On Foot: From PSU to Timberline: Rough draft commentary on readings -- NOT DONE

Some notes and thoughts from the readings… ROUGH. Out of town and distracted but hope to edit later.

One Step Beyond, Richard Long

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/art-richard-long

This guy got thrown out of school for doing too provocative of projects.

Quote: "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking," wrote Nietsche.

I like that his art wasn't necessarily recognized as such by others. He left it out in nature. People might observe a line or a circle made by rocks, and think any number of things about it. He speaks of this about his art being both visible and invisible, depending on who looks at it. His art is also about permanence and impermanence.

He also likes to work quickly. "If it takes longer than 30 minutes, there's something wrong with it." I agree and relate to this, which is why I have trouble with a lot of art forms. I like to work quickly. He also says he isn't interested in ephemeral art (art that quickly passes), even if making it nature means that it does disappear quickly, but rather that he is interested in art in the moment, the act, at that time and place.

I thought it was cool that his teacher, despite his criticism, didn't make Richard back down or change his plans to do art.

I also like how he used such random materials -- it reminds me of my own play in the world, which is often random.

I like the idea (or truth) of landscapes being charged with powerful ideas. This is certainly the case in many indigenous cultures.

He says that the unexpected can happen and that this almost always makes the work better. He says that he is an opportunist -- that he goes out into the world with an open mind, and relies on intuition and chance. "The idea of making art out of nothing, I've got a lot of time for that. Walking up and down a field, or carrying a stone in my pocket, it's almost nothing, isn't it?"

This makes me feel embarrassed for being "bored" on the hiking trip that we took.

The Crisis in American Walking: How We got off the pedestrian path

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/walking/2012/04/why_don_t_americans_walk_more_the_crisis_of_pedestrianism_.html

Interesting way of looking at the term, "pedestrian." If we saw a person on a forest path, we wouldn't look at them as a pedestrian. They would just be a person. "Pedestrian is a word born from opposition to other modes of travel."

This makes me think of BEING. Content of being (of living) has been reduced, to, for example, what we DO.

Why I might look down on pedestrians with some condescension (as article mentioned):

because they are not out doing and "achieving." This existence does not recognize or appreciate (in any global or larger way) people that are humble. Where do we see peace in our lives? All we see is the busy doing.

I definitely agree with this article that what it means to walk is probably different from how it was in the past. Today, it is an ordeal. It is notable. When my sister would walk places, I used to think she was trying to impress my parents by being so "independent."

I agree that America has forgotten how to walk. It is evident from the way we view those without cars. I feel like I need a car to keep up with everything, to keep up with the freedom that I might be missing.

Strikes me a lot with what came up on the trip: why did I find it so necessary to stay occupied, "getting things done"? I guess the worst thing about it was not having a good "purpose."

Another reason being a pedestrian is condescending: the way I scoff (and also feel bad) when I have to screetch to a stop to let a pedestrian cross the street at a crosswalk. It's kind of like seeing a homeless person: do I stop or not?

I agree that walking is so "normal" (even if it is not) that it needs to be "nurtured, protected, and encouraged."

Right, what is walking for? This is also the attitude that I take to it. That to walk, you need some kind of higher purpose.

494: Hit the Road. This American Life. audio program

The guy is walking across the country. He had no plan. He was going to ask their advice, what advice they would give their 23-year-old selves.

"Walking to Listen" -- he had this sign on his back… he brought a mandolin.

He doesn't know what he is doing.

He planned as little as possible. Brought a little bit of money, but people ended up feeding him.

Why? Answer: He wanted to listen. And people told him about their lives, what they had done, what they wished they had done, whatever he thought he needed to hear. "A guy told him, all you are doing is reading a book, just with your feet."

He says that walking feels a little empty, so doesn't want to just do that.

This makes me think a lot about what I want to do with my life.

I think that it was pretty cool the way that he listened to everyone. The thing is, it is always a downer -- waiting for it to happen. I think we have cooler ideas than how it actually ends up happening.

He talks about how hot it is and how he is "on the brink." He started walking in the evening and night -- dream walking, and fear walking. He got lost, and was afraid that he would die. But couldn't get out of his head the image of the trail.

In last two weeks of the walk, he really believed it, finally, about death. He walked each day in a weepy disbelief, thinking "this is it."

Street Haunting: A London Adventure

Quotes that struck me:::

QUOTE: But what could be more absurd? It is, in fact, on the stroke of six; it is a winter's evening; we are walking to the Strand to buy a pencil. How, then, are we also on a balcony, wearing pearls in June? What could be more absurd? Yet it is nature's folly, not ours. When she set about her chief masterpiece, the making of man, she should have thought of one thing only. Instead, turning her head, looking over her shoulder, into each one of us she let creep instincts and desires which are utterly at variance with his main being, so that we are streaked, variegated, all of a mixture; the colours have run. Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? Circumstances compel unity; for convenience sake a man must be a whole. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with scepticism and solitude. When he opens his door, he must run his fingers through his hair and put his umbrella in the stand like the rest."

