Moments like this are so rare for me that they really stand out. (And of course they beg for explanation.) I was outside a coffee shop in Gunnison CO, and was enjoying being around the human race, and being in a city. It was amusing to watch full-sized, four wheel drive pickups try to parallel park in front of the restaurants.
A few college kids are back in town early, for the fall session. Every few minutes a pair of remarkably trim and tanned Colorado girl legs would prance by; it made me glad for sunglasses.
The bicycle culture is in full blossom in Gunnison. What magic the right bicycle can perform on an overburdened matron: she sloughs off 20 years as she jumps on her townie-cruiser, in her dress, and pedals away with a few items from the store in the bike's wicker basket.
Of course Coffee Girl is enjoying the parade as much as I am. The best results are obtained when I am inside the cafe, since that allows passersby to approach her without inhibition. I look out the window and see her knocking off one customer after another. Sometimes she gets the same people coming and going. The most vulnerable of all the saps are those that had to leave their dog home for their Colorado vacation.
It seems so carefree and so entertaining to be around people -- at the right time. First you must get them out of their motor vehicles. They must actually walk down the sidewalk, and the city must actually have sidewalks. Festivals bring out the best in people, but this morning wasn't a festival.
But it seemed like a festival to me. I was in a mood that was reminiscent of the opening paragraph of "Rameau's Nephew", by Denis Diderot. He was one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment in France in the mid-1700s. It's one of the writings that he is best known for today. I don't care for it, actually, except the opening paragraph:
There was a wonderful scene in "SeaBiscuit" about a messed-up horse, which pertains just as well to dysfunctional human societies.
Then SeaBiscuit was taken out to the country and allowed to run for all his might across beautiful country.
This is pretty much my lifestyle out on public lands, away from the filthy noise and traffic of the city. But today I'm thinking about how we can learn what it's like to be a human again -- and stay in the city.
A few college kids are back in town early, for the fall session. Every few minutes a pair of remarkably trim and tanned Colorado girl legs would prance by; it made me glad for sunglasses.
The bicycle culture is in full blossom in Gunnison. What magic the right bicycle can perform on an overburdened matron: she sloughs off 20 years as she jumps on her townie-cruiser, in her dress, and pedals away with a few items from the store in the bike's wicker basket.
Of course Coffee Girl is enjoying the parade as much as I am. The best results are obtained when I am inside the cafe, since that allows passersby to approach her without inhibition. I look out the window and see her knocking off one customer after another. Sometimes she gets the same people coming and going. The most vulnerable of all the saps are those that had to leave their dog home for their Colorado vacation.
It seems so carefree and so entertaining to be around people -- at the right time. First you must get them out of their motor vehicles. They must actually walk down the sidewalk, and the city must actually have sidewalks. Festivals bring out the best in people, but this morning wasn't a festival.
But it seemed like a festival to me. I was in a mood that was reminiscent of the opening paragraph of "Rameau's Nephew", by Denis Diderot. He was one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment in France in the mid-1700s. It's one of the writings that he is best known for today. I don't care for it, actually, except the opening paragraph:
No matter what the weather, rain or shine, it's my habit every evening at about five o'clock to take a walk around the Palais Royal. I'm the one you see dreaming on the bench in Argenson's Alley, always alone. I talk to myself about politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my spirit roam at will, allowing it to follow the first idea, wise or foolish, which presents itself, just as we see our dissolute young men on Foy's Walk following in the footsteps of a trollop with a smiling face, an inviting air, and a turned-up nose, then leaving her for another, going after all of them and sticking to none. For me, my thoughts are my trollops. [Gutenberg Australia.]People can be charming creatures under the right conditions: out of the damned car, out of the drive-through at Starbucks, away from their boob toobs and smartphones, and off of their riding lawnmower. I just wish that I could find more such opportunities.
There was a wonderful scene in "SeaBiscuit" about a messed-up horse, which pertains just as well to dysfunctional human societies.
The trainer, assessing SeaBiscuit's potential: Hell, he's so beat up, it's hard to tell what he's like. I can't help feeling they've got him so screwed up running in a circle that he's forgot what he was born to do. He just needs to learn how to be a horse again.
The owner: Well, how do you do that?
Then SeaBiscuit was taken out to the country and allowed to run for all his might across beautiful country.
This is pretty much my lifestyle out on public lands, away from the filthy noise and traffic of the city. But today I'm thinking about how we can learn what it's like to be a human again -- and stay in the city.
Comments
With a woman in full on mid 19th century hoops and parasol, it wasn't a festival?
No bitching, just an immersion in wonderment. My favorite place as well.
You ask for an explanation.
Perhaps it was the two references to a sense of the feminine that tripped it. Lovely tanned, toned legs and that previously-mentioned image of an older woman, always in a dress, on her bicycle, taking twenty years off, revealing to you the young woman who still resides within.
You have in the past occasionally referenced the gods. And it would be Hermes who has worked his magic on you. This consciousness is fluid and uses images and symbols to describe unexplainable truths, exposing hidden meanings and underlying realities that have no rational basis at all, something far beyond the reach of Apollo, who symbolizes detached, masculine consciousness with its scientific bias to prove things.
The early Greeks knew this inner place as well and invented the god Hermes to give it its proper place among the gods. And among humankind, in order to help us understand this wonderful place.
