On Listening in Public

There is a version of the city that only exists between a pair of headphones. The bus becomes a tracking shot; the crosswalk keeps time. Everyone has felt this and almost no one admits how much of their day is scored.

What interests me is not the soundtrack but the seal — the small, deliberate privacy of it. A century ago, listening was civic: bandstands, parlours, other people’s windows. Now it is worn. We carry our acoustics with us the way we carry keys.

And yet the seal leaks. A chorus escapes someone’s earbuds on the metro and for four seconds three strangers share a song none of them chose. That leak, I think, is the last truly public music we have.