But we are come to the Strand now, and as we hesitate on the curb, a little rod about the length of one's finger begins to lay its bar across the velocity and abundance of life. "Really I must--really I must"--that is it. Without investigating the demand, the mind cringes to the accustomed tyrant. One must, one always must, do something or other; it is not allowed one simply to enjoy oneself. Was it not for this reason that, some time ago, we fabricated the excuse, and invented the necessity of buying something? But what was it? Ah, we remember, it was a pencil. Let us go then and buy this pencil. But just as we are turning to obey the command, another self disputes the right of the tyrant to insist. The usual conflict comes about. Spread out behind the rod of duty we see the whole breadth of the river Thames--wide, mournful, peaceful. And we see it through the eyes of somebody who is leaning over the Embankment on a summer evening, without a care in the world. Let us put off buying the pencil; let us go in search of this person--and soon it becomes apparent that this person is ourselves. For if we could stand there where we stood six months ago, should we not be again as we were then--calm, aloof, content? Let us try then. But the river is rougher and greyer than we remembered. The tide is running out to sea. It brings down with it a tug and two barges, whose load of straw is tightly bound down beneath tarpaulin covers. There is, too, close by us, a couple leaning over the balustrade with the curious lack of self-consciousness lovers have, as if the importance of the affair they are engaged on claims without question the indulgence of the human race. The sights we see and the sounds we hear now have none of the quality of the past; nor have we any share in the serenity of the person who, six months ago, stood precisely were we stand now. His is the happiness of death; ours the insecurity of life. He has no future; the future is even now invading our peace. It is only when we look at the past and take from it the element of uncertainty that we can enjoy perfect peace. As it is, we must turn, we must cross the Strand again, we must find a shop where, even at this hour, they will be ready to sell us a pencil.

In these minutes in which a ghost has been sought for, a quarrel composed, and a pencil bought, the streets had become completely empty. Life had withdrawn to the top floor, and lamps were lit. The pavement was dry and hard; the road was of hammered silver. Walking home through the desolation one could tell oneself the story of the dwarf, of the blind men, of the party in the Mayfair mansion, of the quarrel in the stationer's shop. Into each of these lives one could penetrate a little way, far enough to give oneself the illusion that one is not tethered to a single mind, but can put on briefly for a few minutes the bodies and minds of others. One could become a washerwoman, a publican, a street singer. And what greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into those footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those wild beasts, our fellow men?

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Wanderlust

I super agree that the relationship between our body, world, and imagination is very different from how it was before. Basically, the fact that people don't walk anymore: it indicates that we relate differently to pleasures, free time, space, and unhindered bodies. /// Yes, it definitely shows what we do and do not have a preference for.
People watch so much TV. -- i did not grow up with a TV and I think this has had a beneficial impact. Instead, today I am tied to the internet. Basically, with how things are, now, it makes everyone fully content in themselves in that they don't have to go anywhere or do anything.
Walking can be a sign of low-status.
It used to be that people felt safe outside so walking meant a way to go out and mingle. But now we see the disappearance of the pedestrian space.
p. 257: essentially, speed and travel. puts people in 'spatial limbo.' People begin to complain of boredom. You move without effort in a car.

We now identify with the speed of the machine, and not the speed of the body. We feel we NEED machines to help speed us up.

Now we are even busier. Just because we travel faster, doesn't really help necessarily because we go to more locations. "Machines have sped up, and lives have to keep up with them."

The treadmill: gym replaces outdoors. everything is result-oriented.

The body is seen as something to be exercised, like a pet, not like a house, where you live in it.

bodily labor, real or stimulated -- should be dull and repetitive. ok, bodily labor is made this way (whether real or artificial); but now to do this even to space? Essentially, "space" has vanished. -- I think this is true.

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The Ash-Land

"The goal is the road, and the road is the goal." = Great, I like it. I guess for me I wonder where everything gets going. This is true whether we are walking or not. So, we can make everything this way.

I really like the story about everyone bumping in to each other. I think that this expresses notion of Mahayana sin.

"The people are clumsy because they are rigid, lacking the elasticity of adapting to new rhythms."

Nature as creative process. // inserting in more room to breathe.

Self-reliance was built up in exploratory free-environment, as opposed to…. increasing feelings of inadequacy and failure.

Individualized stress.

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Getting Lost and the Localized Mind

We are not indifferent to geography, places. Point was to try to "get lost." This is a kind of research. Developing a dialogue with places that tries to avoid bias.

Haha's methodology: "Pass from getting lost to grounding in a process of back and forth in which subjectivity and place merge. Places are not only spaces but people, and together they produce stories."

"Getting oriented, like getting lost, is a cultural experience." Building of network references, a lack thereof.

ME: Mahayana notion of sin. We carry ourselves with ourselves.

"What is far away can be right next to you." // Boundaries being indistinguishable. Our recognition of a place is related to what's around it. Seen in a new context, what we thought we knew, we do not.

Getting lost = "to be adrift"

"Orientation in terms of time, space, and status are the essentials of social existence."

"Andrea gets lost in the city and in himself, in his mistaking of dream for reality, but he learns to deal with the slippery, ungraspable density of reality and to give it some order without underestimating its complexity."

Getting lost --> it makes possible at all times a sense of "immanent danger." But simultaneously there is the sense of adventure, "the conquest of space." Getting lost makes way for a new beginning.

"This is related to our more modern day habits that tear up, assemble, transport, concentrate… move settlements of people… all based in "no-man's land." --> Cases of resettlement or relocation.

Today harder to get lost. Everything is built, so… the "ungraspable" is further away. In replacement, there are attractive vacations… foreign, etc.

"Getting lost has become impossible because we overwhelm the place where we stop or settle with our order; it is not the result of a long, prudent, sometimes cautious interaction"

external orientations. internal orientations >> started putting #s on houses

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Interview with Phil Bartlett

<<<This is exactly my approach to art!!!!!!!!!! Or, something I was trying to communicate in my walk commentary.

<< I feel this very much.

<<Similar to meditation, to any true intelligence: you are fusing all of what you know. Get into a "zone." Different aspects of yourself are not contradictory or hinder another aspect -- rather, they work together to enhance the functioning of all.