There’s a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times — well, quite a few actually — but in this one in particular, our hero picks up a flag that’s fallen off the back of a truck onto the street. As he hurries after the truck, waving the flag to get the driver’s attention, a parade of sign-carrying workers (remember, it’s the 1930s) rounds the corner behind him. Thinking the little guy is there to lead them, they hustle up to follow. It takes our hero a comically long time to notice he’s become the head of a fairly large protest.
Recently, I had something like the same experience of inadvertent leadership.
This was at the Museum of the City of New York, in an interactive installation called “Songs of New York.” You walk into a dark room to see a stylized map of the city on one wall, with a video panel next to it. The other walls have photos of iconic musicians associated with the city (Velvet Underground, Ella Fitzgerald, Ramones, Run DMC, like that.) On the floor is a deconstructed version of the map — separated spotlit images of each of the five boroughs. When you step on a borough interrupting the spotlight, the corresponding area on the wall map lights up and song samples from artists from that borough play on the video panel, along with close-captioned lyrics.
In the time I was there, I think I saw every possible approach to engaging with the installation. Some visitors stepped tentatively on one or two boroughs and dropped back. Others went methodically though all five. Some blundered across the floor without picking up on how things worked, replacing songs others had played with inadvertent selections of their own. Some willfully stepped on a borough before someone else’s song was finished. Then there were those who kept their distance, content to stay to the side and leave the song playing to others.
When I entered the room, Carole King was singing “You’ve Got a Friend” in a clip from a concert in Central Park in the 70s. Someone must have stepped on Brooklyn. In the time I was there, I heard (among others) Ella, Lou Reed, Bobby Womack, KRS-One, and Wu-Tang Clan (even I knew that they’d pop up if someone stepped on Staten Island).
I later learned that the entire five-borough playlist has 227 songs by over 100 artists. But at the time, I assumed that with one toe tap I could get Carole King back. I made several feints to toward the spotlit Brooklyn on the floor, only to defer when anyone else was ready to play something.
But then came a moment when everyone seemed to step back and defer to me.
I made my move.
I didn’t get Carole King.
The song that came up was “My Metrocard” by Le Tigre. If it hadn’t said so on the video panel, I wouldn’t have known. Later, with a little research, I learned more about the song and the band, fronted by punk legend Kathleen Hanna. I also came to understand that whoever programmed the precise segment that came up was something of a prankster. Because, instead of starting at the beginning, it comes in at the second verse with these close-captioned lyrics (their asterisks, not mine):
“Oh f*ck Guiliani,
He’s such a f*cking jerk!”
The room erupted with cheers and laughter. There’s no other way to describe it. Not giggles, not tittering. Not gasps of offendedness or anyone stomping off. Bust-out shake-the-walls cheers and laughter. From every person in there, man, woman, child. Everyone.
In response, I turned to the larger of the loose clusters of people to my right and behind, bowed, and said, “You’re welcome!”