UNSilent Night
Nowadays, the holiday season seems to get more and more stressful every year. Large crowds and long lines at the mall. People worrying about what presents to give and who to send them to and figuring out which relatives you'll go visit. Why not take a break from all that and take a stroll through the city

, I'm planning to participate in a really cool public performance art event in San Francisco called Unsilent Night. The event is organized by a musical composer, Phil Kline, who has made a bunch of tapes and CD's of his music which is intended to be played by a mass of pedestrians holding portable boom-boxes. The slight variances in everyones boomboxes and the delays between when they press "play" are all part of the ethereal sense of the music. Phil will be distributing 4 different tracks of his music, all meant to be played simultaneously. If you thought 5.1 surround sound was good, wait till you hear 500.1 surround!
I heard about this on public radio this morning, and the people who called in, couldn't stop raving about how great the experience was. This event has been so successful that it has spawned the same event in 16 cities around the world.

The San Francisco event will begin at 7pm, Dec. 23rd in Mission Dolores Park. His website is www.philkline.com and you can download the tracks of his music (for a short time) by going to "unsilent night"->"do it yourself". If you don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out his schedule to see if there is an event in your area.