City of Observers

From the upper level of the Whole Foods Market at 6^th and Lamar one can see a piece of a city of lights. One can see the surrounding businesses with all of their signs lit up, drawing in capitalistic profit, waiting for their purpose to be realized, watching the street below in contempt. Some of the signs try to be flashy, using shock value to entice. Others try to be simple, discrete, allowing their nature to be demure and patience to get them through the boredom. And yet still others are simply there, neither enticing nor calm, lacking any kind of attitude that might increase profits or bring notoriety to their store. These are the worst; these are the ones that allow the eye to pass over easily, only to be drawn back because no information was gained with the first glance. They are cruel and meaningless, a trick of the eye meant to distract from the daily circus. These lights are a city of observers and are thereby meant to be observed.

The interior city of lights is much brighter, much more consistent in its luminescence. From the upper level one can see all of the supporting threads that hold up this canopy of light over the market below. This intermediate region, between the ceiling and the roof, is a city in and of itself; a city behind a city, lighting it up and making it possible. But this city’s height makes it impossible to attain, to interact with. It, too, is a city of observers and is thereby meant to be observed, but never reached.

The city of car lights is one that is constantly moving. It wraps around buildings and people, avoiding them at all costs. These lights are dynamic, ever changing, ever important. Even their colors signify something. Even the shape of the lights signifies the style and cost of the attached vehicle. These lights tell the story of their body. They glow when moving, some glow brighter when stopping, some glow when moving backward, some flash when turning, and some flash when in trouble. By simply making note of these lights and their behavior over time, one can say with a degree of certainty where the body has been and by which routes it got there. It may even be said that these lights are more important than the body they are attached to, but never more important than the body they protect, the body all of these lights are meant to interact with, but never directly. The city of car lights is one meant to protect and warn. It is only to be observed and never reached.

Man is the reason these lights exist. These silent cities of light are all tools and observers to the city of man that happens around them. They entice man, they help man, and they protect man. They do not, however, interact directly with man. This is of the utmost importance, for if they were to do so they would lose their ephemeral quality, and ironically, in order to do so, they would have to lose their ephemeral quality. For that reason, they will always be a city of observers, meant to be observed, but never reached.

Ped Bridge

Helmet-clad and brandishing fleece mittens, a cyclist cuts through the frigid air with a smiling sanguine expression. Despite swerving to avoid a garbage-can feast and the constant tedium of work (the location to which he is currently commuting), he maintains an air of joy as he bypasses the congestion of the city. Innumerable convoys of traffic surge to his right on Lamar while a string of clacking graffiti billboards rumbles to his left. An isolation created by the pedestrian bridge spanning Town Lake near Lamar quells the vehicular chatter to a background noise. The space separating these circulatory paths allows for a removed presence despite overwhelming sensual bombardment. This separation space is enhanced by the great distance above the water and then up to the sky above. The wind rips and across the valley, whistling through the handrail, bench, and below the bridge registering the path’s height and removal to those perched in its grasp. The series of bridges spanning Town Lake when assessed from this standpoint are pinch-points for the inner-city traffic of Austin that become a source of repetitious beauty and a stimulus for societal interrogation. Cresting the pedestrian walkway, the individual elements become self-sufficient entities, sculpic objects isolated above the plane of the ever-undulating river.
This spatial relationship is noted and can be metered against the traffic on the water. Graceful rowboats and ducks are chess pieces below, traversing the slow water and pacing the eye as it explores what is both the intermediacy and heart of the city. After the overwhelming space and scale of the whole are accepted, appreciated and internalized, the immediacy of the pedestrian bridge itself and its presence on the larger identity of the waterway and city become apparent. A steady flow of bike and pedestrian traffic animates the bridge which vibrates publicly under each step, creating an environment that strives to engage people in the community of the place.

Grave.

