As I walked to move my truck this morning -- chula still asleep -- I was thinking of Metagrrl's description of her project to walk all the streets of San Francisco. She has a map pinned up and keeps track of where she's been. Immediately I began imagining what this would be like and how I would feel about it and what I'd do with it. (In between imagining combat skiing, and the figure-skating derby with chicks in spangled leotards toe-or heel-stabbing people in the chest kung-fu style with fierce grace... how did THAT get started? But wouldn't it make a great video game or assassination scene in a movie?) Um. Back to the idea of walking every street in a city. Best done with obsessive documentation on the spot? Or building a giant database of each street segment, with impressions and space for its inhabitants and habitual noticers to add information? Correlated with a map? This Grand Thing sprang into being in my imagination... A bit later we were walking outside to leave and I asked what she would document if she did, or what... something. And she said that the most interesting thing to write about was not the doing of it but the ways people reacted. I wasn't sure if she meant the people on the streets she walked or the people she told about the project. But then (being very self-centered) it occured to me that I had had a strong reaction to her mentioning the project. First, it made me instantly like her in a nerd-way, with nerd-respect. It was impressive. But why? And what does it mean? I wonder if everyone instantly recognizes the doing of this Thing to have value, and what is that value? Why is it so recognizable? Maybe it has to do with authenticity. It values a certain experential authenticity. The idea of thoroughness and accomplishment, the way it is a do-able task. That the city (big as it is) is knowable on some level by one person. We like knowing that it's possible. It makes the city seem human. (Do cities automatically not seem human? What am I saying?) Walking a street once you don't have the same depth of experience as a person who lives there or walks it every day for a year... but you end up knowing the city on some interesting level... Many times I've taken almost all the buses in a city on first moving there, since I move, I'm jobless, it's valuable to me to get to know the city, and without a car... Then I'd end up getting temp jobs and hey presto, my experential map was useful.
A moment of sad disconnect as MG got bitter about "the moms power-walking with those triangular strollers..." as if we shared automatic hostility. Well. It's not like I have a triangular stroller but if you go fast in the city, they are v. cool and don't jolt your kids and you can go up and down curbs with minimum hassle. Oh, the all too common mother-hating of the SF hipster, why, why, why? We're an easy target. What, we only respect single moms living in poverty? middle classitude makes one evil? What? It's not like I haven't made sarcastic remarks about yuppie moms coiffed and suited and annoying and suv-driving... but... I guess it always makes me feel like an imposter and a little defensive. And the desperation (when you ahve a tiny infant) to get OUT and do anything! But the limited array of things possible to do with the baby! The sick desperation for time to pass and the baby to be entertained or sleep at the same time... When I pass a mom with a jogging stroller we have a moment of eyes meeting in mutual recognition (if I have a kid with me) or one-way recognition and attempt to convey a certain... respect for their struggle?
But back to exploration. In Irv1ne and RWC there wasn't much public transport and I had my truck anyway. So I drove around quite randomly with the same project.
I wonder what other people's reactions are to the idea of being systematic about walking around a place?
Didn't we once talk about how I was waiting for pocket computers to include wireless/cell access and GPS so that you could annotate real space and share your annotations?
Posted by: J | April 29, 2005 at 10:47 AM
Me specifically? Or everyone? 8-P
The idea of annotating everything thrills me to the core. I! Will! Footnote! Everythingintheuniverse! Digression, I am your handmaiden!
Posted by: badgerbag | April 29, 2005 at 11:24 AM
I think that's just about the coolest thing ever. Dang.
Posted by: Jo | April 29, 2005 at 11:51 AM
one of my favorite recent reads is _Wanderlust: A History of Walking_ by Rebecca Solnit (who lives in SF and talks about walking there in the book). One fun feature is the running footer of quotes about walking.
Posted by: heather w | April 29, 2005 at 12:00 PM
is it a running footer! or a walking footer?! how could I pass up on that dumb joke opportunity?
Posted by: badgerbag | April 29, 2005 at 12:12 PM
as soon as i hit "post" I realized the opportunity missed... some of the quotes do run on and on...
Posted by: heather w | April 29, 2005 at 12:32 PM
You specifically, one of those days we were lazing around the pool...or at least I think I recall that...because you would think it was cool and not "Oh my god, what a nerd"
Posted by: J | April 29, 2005 at 01:47 PM
J, speaking of annotating real space, check out John Udell's walking tour of Keene, NH. It may seem a little prosaic but the punch line made my jaw drop. So if I use this in a paper, whom do I credit, Udell or you?
