18 sounds of Placard

[imomus]

(Photo: Jean Snow)

Yoyogi Park is cacophonous. Here's a list of some of the things that could be heard there while the Placard festival was happening this weekend:

Saturday
1. Rain. The Yoyogi Park part of the concert was cancelled and musicians were sent to a penthouse in Aoyama instead. We got there at 7pm hoping to hear Midori's set, but everybody was still setting up the gear. Later it turned out that Midori had been so tired by the time she'd walked from Yoyogi to Aoyama that she'd just gone home instead of playing. Luckily our trip wasn't wasted: next door was Comme Meets Colette, with an exhibition of the work of Genevieve Gauckler which matched Placard's playful spirit and its Paris connections.

Sunday
Sunday was sunny. The park was filled with the following sounds, in descending order of magnitude:
1. Pop basslines from an idol talent show in the nearby NHK Hall.
2. Semis whirring away as if their life depended on it.
3. A rock band in the Yoyogi bandstand.
4. The sound of the small Placard generator hidden behind the Placard tree, supplying electricity for computers and video monitors.
5. Crows cawing.
6. People practising musical instruments too loud to be played in their thin-walled apartments.
7. Some shockingly unambitious techno music which sounded like The Orb circa 1991.
8. Cheerful conversations in Japanese and English.
9. Not-so-distant fireworks.
10. The sound of Ludo and Valerie's baby Iannis (that's Iannis as in 'Iannis Xenakis') toddling and laughing.
11. Mosquitos flying towards human flesh.
12. Heaphone spill from Placard -- techno music which sounds like The Orb circa 1991. (Just kidding, guys!)
13. The high frequency cries of bats circling above the trees.
14. The sound of fire being juggled.
15. The sound of ants creeping through the grass and up my trouser leg.
16. The sound of my hard drive having trouble playing iTunes mp3s and Quicktime mp3s at the same time.

Oh, and mustn't forget:

17. The history-making sound of Jean Snow blogging. What does blogging sound like? Well, sort of ccccchhhhhrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyvvvvvvvvccccchhhhhhhkkkkk....