from spot A to B to C to D and read the different texts, please type situation, using my hands to enlarge my ears to listen to the sound of a fountain, because that's what the instructions were and I'm a very obedient person on Sunday afternoons.

A group of thirtysomething people had gathered around the fountain, all of us concentrating on the sound of splashing water, being looked at rather weirdly by people walking by, who obviously had no clue what we were doing or why. I had this in common with them, because I didn't have a clue either. I just went with the flow, you know.

After half an eternity of fountain music, a young man beckoned us and everyone followed, just like that. As it happened, he took us on a car park tour around town. We sauntered from one car park to the next for a whole hour, and were quietly encouraged to focus on the different sounds we perceived. I found it really hard to concentrate at first, blocking out all of the thoughts in my head, but once I got the hang of it, I had to admit that every car park sounded different. In one of them, a broken lamp was ticking time away. The next car park hurt my ears, spitting out irritating and useless beeping noises out of unidentifiable sources. Another one was very quiet, the occasional screeching tires aside.

We took elevators and stairs up and down the different levels and were given some time to ourselves on the car park rooftops. No one said a word, we just enjoyed the view, it was wonderful.

A man dressed like a hairy tree kept following us everywhere we went. I don't have the slightest idea what the purpose of his presence was. All I know is he must have been very sweaty underneath his costume.

The man dressed like a tree

As unexpectedly as our walk had started, it came to an end outside of the Auckland Art Gallery. The members of our temporary group dissipated and went their own ways. Some of them had a chat with the artists, I decided to honour the silence and went for coffee.

I really enjoyed the experience, a group of people who have never seen each other before, sharing an unexpected hour and shy smiles of mutual confusion and understanding, going their separate ways after that. Sometimes words are obsolete, in this case they would probably even have ruined the momentum. On rooftops, one either screams at night while drinking cheap champagne, or one shuts up and gazes into the distance. There is simply no in between.

I was still reflecting on the passed event on my way back home. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place when I noticed a poster hanging loosely from a construction site. There is an art project going on in Auckland for the next couple of days. The 'tour guide' was apparently a sound artist who wants people to become more aware of noises they tend to forget about in the rush of their daily lives. He needed our minds to go at three miles an hour, just for once. Three miles an hour in the city, instead of the usual speed of light. See, this is why I love living here.

* For maintainance purposes. That does however not justify the fact that all my (and a lot of other people’s) freezer food has been defrosting. I guess the janitor does not really grasp the importance of electricity in the process of long term food preservation – the janitor is stupid.

** By the time I finished writing this, I've probably listened to it in loop for four of five times. It's very very. Very nice.