I encountered a strange noise burbling out of a midtown LinkNYC kiosk last week. It sounded like an LP record left spinning eternally on a turntable after the music ended. That cannot be what it was, I wouldn’t think. But the static, analog-seeming sound was enough to make me go hmmm. Could someone have found a way to connect the kiosks to a sound source, and left discrete sounds such as this running as part of a test? Is someone else planning to hijack the LinkNYC loudspeakers for a sequel to my Summer of Softee?

I don’t know, but hearing unexpected sounds emitting from one of these kiosks reminded me that I have some work to do. A filmmaker may have talked me into executing a brief reprise of the Softee shenanigan some time next month. I had no intention of doing that stuff ever again, but a documentary director prevailed, saying it could make for strong material. I don’t disagree. I remember thinking as I did all that stuff last year that some documentary filmmaker out there would love something so specific and strange as this.

But it seemed too isolated a thing, and the obvious filmmaker take on it would be to document the reactions of pedestrians as they encountered demented ice cream truck music, tornado sirens, or classical piano music blasting out of these devices. That seemed predictable to me, and this filmmaker seems to agree.

She’s putting together a full-length documentary about the most interesting person in the world: Me. (I say that with a self-effacing laugh.) While the subject of payphones and my culture jamming the so-called Smart City will inevitably arise the intent is to not dwell on those topics. I don’t know what will come of it but we’ve had some fun so far.

I change my mind minute-to-minute about the kiosk loudspeaker shenanigan. At once I think I hit a bullseye. Then I find it childish and puerile. But then I remember how beautiful it sounded, blasting through the streets the voices of Joe Frank and MLK, or from the old Apology Line I worked on forever ago. When I blasted across Times Square a recording of myself playing Valse Mirage (1977), a piano piece by my late friend Robert Helps, it genuinely brought tears to my eyes. If that sounds moonbeam or flaky I do not care.

“HOW THE F*** DID YOU DO IT?”

Someone called me a couple of months ago, asking how I did it. I didn’t know this person but I happened to be in a mood to talk. I think she was one of the anti-Link activists, who have been very nice to me (and I to them) but with whom I do not align.

I described, in strenuous detail, exactly how I did it. Going through the steps for the first time since last year I thought “Damn, this was a lot more laborious than I remembered.” I didn’t think of it that way last year because I was inspired, and didn’t think of it as work. Revisiting the whole sordid process now makes my head want to explode, and calls into question my desire and even ability to recreate this for a filmmaker.

The woman to whom I explained the process seemed impressed, and inspired, but I don’t know that she’s followed through with her version of it. I also don’t think I properly communicated exactly how I made the noise blast out so f*ing loud.

By the way, with regard to the kiosk in the video above, the tablet screen did not work, the phone was dead, and I think both the ad panels were dark. I checked, as I dutifully do, to see if the location of this non-working kiosk appeared in the dataset that claims to provide real-time updates on which LinkNYC tablets, phones, and WiFi are not working. This non-working kiosk did not appear in any of those reports, furthering my suspicion that the LinkNYC Kiosk Status dataset is an automated sham of no value.