Utne’s been consistently feeding my fascination with pedestrian loco-motion. Last month there was this article exploring the social meaning of walking and the state of pedestrianism in a car’s world. Then along came a great introduction to the arts of psychogeography in the current issue. I’m discovering that psychogeographical games are a potentially riveting way to connect my mental spaces with everyday places around me, to find new meaning and beauty there.
So, in the infectious spirit of playfulness and following through with good intentions, I turned my morning walk with Gordon into an experiment in "generative psychogeography" - I tried to find that twilight zone between goal-oriented and completely random travel by following this spontaneously-decided algorithm: take the second right, second left, first right, then repeat. I tried not to fuss too much over further elaborating the rules ("should I make my turn before or after crossing the intersection?") and to focus instead on the world around me. We cycled through the algorithm just over 3 times in the allotted 45 minutes (think long LA blocks and lots of pausing to sniff and pee on all sorts of upright objects). Here are some of my favorite moments:
For the first time I noticed a "Share the Road" sign struggling among the visual clutter of Sunset Boulevard. I guess I usually drive by too fast to take it in.
There are two hourglass Marilyn Monroe palm trees in a line of standard tall and ultra-thin Twiggy ones.
Gordon sniffed the whole length of the hedge lining the back of KCET studios while I admired the old brick building and peeked into the windows of the ground level offices.
A Little Rascals -esque dog draped his paws out of a second-story window and barked as we passed.
Gordon’s crooked little piggy tail wiggled as he touched noses with two new big dogs through their gates. Across the street a frumpy little Maltese yipped a greeting.
100 teenagers streamed between buildings on the Thomas Starr King Middle School campus. It was their second-to-last day of school. I heard some squeals along the lines of "ohmygod - that is such a cah-UTE dog!"
Two big men speaking Spanish prepared to pour cement in a neighbor’s driveway. Four big men were installing roofing tiles on a little house on Virgil. I thought of my mum working with Grandpa on his roof in Indianapolis.
I made eye contact and said "Good morning!" to three of the people I passed. Two of them responded in richly accented English, including the funny little man I sometimes see jogging baby steps around the neighborhood.
I can’t wait to try another algorithm soon, or the same algorithm starting from a different location! I’m also excited to have found a reference point for some of the street art I’ve occasionally seen around town.