The Ferry Hour

The last ferry of the night carries people going home from work at hours nobody chooses. I rode it thirty-one times over eleven months with a recorder in my coat pocket and a proper microphone when anybody agreed to it, which was more often than I expected.

There are nine voices in the finished piece and about forty minutes of engine, water and the particular sound a steel door makes at that time of night. No narration. I tried narration twice and it made the whole thing smaller.

It is the longest single thing I have made and the one I would keep. It also went eight weeks over, which is why the planner on the homepage has it running into November.