3 Days 3 Ways

The three modes of transportation that I selected for re-experiencing the route taken from MIAD to the Holton St. Viaduct were walking, driving, and riding a razor scooter.

The sections of Nato Thompson’s article that resonated most with my experiences were the places where Thompson quotes, “Marx’s Phrase ‘Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves.” –Guy Debord and also the areas in which Thompson states that the whole idea of being a pedestrian in an urban space is predetermined.

Relating specifically to my experiences, I felt that I had the most say in what I wanted to think about or observe while walking through the city. I noticed that while driving especially, I was obligated to primarily observe the streets and other cars sharing the streets. There was also less freedom in the variety of choices I could make because of size reasons and obviously driving laws that are in place to ensure safety and order. It was also less easy to stop in my tracks to document a thought or image while driving for similar reasons.

At this point I find myself interested in what Thompson also says about walking being a part of the language within urban landscape. This shows up in the passage talking about Michel de Certeau’s book The Practice of Everyday Life. Thompson quotes, “ The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to the statements uttered.” The reading continues to say “The city could be considered a language: a place where a short-cut across a yard or jay- walking were moments of personal flair.”

I feel that these quotes go well with my feeling of personality and freedom while walking through the city over the other modes. Not to say that I don’t think there is a language in driving through a city, I would like to say, though that I think the difference may be equivalent to hand-writing a letter versus typing a letter on the computer. Typing on the computer provides a more uniform structure where hand-writing on paper grants one the freedom of meandering to a destination while making it more personable.