With fresh talk of the Apology Project in the air I just happened to stumble across a payphone photo that looks like it was ripped straight from a cover of Apology Magazine. On a wall at the Town Hall Pub in Chicago hangs a payphone. A sign above that phone reads “PAYPHONE TO GOD…? CONFESS YOUR SINS!” This is from vibsawm’s Instagram page.
I found no discussion online about what, if anything, happens when someone picks up this phone, and my inquiry to the Town Hall Pub’s contact email address so far received no reply. So I don’t know exactly what this is about, whether content of the calls is recorded and saved for eventual playback, or if it’s just a kind of wailing wall into a telephonic void.
If you are in Chicago and know this pub maybe leave an explanation about the “Payphone To God…?” in the comments below.
Futel.net
Apology was one of several inspirations behind Futel.net. The project’s owner (Karl Anderson) and I connected recently when he linked to my Apology Line Revisited essay. I’d known of Futel for a long time but thought it looked like something I should experience for real before offering any observation. Located in Portland, Oregon, and given my non-existent travel budget, I don’t think I’ll be experiencing Futel any time soon.
Futel exists to salvage abandoned payphone hardware and use the devices to offer multi-purpose “telephone-mediated services”, including free domestic phone calls, voicemail, and an array of prerecorded audio content. My Payphone Radio stream might be coming soon to Futel’s phones.
A better introduction than I can give to Futel is found in this video at the Phone Losers of America YouTube channel:
Mind-Dial.com
Another intriguing project, which echoes the spirit of Apology without actually citing it as inspiration, is a new call-in line named Mind-Dial.com. Anyone is welcome to call 888-337-4128 and leave any kind of recorded message, be it impromptu spoken word, pre-recorded audio, live music, etc.
At present you can call the number from any type of telephone in the United States and Canada, but from my correspondence with the creator of Mind Dial I learned that the goal is to make the toll-free number accessible only from payphones. In the meantime calls from payphones are encouraged but not required.
I have called Mind Dial a number of times to contribute spoken word content similar to what I program at PayphoneRadio.com. But don’t let me be the only one leaving messages at Mind Dial. Give a call to 888-337-4128, then check the project’s archive.org page to hear what messages others left.
Recalling 1993
Mind Dial, with its goal of only allowing calls from payphones, reminded me of Recalling 1993, a payphone-based project from 2013 in which prerecorded audio content could be heard only when you called a number from New York City payphones. Calls from cell phones or other landline phones would be rejected.
I just reread my review of Recalling 1993, after forgetting I ever wrote it, coming away somewhat surprised at myself on account of its thoroughness. Alas, I don’t think anyone involved with Recalling 1993 read my comments, nor did anyone in the art world. But it bears repeating that any project of that sort which depends on a flawlessly functioning public telephone network is imperiled from the get-go. So many parts of Recalling 1993 simply did not work, most notably the fact that many NYC payphones were never programmed to recognize the 855 area code as toll-free.
But you’d never know what a mess the project was from reading the uniformly positive reviews from the art world. Besides mine I don’t think I found a review of Recalling 1993 written by someone who actually experienced it.
But that’s OK. I recognize now better than 6 years ago, when I wrote that review, that we’re all in this together. I admired the concept of Recalling 1993 but its execution faced unavoidable hurdles.
Read my review of Recalling 1993.
The toll-free number used by Recalling 1993 now connects to a substance abuse hotline.