here, people, underground, walking, seeing

so much is happening. so much learning is happening here.

i first must explain the people. there are soo many people in this city, all living and eating and working and sleeping and walking and shuffling and hurrying and breathing in the same exact spot. i don't understand it. i don't understand why people do this or how there is room for all these people in one place, but it's exciting. i can never get bored with the people passing by me, sitting across from me, sucked into their newspapers, plugged into their ipods, ipads, checking their blackberries, pushing their strollers, riding their cycles, hiding behind their sunglasses, sporting their suit jackets, ordering their lattes, smoking their cigarettes, waiting for their buses, checking their watches, counting their money, looking at no one, looking at everyone, everyone looking, everyone walking, nobody talking, walking to places with straight faces, following footsteps, averting gazes, listening to nothing, seeing only one thing, helpless and vulnerable, in transit, everyone, always.

as it is in any large city, though this is arguable the largest. i remember back a couple weeks ago to life in wales, life in pembrokeshire. a slowness, a content with reality, a patience. i remember the night of the ball when alex's sister came home from a week-long business trip and she and her husband were getting ready to dress up and go out. Alex muttered that they're "all running around like idiots." which i found funny and true at the time. after the shock of coming to the city the next day, i soon became accustomed to this idiotic running around, except it never stops. Nobody ever stops moving here, and because of that, the city is always moving, never still.

i find people here to be generally very kind, very forgiving and polite. British people are cute I would say, especially with their phrases and how proper they can be. Listening to them speak, I feel americans sound not only less educated, but vulgar even, though that is not usually true in the meaning of the language.

phrases i especially enjoy:

the pronunciation of pasta as "paa-sta" rather than "pah-sta"

use of words like "merry" to mean "drunk," "lovely" to mean "lovely," "jumper" to mean "sweater"

and the word "proper" to mean "very," as in "I'm proper tired, man." or "I'm proper hungry, let's get some food yeh."

They are very polite, which is sweet, and contradictory to their stern glares on the sidewalks and on the tube, and they keep quite to themselves (excessive hugging of friends and/or touching is not common) and they do not "grind" on the dance floor as kids do in america.

I'm learning to be a flaneur in my class, reading about Baudelaire and Poe's concepts of strolling and observing the city, noticing all its objects and people and the actions that take place and why. I've always done this act of strolling and seeing, but I've never found it so exciting or valued it as of such importance. Today, I went on an hour-long walk, guided by the voice of an artist, Janet Cardiff on a recording she made during the same walk in 1999. I wrote this in my class journal after the walk:

[[Janet Cardiff's 50-minute walk.
Whitechapel Art Gallery (formerly Library)
to Liverpool St. Station

Four hours after completing the walk, I am now remembering what it felt like. Cardiff's voice was very soft, whispery at times, but I heard it well and followed what she told me to do.

I was doubtful at first. How could it work that my walk would match up with the walk she took in 1999 just by me following her voice and the sound of her footsteps? I got confused and missed the first turn down an alley, but after that I caught up to her and it was incredible, seeing the things she saw and not seeing others. And it worked that she could direct me across the street and meet me on the other side. It was exciting to look up and see the lamppost she was referring to, and perhaps more exciting to see only one man sitting on the bench where she saw four men. I imagined the many groups of men that sat on that same bench from time to time each day.

The sounds on the audio. At times I got annoyed with them because they weren't the real sounds of the street today. They easily could have been, but they weren't, and I was missing out on the real sounds outside the headphones. I had false confusion or joy when I heard a siren or truck coming that wasn't there or the Indian live music that I wished was there.

How beautiful it was to get lost, to find a new passage to Brick Lane and see a part of the city I'd never discovered, in the trust of an audio guide.

I think Janet Cardiff has been the ultimate flaneur, (though I'm not sure I understand the meaning of the word completley yet), but I believe we are all flaneurs, we are required to be as inhabitants of the city. I can't speak for others, but I notice all of the same things that Cardiff pointed out on her walk. I make guesses as to who the man in the suit is and why he looks uncomfortable.

As a stroller of the city, one develops so many relationships with so many people in such a fleeting moment. Just on my walk to the art gallery to pick up the audio player, I found myself following an interesting-looking guy. I like the way he walked, very casually, and I began to follow him (not intentionally, but because I happened to go that way and we walked at a similar pace). Eventually I passed him, and he followed me for a bit. We never spoke or looked one another in the face, but we were both there together, walking the same path, listening to the same car horns and side conversations and babies crying, until we went our separate ways.

I participate in this strolling, observing daily in the city, but I never realized how crucial such flanerie is to developing an understanding of the world one lives in. Cardiff wanted us to explore a path of London through her eyes in order to teach us how to observe things for ourselves. Some people are better at it than others to begin with, and some need a bit of guidance on what to look for. But once the seed is planted, the seeing will not stop. Once someone told me to look at the sky, because their father always told them to look at the sky. And I have never ignored the sky since, because it is more beautiful than I ever thought it could be.]]


I fear my next posts may get even more rambly, thoughts are flowing, things are happening, I'm noticing, my sights are exploding before me. yey.

cheers,

xx
emily