It’s fucking cold and I hushed up for the proscribed silence. What am I supposed to feel? Even though I’m in a public space, I feel like I’m violating somebody’s privacy. Even though I am inside the walls, my detachment to those remembered here make me feel like an outsider. At how many points have I crossed these invisible lines of inside and outside and public and private?
I scrutinized the two main hills, the smaller one was punctured by gravestones while the other was not. Shit. Thousands of dead people—corpses—are in a grid under my feet. It’s a weird thing to think about, but not particularly sad. It’s difficult to feel moved by any individual life marked these gravestones. I tried. Only funny names (Pickle, Wayne Warren Wagonseller), job titles (soldier-lawyer-senator, cheerleader captain), obscure or trite phrases (“servant of god and man,” “joins the choir invisible”) and occasional simplistic pictures (pelican, scale) are etched into these unnatural rocks. But even so, I am painfully aware of my aloofness because there is an inescapable, oppressive intimacy here. Probably in every cemetery.
I don’t know someone buried in the ground. The person I loved who died was burned. And it’s strange to think that he could have had a small space in a place like this somewhere. A plot of land and box proportioned to his body.
I pictured the thousands of boxes buried a few feet under the grassy hill. I unpictured them and decided to climb to the top of the big, barren hill instead. It was even colder up there, and windier. The Texas flag flapped wildly. But it was perfect. The grass at the top of the hill stopped at a stone ring. This ring encircled a dirt ground with a small tree in the middle. It was finally a place that felt right—somewhere sacred in this cemetery where I would like to lie. So I did. Although I was in an outside, public space—at that moment—to me, I was inside and it was private. My fingers froze while I clasped the invisible city and absorbed fantastical fears. The moment was over; I stuffed the papers in my bag and ran down the hill. Gravity pulled.

A City of Observers

A City of Observers

From the upper level of the Whole Foods Market at 6^th and Lamar one can see a piece of a city of lights. One can see the surrounding businesses with all of their signs lit up, drawing in capitalistic profit, waiting for their purpose to be realized, watching the street below in contempt. Some of the signs try to be flashy, using shock value to entice. Others try to be simple, discrete, allowing their nature to be demure and patience to get them through the boredom. And yet still others are simply there, neither enticing nor calm, lacking any kind of attitude that might increase profits or bring notoriety to their store. These are the worst; these are the ones that allow the eye to pass over easily, only to be drawn back because no information was gained with the first glance. They are cruel and meaningless, a trick of the eye meant to distract from the daily circus. These lights are a city of observers and are thereby meant to be observed.

The interior city of lights is much brighter, much more consistent in its luminescence. From the upper level one can see all of the supporting threads that hold up this canopy of light over the market below. This intermediate region, between the ceiling and the roof, is a city in and of itself; a city behind a city, lighting it up and making it possible. But this city’s height makes it impossible to attain, to interact with. It, too, is a city of observers and is thereby meant to be observed, but never reached.

The city of car lights is one that is constantly moving. It wraps around buildings and people, avoiding them at all costs. These lights are dynamic, ever changing, ever important. Even their colors signify something. Even the shape of the lights signifies the style and cost of the attached vehicle. These lights tell the story of their body. They glow when moving, some glow brighter when stopping, some glow when moving backward, some flash when turning, and some flash when in trouble. By simply making note of these lights and their behavior over time, one can say with a degree of certainty where the body has been and by which routes it got there. It may even be said that these lights are more important than the body they are attached to, but never more important than the body they protect, the body all of these lights are meant to interact with, but never directly. The city of car lights is one meant to protect and warn. It is only to be observed and never reached.

Man is the reason these lights exist. These silent cities of light are all tools and observers to the city of man that happens around them. They entice man, they help man, and they protect man. They do not, however, interact directly with man. This is of the utmost importance, for if they were to do so they would lose their ephemeral quality, and ironically, in order to do so, they would have to lose their ephemeral quality. For that reason, they will always be a city of observers, meant to be observed, but never reached.