Following my Ears

I went for a walk in the pre-10 pm time last Saturday while Corrie and Cass were back east in chilly Buffalo. Getting outside in our windy and balmy January night, I could hear a voice on a bullhorn off in the distance. It was a he, and he sounded like a carnival barker. Far enough away that I couldn't make out anything, but not so far that I couldn't tell it was a guy.

So I started walking towards the general direction of the sound. It turned out to be a block party of sorts, smaller than what we had in Bed-Stuy. It looked like it could have been a birthday party, or maybe a quinceanera, and after asking some people who would know, they told me it almost certainly was a quince. Half a block was blocked off with official looking wooden sawhorse barricades and a huge tent was set up for mingling or dancing. Chairs were set up next to it in rows in the street facing a house with its garage door open and inside lit with colorful party lights. Outside in the front yard were nearly a dozen kids cheering as one of their own attacked a large pinata.

The barker was an emcee singing a repetitive and melodic refrain, joined by many attendees. Matching music in the background not nearly as loud as the the man echoed off the street's sparse trees. Passersby joined in on the chorus.

I took this picture as I walked back to my own place, trying to be an inconspicuous gringo:

And then I sat down and did my best to Google-map it so people can get an idea about how far amplified voice can travel on a windy evening in a downtown area. It likely would have been drowned out south of our place, as it was pretty faint when I hit the sidewalk: