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Funny Cry HappyPostcards: Consumer Electronics Show [sw05]

Postcards: Consumer Electronics Show is comprised of unaltered, binaural field recordings made at the 2006 edition of the country's largest trade show. Over 150,000 non-consumers -- vendors, buyers, celebrities, quasi-celebrities, execs -- filled 1.6 million miles of floor space of the Las Vegas Convention Center, hawking the latest and greatest in all things beepy.

1. Microcosmicomics
So large it required its own sub-map, but still only requiring three-and-a-half minutes to traverse, the Sony pavilion was a microcosm for all of CES. Ambient music blares from demonstration speakers, hawkers hawk absurdly overblown home entertainment systems and digital books, conventioneers schmooze, and Sony product provides a titillating soundtrack.

2. Authorized Mash-Up
The rear end of Sony's space was filled with a circular 150 (?)-person capacity movie theater, screening an eight-minute corporate mash-up hype film. Between hyperspeed CGI-enhanced edits, celebrities ho themselves for new gizmos, hot movies get previewed, and an authoritative Hollywood voice booms a World of Tomorrow fantasia narrative. No mention of Sony's innovative Digital Rights Management program, though.

3. The Full Tramp
The full tramp -- well over a mile -- from the two-level South Hall, across the massive Central Hall (where the Sony pavilion was), through the bass-booming North Hall (where bikinied booth babes demonstrated the hottest backseat subwoofers), into the Hilton next door (where modest stalls sported clever Asian miniaturizations), and through their casino (where Google's Larry Page was about to give a keynote address at the theater normally occupied by Barry Manilow). Hear attendees chatter in a variety of tongues, whizzing golf carts, and even Robin Williams, who walks by at the 17:41 mark (you can hear one of has handlers say "you are a quick study today" and Williams responding indistinctly) as he exits the Hilton just before his appearance at the Google keynote.

4. Flamingo Soundwalk
Later, back at the Flamingo, the elevator counts down and opens on the casino floor, where a lush world of bleeping slot machines (all tuned to the key of C), drunken bachelorettes, clinking poker chips, and distant pop songs fans open like a lotus flower. After a walk around the floor, we return to the elevator, an endless Borgesian hallway, and the hotel room. Another Friday night in Vegas, just after midnight, circa January 2006.


This audio is part of the collection: Stopwatch Recordings

Artist/Composer: Funny Cry Happy
Keywords: field recordings las vegas consumer electronics show

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Notes

Recordings made in Las Vegas, NV
6 and 7 January 2006

assembly by Jesse and Christopher Hill
KTN Studios, Brooklyn, NY
January - February 2006

Studio 77 loves YOU!

Stopwatch Recordings
jjarnow@well.com // http://www.wunderkammern27.com

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Reviewer: yotam der keine heilige - - August 8, 2008
Subject: an important and brilliant feild recording session
of the modern society unto itself as well as a tool for musique concrete. thank you.