Glacial Errata, No. 23

One

One of my all-time favorite websites has been for the longest time You Are Listening to Los Angeles. The concept is simple but brilliant: the site randomly plays ambient instrumentals off of Soundcloud, while also broadcasting a live feed of the LAPD scanner. The result is amazingly subtle and beautifully moody, a perfect soundtrack to a quiet evening reading, or simply being alone with your thoughts.

Because the ambient tracks are called up randomly, and the police chatter is never the same, it’s always a fundamentally unique experience, and yet always deeply soothing.

Two

The site’s creator, Eric Eberhardt, has credited as inspiration a random night when he was listening to the SF police scanner while also playing some music in the background, but I always think of an earlier antecedent: Blade Runner. The Vangelis score is legendary, sure, but it’s those moments in Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard is in the police spinner, the air traffic control instructions coming over Gaff’s radio, that the music comes truly alive for me.

Three

There’s something about the compressed, clipped voices over the scanner that add an unworldly element to the music. In Blade Runner, set in the futuristic world of Los Angeles in 2019, it’s a haunting reminder of the sense that’s omnipresent in the film: that figures unknown are always watching Deckard. Not just watching him—but also, in a strange way, watching over him.

Four

Over time, as the site grew in popularity, Eberhardt has added different feeds: other city’s police scanners, as well as airport tower traffic control. Ultimately, though, I’m not sure what the point of the variety is; the original concept worked extremely well and it’s truly all you need.

I used to listen to YALTLA for years, but over time the API degraded; it became harder and harder to get the volume levels for the two sources right, and it lost a little bit of its magic. Additionally, some cities, like New York, are attempting to keep the public from being able to listen in to their scanners. It’s one of those sites that feels trapped to me in an earlier era, when there was more magic to be found on the Internet and less of the current grind of algorithms and lies. A time when one, perhaps, could be a little more optimistic about the future.

Five

As much as I want this newsletter to be something of an escape from the daily dirge of terrible events, it’s been hard to watch Los Angeles—a place I lived in for 12 years and still love dearly—come under assault over the past few weeks. Despite its reputation as a vapid, superficial place where people isolate themselves in their cars and care only about money and fame, LA is a city of families, of small communities, of lovers and of friends who care deeply for each other. What we’ve seen in the past few weeks is how such a place shows what really matters to it—how Angelenos of all stripes and colors came out to stand up for their neighbors and to protest their brutal removal by masked thugs.

What we’ve seen is how an almost entirely peaceful show of love and care was met by violent suppression and a military occupation. And yet the amazing people of Los Angeles show no sign of backing down, and show no interest in abandoning the most vulnerable around them to these thugs. What we’ve seen is how a place like Los Angeles—despite its faults—can be a truly great city, a beacon of goodness in dark times. And how its people might instill in you a little bit of optimism in the future once more.

Keep on listening to Los Angeles.

(Glacial Errata is always free, but if you are able to, perhaps consider a donation to the Los Angeles Community Action Network.)