Silent Disco: Dancing to a Whole New Beat

Party at the Zoo

Did you know there’s a bunch of new exotics at the London Zoo,  donning earphones, masks and makeup, and dancing around the walkways?  They wiggle to a beat only the wearer can hear.

What’s this?   A silent disco, and the craze is spreading.

It started at European music festivals after rock bands magnified the decibels a hundred fold.  The tunes became overpowering, deafening, mutating into nothing but unadulterated noise.

That’s when someone came up with a whole new idea.  

crowd at London Zoo

What if people rocked to the band’s music, or even their own choice of tunes that poured from individual earphones?  Outside there’d be no sounds at all.  

The idea swept the U.K.—and caught on at the London Zoo.  Desperate to fund raise without disturbing the animals, zoo officials decided to try it.   And the crowds swarmed in for more.          

During June and July this summer about 6,000 people visited each week.  Paying sixteen to forty bucks a ticket, the party goers jammed through the park, joining the best of both worlds.   And it was easy to do.

  Upon entering the caged areas, each participant was handed a set of earphones with a couple of choices—classic rock like Motown or one of the newer stuff.  After making their selection, they started to stroll, many role-playing the behavior of the animals themselves.   Of course the beasts were the biggest hit of all, i.e. before their 9:30 bedtime, while the zoo became flushed with funds for its conservation efforts.

What an idea, I thought.   Why not try it on other venues?   How about weddings where the message is always redundant?  Do you Roger Dumstead take Dena Donutmaker to be your lawfully wedded wife?  If you think she'll say no, listen on.  If not, get some other words of wisdom into your head or catch the top twenty tunes.   

 
  

Ever consider funerals?  Some are sad and the rest are phony.  I mean when did anyone ever tell the truth about crooks in their coffins or unloving mothers?  The eulogy might instruct us that arsonists are friendly and organize picnics, but we never hear the part about them setting fire to the trees.   And negligent mothers produce screwed up kids, who overdose while searching for a substitute.  Did anyone ever pronounce blame to the body of an uncaring bitch?

But today we got a solution, something to alleviate the boredom and cover the lies.   How about a little Rod Stewart, Carrie Underwood, or Plain White T’s?

And let the silence keep streaming.   If nothing else, more baby boomers will pass their hearing tests.