Jumping ahead.....you ask if it is possible to be human again yet live in the city. The quote from Diderot hits the nail on the head. To be "in" but not "of". Detached, observant, allowing the flow within us, the thoughts and feelings, to be, to become aware of them, to let them flow out just as easily. (Hermes)
I would bet that you didn't analyze your last two picture choices but they both contain children. Innocent, spontaneous, naturally joyous.....until the crap starts flowing but that's not till later. AND, so nicely done again, the love between mother and child that equals no other.
I don't know whether it's possible for humans, at their best (what you are describing) to live in cities and maintain this potential. I don't think it's ever their first choice. It only becomes their first choice when they've already sold out.
By the way, I don't like places that have sidewalks. Sidewalks are built only when the traffic is too heavy for pedestrians to walk on the road.
Out of curiosity, you don't mention speaking to anyone. Did you....or would that have broken the spell?
In Vienna it wasn't quite so organised. Their infrastructure is still somewhat geared towards the car, but at least there are a host of alternatives for getting around.
OK Jerry, I'm glad the post amused you. We don't link to products on this blog, though. Anyway, thanks for the comment.
"A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein ©1977
"A Pattern Language" is thick book, but each pattern or chapter is brief and can be read in a few minutes. So it's easy to steadily work through. The book is divided into three sections, Towns, Buildings and Construction, the first section is probably the only part necessary to fully understand the patterns as they apply to broad social issues.
This book is a standard on most architects and city planners shelves but often gathers dust because of corruption and addictions to materialism.
The whole book is online except in a slightly different format. Also it's difficult to cut and paste the text from this site:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40651518/Christopher-Alexander-A-Pattern-Language-Book
Here's a site presenting just the problem and solution paragraphs:
http://www.jacana.plus.com/pattern/P0.htm
The book is a favorite of mine because what underlies every concept is a geometrical pattern that many would say is a fundamental aspect of beauty and morality. The geometrical pattern is the semi-lattice. A semi-lattice is formed when hierarchies overlap. Christopher Alexander explains this pattern thoroughly in his short essay A City is not a Tree".
"A City is not a Tree" is a short essay online:
http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm
Here's a commentary regarding "City Is Not A Tree' essay:
http://www.rudi.net/node/20538
Here's one of the related patterns:
8. MOSAIC OF SUBCULTURES
Faced with an unpredictable changing social world, people no longer generate the strength to draw on themselves; they draw more and more on the approval of others; they look to see whether people are smiling when they say something, and if they are, they go on saying it, and if not, they shut up. In a world like that, it is very hard for anyone to establish any sort of inner strength.
p48
The solution is this. The metropolis must contain a large number of different subcultures, each one strongly articulated, with its own values sharply delineated, and sharply distinguished from the others. But though these subcultures must be sharp and distinct and separate,, they must not be closed; they must be readily accessible to one another, so that person can move easily from one to another, and can settle in the one which suits him best.
The solution is based on two assumptions:
1. A person will only be able to find his own self, and therefore to develop a strong character, if he is in a situation where he receives support for his idiosyncrasies from the people and values which surround him.
2. In order to find his own self, he also needs to live in a milieu where the possibility of many different value systems is explicitly recognized and honored. More specifically, he needs a great variety of choices, so that he is not misled about the nature of his own person, can see that there are many kinds of people, and can find those whose values and beliefs correspond most closely to his own.
About the photos, remember that this blog is time-agnostic.
I don't initiate conversation with people in moods like this. It is more enjoyable to just "behold" it all. I will respond with friendly chit-chat when they fawn over my dog.
Reading a cycle touring blog by a guy going through Eastern and Central Europe might have been what precipitated this post.
Here's a question: Contrast for me the pros and cons of living in a city and being exposed to many different lifestyles vs. living away from it all, living closer to the trees and other animals, and filling your days with looking at the natural order of things and reaching within oneself to find what is there, totally free of competing themes which would fill the air, but instead to just be whatever one is.......
and the word "idiosyncrasies" would never even arise.
I don't see a magic rainbow of personalities and lifestyles in the metropolis.
"filling your days with looking at the natural order..." You have me confused with some "granola", circa 1971. Nor am I deliberately introspective.
When I'm not out mountain biking with my dog, I am indoors reading classic books or (shamefacedly) wasting time on the internet.
"Many different lifestyles"......I was referring to the multitude of beliefs that are present in a small space full of many people and contrasting that with a big space with only a few people, or, better yet, one.
The example that pops into my head is religion. In a big city, my tendency is to think that folks searching for spiritual answers will tend to go from church to temple to synagogue to whatever looking at established beliefs and then tend to pick the one they most resonate with, join, etc.
If a person isn't exposed to any of these established beliefs, the frame of reference tends to be the world around them (yes, the "natural order of things" refers to what the world is before humans f*** with everything) and their own inner intuitions which, I would think, would result in a belief system much more in accordance with the uniqueness of that one person.
I wasn't actually speaking to you in my response but I see I failed to make that clear. It was written in response to Michael's post.
I don't have you confused with granola, circa 1971.
BTW, anyone who spends as much time reading the classics as you do and regrets online time as somehow ....hmmm....what's the word? (Gosh, I fear taking a chance on my best shot of a word for fear that the word will stand out for you rather than my overall meaning)....can hardly get away with denying a certain introspective tendency.
p114
21 FOUR-STORY LIMIT **
Problem
There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy.
High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape, they destroy social life, they promote crime, they make life difficult for children, they are expensive to maintain, they wreck the open spaces near them, and they damage light and air and view. But quite apart from all of this, which shows that they aren’t very sensible, empirical evidence shows that they can actually damage people’s minds and feelings.