Juxtapositions: Field Notes

Just as Savage opens her podcast, I too began my walk on a sunny Sunday afternoon around 4:30 PM. Today, my walk begins upon my exit from the Lincon Park John T. Richardson library on the Kenmore Ave side. I had spent the day in the library hunched over my laptop doing work and was excited to have a reason to move around while still feeling productive. The sidewalks and campus, in general, were quiet compared to weekdays. Students lazily came and went from the library and dorm buildings, but the crowd was nothing equivalent to the rush of students bustling around on class days. As directed, I turn right onto Fullerton and then quickly left onto North Sheffield. It is a bit disorienting, listening to the podcast as well as the sounds around me. I noticed the juxtaposition of the loud shopping mall through which Savage walked through and the quiet neighborhood streets of Lincoln Park through which I walked. While she was approached by strangers, solicited to buy items off hustlers, and had to dodge passers, I did not see anyone spare locals and others who quietly walked by. On this walk, I particularly enjoyed the sun and the way it broke through the trees. I soaked in the sun knowing in the coming months when winter hits I will crave its affection. The townhomes on narrow streets populated with trees reminded me of Alexandria, Virginia where my grandmother lived for much of my childhood. I noticed how my footsteps unintentionally matched up with the echoes of Savages heard on the podcast. Although we ventured through completely different terrain, we walked in rhythm. The houses I passed were gorgeous and massive by any standards but especially by city standards. These homes stood intimidatingly in stone with intricate detail and distinct personalities. They did not give an impression of inanimate or “mass produced” or any other term you would use to describe many modern homes, they seemed alive and historical. These properties had legit yards and gardens and driveways, something rare in the city. These homes stood in stark contrast to what I have seen elsewhere in the city. I thought of how there are people who live on the streets and struggle to find meals while people not far away simultaneously live in homes that could be castles. In this neighborhood, there seemed to be two types of residents: young families and older couples. Old people sat on their steps or milled around the streets while the families were coming and going rapidly. I passed a pre-school, obviously a private and expensive one, and saw kids lounging on a play structure or using the swings. It seemed like a peaceful existence. I imagined the life of these toddlers; they attended a swanky school with a playground to be jealous of and lived in one of the castle-like homes nearby. They would be picked up by their parents and walk home to have a nice home-cooked meal. Something I have noticed about cities is they contain extremes. Where there is something far to one end of a spectrum, its opposite also exists on the other end of the same spectrum. While in Lincoln Park and other affluent areas, people live in mansions and toddlers go to institutions, down the street a family can barely get by and cannot even imagine sending their kids to a private school. These juxtapositions give a lot of perspectives to cities and our society.

Response to Question #1:

Solnit describes the “flaneur” in many ways but in short, a flaneur is a solitary man strolling around Paris at a slow pace observing his surroundings. He is usually aloof and hovers on the fringes of Parisian society. The flaneur is an ideal, or a character and not an individual person. While there has been debate over whether a woman can be a flaneur, scholars cite that there is no single individual who qualifies as a flaneur and, therefore who is to say who can and cannot be one? There is no one person who symbolizes the culture of the flaneur, but it is very much reflected in the popularity that walking has in Paris. Foreigners were surprised at how locals utilized walking as a recreational practice and a time to socialize. The flaneur is strongly associated with crowd watching and therefore often dwells in crowded areas that only exist within a city. Anyone can be a flaneur but simultaneously no one at all is a flaneur. (167)