Sunday, October 4

#40 - disc jockey


You wake up in the center of a strange room. You lie near a rather spartan looking table and chair (a turntable and microphone on the table). You stand up to further orient yourself.

The venerable, worn furniture in the room stands in sharp contrast to the room itself. The floor, ceiling, and three of the walls are a spotless white. The fourth wall looks to be comprised of nothing but stacks of vinyl record album sleeves. You notice a note resting between the turntable and microphone that reads as follows:

You have been selected to participate in a most exciting project. You are to serve as a disc jockey! Though your participation is not voluntary, it should nonetheless prove to be an exciting opportunity. The only way for you to leave this room is to choose a record from the wall and play it on this turntable. The album will be broadcast in its entirety to the world's population. You may preface your selection with a short message (using the microphone), but this message may not exceed 30 seconds in length. Once the record has finished playing you will wake up in your personal place of residence. Your identity (beyond age and nationality) will not be revealed to those listening unless you wish to do so during your spoken introduction.

You walk over to the record wall and, after looking at some of the labels, name aloud one of your favorite albums. The entire wall seems to shift, as if it possesses dimensions far larger than what can be seen from the room. The motion accelerates, levels off, then finally slows in pace. When the records come to a stop, the album you named slips out a few inches from the rest of the sleeves in the wall, as if ready to be taken.

Your impression is that any musical album ever created is at your disposal. All you have to do is name an album, place it on the turntable, and possibly introduce your choice before playing it to almost 7 billion listeners. What do you select? Do you introduce your choice in any specific way?

2 comments:

Matt said...

I don't know if I have an answer, but I know I would spend a long time thinking about this.

I feel like there is nothing I could choose that I wouldn't regret later. I'd probably make a spur of the moment decision once I got too tired or hungry to keep deliberating.

Paul said...

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, by David Bowie.

It's rockin, it's expressive, it's epic, but it's trite.

ooooh yeah....