"Who wants to walk around downtown in the middle of winter?" asks a character in this futuristic, suburban, head-spinning, insightful documentary by Jonathan Mitchell. The answer, of course, is this: "Nobody." In City X, Mitchell masterfully layers interviews with average people, architects, bus drivers (who knows really, none of them are identified) into a mosaic of sound that gives us a clear understanding of why Americans love malls. Here are just a few comments, each delightfully enunciated in the documentary: "It was metropolitan ... When it came, we were hip and happening. We were a real town. We weren't just some little spot in the middle of the cornfield. We've made it!" There's also great stuff in here about mall culture: How the boys go there to scope out girls, how the girls go there to be scoped out by the boys, the mysteries of how to pronounce the "exotic" gyro and a debate about where to find the best parking spot. One person loves the lower level down by Sears. Another absolutely swears by the entrance that leads right into the middle of the Food Court. And to push the narrative forward, Mitchell uses Muzak, real Muzak, as his sole musical accompaniment.

Jonathan's work, tends to be considerably different then the average public radio fare, and in my opinion, therein lies the special magic of this piece.

For exactly 22 minutes and 32 seconds the listener experiences a wild ride of ambient sounds, music and voices from the mall. Some of the voices are commentary, others are expressions of glee or dismay...One wonders if Jonathan might actually be hiding behind a rack of gap jeans with a microphone.

Listening to this piece is almost like riding one of those educational roller-coasters at Epcot center. Through sound, the listerer is taken back in time to hear from the architect who designed the modern day Mall system. We also travel around the mall looking for parking, into the food court, into the perfume department, we even get our fortune read from a "Zoltar Machine". By the time it is all over I actually found myself feeling a little overwhelmed, which I think is part of the point.

Throuth a variety voices a narritive is created which tells a story of a town that has changed and continues to change based on the influence of their mall

I think this work deserves to be recognized as a highly creative approach to a a very important topic. In this work, Jonathan does not preach to the listener. His subjects speak volumes about what is good, bad, sad, and ridiculous about malls. In the end, we are left with our own thoughts and opinions. "City X" is a marvelous piece of documentary storytelling!