B, I'm surprised at MG's comment on running moms with triangular strollers, not only for the apparent sexism and anti-mom-ism of it but because they are a very useful technology.
I used a lot of different strollers when my girls were little and a hand-me-down jogging stroller was the only one which worked for me in ergonomic terms. Most strollers have handles that are too short for tall people (I'm no giant, just 5'11") and, what's worse, they force you to take short steps if you don't want to bump your feet on the rear axle and/or cargo basket.
If I ever have kids again (let us pray not, I have the optimal number now) there are a few things I won't skimp on: well-designed strollers and car seats, and a good pediatrician-grade in-the-ear thermometer.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | April 29, 2005 at 02:12 PM
Somehow when I'm hanging out in queerish, 20-40-somethingish SF every single time there is someone who makes a crack against moms. I can't help noticing. Even more fun than making fun of 'white trash'! Yuppie moms, the new Enemy. So bogus. I'm constantly going around quietly clearing my throat and saying that I have a kid... I kind of expect it from 18 year olds who think their own middle class parents suck, but not from my peers... it's not even about "breeders"... it's specifically about the annoyingness of the women. Like they are the ultimate sellouts. maybe they, um, we, are the ultimate sellouts. But it doesn't seem like something you can assume everyone wants to joke about... ya know, i'm also super moody and pms-y... feeling like a giant bitch... poss. taking it too seriously.
Posted by: badgerbag | April 29, 2005 at 02:31 PM
Maybe because they've taken such pains to appear NOT to be yuppie moms?
They fear death.
Posted by: Jo | April 29, 2005 at 03:42 PM
Or just simple sour grapes?
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | April 29, 2005 at 05:26 PM
no, it's not sour-grapes... the need to differentiate is there... I think the media picks its demons and makes them un-hip... and people just jump all over that. I make fun of burning man hippies and queer punks almost non-stop, so I guess it's only fair if they make fun of suburban moms! I've got a toe uncomfortably in many camps... if only my toes were stretchier. Still, it is one of the classic problems of feminism for the non-moms to diss the moms and vice versa. Shouldn't someone be pointing that out, gently...
p.s. Jo you are so fucking hilarious!
pps Jo you have to come to WWD in May because I'm reading. I don't care if it's past your bedtime. may 14th
Posted by: badgerbag | April 29, 2005 at 09:09 PM
They are unreflective Tools of the Patriarchy. (hah! tell them that next time & watch them blanch!) Specifically the patriarchy's hatred and fear of aging in women. Cause if you don't have kids, you can be Young and Cool forever, and mock everyone who isn't.
Not that everyone who doesn't have kids is doing that, not by a long shot. But those who mock, I say they're fair game for that kind of armchair analysis.
Posted by: elswhere | April 30, 2005 at 10:04 AM
I don't like the power walking moms with the three wheeled stroller because they don't like to share the sidewalk and act like *you're* supposed to get the hell out of the way. Joggers/runners are often the same way. Like, how come *I'm* always supposed to get out the way?
I'll play chicken with these people sometimes, especially if they're men, who always totally assume you'll just step aside for them. As if!
I mean, I walk quickly on the appropriate side of the sidewalk. If there's somebody in my path, I'll go around. Yeesh!
The problem is rampant. Like groups of three people who walk along their slow-assed way and leave no room for anyone else to pass them. So you have to walk in the street or on somebody's lawn to pass them. Oh! That makes me so mad!
I mean, people in urban areas be aware of themselves and the space they take up already!!! Do you really need to bring your massive umbrella to the financial district?!?!
Wow. I've got a lot of pent up rage about that...
Posted by: Ms. Jane | May 02, 2005 at 12:45 PM
Ha!!! I play chicken with men on the streeet too. It's amazing and scary how they just NEVER get out of the way.
Posted by: badgerbag | May 02, 2005 at 04:48 PM
Prentiss, I'm not at all sure whether I came up with the idea or ran across it or something similar somewhere and forgot. Udell has actually put some work into his thing, though it's sort of half of what I was contemplating in that the handheld seems just to be the input device for annotating the online map. I was picturing it that the handheld would do both: you could annotate with it, and you could use it to see if somebody had left any on any area near you: hmm, three on that statue over there, one on this neighborhood, and oh, look, seven on that used bookstore!
Posted by: J | May 03, 2005 at 07:03 AM
J, that's a bit like GeoURLs, the thing Joshua Schachter did before he did del.icio.us. Only GeoURLs didn't have pictures. I hear somebody took over geourls.org with Joshua's blessing and I don't know what it's mutated into; here is my take on the idea in its previous form.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | May 03, 2005 at 07:22 PM