I Like Every Kind Of Fair, In The Crowd, You Bet I'll Be There

I live near a downtown park, and during the summer it is host to a number of weekend festivals.  The focus of the festivals change - just off the top of my head I can think of annual celebrations of books, ribs, multiculturalism, children, non-violence, and gay pride.  I don't really put much of an effort into knowing when these events are coming up.  Just sometimes I go outside to find the park packed with people.

Today when I stepped out of my building, I heard the familiar sound of one of these festivals.  I hadn't thought about it until that moment, but they all seem to have the same sound.  That sound is made up of:

• The discordant sound of several songs of various different songs being played through bad speakers with the bass turned up
• The hum of many generators and compressors
• Young children screaming, between them expressing the entire range of human emotions
• A dozen cars idling while waiting for parking spots
• Somewhere in there, countless conversations in a variety of languages and accents.

But today the weirdest thing happened.  I heard the sound as soon as I left my building, but when I arrived at the park, it was empty.  I could still hear the music and everything as I strolled across the open grass, but the only people there were a largish family barbecue.  Clearly the sound was coming from another part of downtown, but with sound reverberating off of buildings, you couldn't decipher what direction it was coming from. 

So I had the lonely experience of wandering around largely empty streets, hearing a party going on all around me that I somehow couldn't see.  Eventually I found the source: the main street closed-off for a motorcycle show.  Despite stereotypes, it seemed like a really happy, cordial get-together.  I even saw a couple of places where Harleys were parked next to Japanese bikes.

Eventually I got to the cafe I had been headed for, and when I walked in, it was completely empty of all people and furniture.  Had I not already known they were going to move next-door at some point this summer, I probably would have lost my remaining sanity right there.