Open Reel

“I had a friend once. He had an old open reel tape recorder. He'd often leave it running in the room, say during parties, just recording those conversations. All that party talk, hours of it, music playing in the background, doors opening and closing, glasses clinking, recorded. Perhaps someone would shout or sing, voices would be raised. Maybe some drunk person would stand too close to the mike, whispering or talking low, speaking out some dark secret or sharing an unpopular opinion. Then get a reply from another close by. Then there would be the loud joke where the whole place would stop and listen and then erupt no matter how rubbish the joke was. People would get off together sometimes, I suppose you'd hear all that. Occasionally somebody would see the mike, grab it and just jabber into it or do beat box stuff, lick it or put it in their mouth. People didn't get angry or upset about it, it was part of the fun and as the party progressed most everybody would just forget about it. That's what happens. But it kept on running. He had long slow tapes, big spools, I think so because I never did see them being changed. There were hours of recordings of everybody who ever came into the house but it was hard to tell the voices apart but I think he could. He said to me he had an ear and I guess I must have agreed. He did have an ear. He said that it was just like taking photographs. I'm still not sure what he got from holding all those parties, there were a lot of them most weekends and I'm still not sure what he did with all of those recordings. They must be there somewhere, in boxes, all those parties, recorded and in boxes. Funny. Sometimes people do things for no reason. Then again I was going to wash the car today but it rained so I stayed indoors, daydreamed and wasted time instead and eventually wrote this”.