Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Painter on Blue Line


Painter on Blue Line
Originally uploaded by tigrejones.
he's protecting his paint box but in a friendly intertwined fingers way. with bianchi in the corner.

transit seat collage



Sunday, February 19, 2006

lady in red waits for red line


lady in red
Originally uploaded by tigrejones.
this fancy old lady is reason enough to love the subway, despite it's foolishness at times.

Friday, February 17, 2006

hannah arendt says "go outside!"

the writer and political theorist hannah arendt, who went out with philosopher heavy heidegger, fled germany in the 1930s (she was jewish), and hung out in paris with philosopher heavy walter benjamin. she was the first female full professor at princeton and wrote "the origins of totalitarianism", "on violence" and "on revolution". a smart cookie all around, so to speak.

but she also wrote about public space, and how to have freedom we must have action, and in order for actions to be meaningful, they must be in public so that there is a "context in which individuals can encounter one another as members of a community"*. she wrote that "we first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves". you won't know how to think about what you're doing and who you are if you do it alone, you must go out into public spaces and see how other people act to have a context. you might not realize you're crazy or that you're genius or totally normal and a-ok.

i like this idea and think it directly applies to taking public transport where you see a wide range of characters, from adorable kid-parent interactions to sitting next to people that smell because they don't have access to a shower to business men and gangsters and punks and fashion students etc. if i didn't take public transport, i would pretty much only see people that are like me, my six co-workers and five good friends and the people who work at whole foods and trader joes, and the bicycle gangers. i think it's healthy to be reminded of and interact with the rest of the world. so thanks, hannah arendt, for proverbially "keeping it real".

*Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy : http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/arendt.htm

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

inauguration

of a new blog to chronicle my (mis)adventures taking public transit and biking in a city where supposedly nobody walks, the city of angels. my companion, the bianchi lugosi, and i, alongside millions of other angelenos, take the sometimes laudable, sometimes evil, MTA to our daily destinations (or bike there). this blog is titled thusly as i am often the only gringa white girl on the bus route that takes me to work.


image: mi amiga celeste con mi on the blue line