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Hiya folks,
My Peoplewatch Blogject's been on hiatus recently, mainly cuz 1) I wanted to spend as much time as possible with this one cool girl I know, and 2) I was in Ames livin with her and her folks.
I'll resume the blogject tomorrow, perhaps with a few changes to the format as it evolves.
-Christian
Peoplewatch Blogject: Day 3, 6/15/09
The Rules:
No location tags more specific than city.
No listening in on conversations.
No specific identification details beyond the visually observable.
No posting about people I know.
No posting about the same person repeatedly.
Observation and posting happens for a solid hour at a time, every day.
The point isn't to invade anyone's privacy, and it's certainly not to produce good writing. It's just to practice watching, and to write every day (even if it's bad).
Her glasses look like they were designed once upon a time to be tea saucers, but she’s long-since harnessed them and affixed them to her face. Bored face droops over the form she fills out on the back of her book. Her chin’s receded into her head, and grown a second jowlier one beneath and behind. She’s got pristine white Velcro-on shoes, and brown mat hair that looks like it was poured on and then kiln-dried.
There’s a woman in a pink shirt-- the kind that’s housewife-stylish, buttons to just beneath her breasts, with a smattering of embroidered daisies across the front. Her face is granite-textured, not form a history of pimples or traumas, but from the natural creases and lumps of her flesh. She gives everything a sleepy, skeptical glare. The paper she reads, she doesn’t believe. Nor the TV she watches. Nor the man across the room, flicking through real-estate ads. She casts around at every new movement from under her mane of hair, and reaches inside her sleeve to scratch her elbow.
The first thing I notice about her is the redness under her eyes. She’s got this desperate, but not unhappy look, a contradiction in terms she balances by sheer uncertainty. Her foot’s propped up at the ankle like she’s self-conscious about returning it to the ground. Frumpy, loud flower print in teals and blacks and whites is stretched over her abdomen, cuts it into sections. When she stands, her greasy bob shifts under her headband almost as a single unit. The rolls of her midsection disappear as her blouse shifts, and she waddles away.
Tan, black, white stripes on his polo. He’s got a fanny pack loose round his waist, and the bulk of it’s resting between his legs. His head’s rolled to the side, against the wall. His mouth hangs open (a fact his wife ignores as she needlepoints). Red flesh and wisps of hair, and a gently moving chest. His watch is mostly silver except for a perfect gold ‘O’ round its face. He squints beneath his glasses.
The way her bleached hair is giving way to her brown at the roots looks almost natural. Ultra-tan, but she’s aging well; she carries herself like she’s mid-forties, though she looks younger. Her face is manish, broad-jawed, flat nose, eyes wide-set. She dresses that way too, plaid button-down and straight-legged jeans. She stands up to get a beeper, and takes wide strides out of the room.
The woman’s face puffs out like anaphylaxis. Her hair looks accidental; a series of blonde sideswept waves, that curls away from her ears, at the tips. She squints through glasses thicker than they are wide, already gloriously engrossed in her book, not twenty pages in. Her dress goes up around her throat, like its designer was attempting homicide via dress-strangulation.
No location tags more specific than city.
No listening in on conversations.
No specific identification details beyond the visually observable.
No posting about people I know.
No posting about the same person repeatedly.
Observation and posting happens for a solid hour at a time, every day.
The point isn't to invade anyone's privacy, and it's certainly not to produce good writing. It's just to practice watching, and to write every day (even if it's bad).
Her glasses look like they were designed once upon a time to be tea saucers, but she’s long-since harnessed them and affixed them to her face. Bored face droops over the form she fills out on the back of her book. Her chin’s receded into her head, and grown a second jowlier one beneath and behind. She’s got pristine white Velcro-on shoes, and brown mat hair that looks like it was poured on and then kiln-dried.
There’s a woman in a pink shirt-- the kind that’s housewife-stylish, buttons to just beneath her breasts, with a smattering of embroidered daisies across the front. Her face is granite-textured, not form a history of pimples or traumas, but from the natural creases and lumps of her flesh. She gives everything a sleepy, skeptical glare. The paper she reads, she doesn’t believe. Nor the TV she watches. Nor the man across the room, flicking through real-estate ads. She casts around at every new movement from under her mane of hair, and reaches inside her sleeve to scratch her elbow.
The first thing I notice about her is the redness under her eyes. She’s got this desperate, but not unhappy look, a contradiction in terms she balances by sheer uncertainty. Her foot’s propped up at the ankle like she’s self-conscious about returning it to the ground. Frumpy, loud flower print in teals and blacks and whites is stretched over her abdomen, cuts it into sections. When she stands, her greasy bob shifts under her headband almost as a single unit. The rolls of her midsection disappear as her blouse shifts, and she waddles away.
Tan, black, white stripes on his polo. He’s got a fanny pack loose round his waist, and the bulk of it’s resting between his legs. His head’s rolled to the side, against the wall. His mouth hangs open (a fact his wife ignores as she needlepoints). Red flesh and wisps of hair, and a gently moving chest. His watch is mostly silver except for a perfect gold ‘O’ round its face. He squints beneath his glasses.
The way her bleached hair is giving way to her brown at the roots looks almost natural. Ultra-tan, but she’s aging well; she carries herself like she’s mid-forties, though she looks younger. Her face is manish, broad-jawed, flat nose, eyes wide-set. She dresses that way too, plaid button-down and straight-legged jeans. She stands up to get a beeper, and takes wide strides out of the room.
The woman’s face puffs out like anaphylaxis. Her hair looks accidental; a series of blonde sideswept waves, that curls away from her ears, at the tips. She squints through glasses thicker than they are wide, already gloriously engrossed in her book, not twenty pages in. Her dress goes up around her throat, like its designer was attempting homicide via dress-strangulation.
Peoplewatch Blogject: Day 2, 06/14/09
The Rules:
No time-posting.
No location tags more specific than city.
No listening in on conversations.
No specific identification details beyond the visually observable.
No posting about people I know.
No posting about the same person repeatedly.
Observation and posting happens for a solid hour at a time, every day.
The point isn't to invade anyone's privacy, and it's certainly not to produce good writing. It's just to practice watching, and to write every day (even if it's bad).
When the two of them leave, they step around a table and converge together. The girl sips her milky brown whatever, and hitches her thumb up inside the strap of her bright orange shoulderpurse. The boy lopes forward and tips toward her at the shoulders. And when they converge, it's in a tilt like a first-date kiss.
Brown braids down her shoulderblades, till she puts her hood up. She's got glasses, thick plastic rims that, from the front, seem to spike at the joints. Her face has a fair, earnest complexion, like she's avoided makeup for years in exchange for a natural resistance to blemishes. When the man comes and takes her spent espresso cup away, she thanks him and flicks her chewed pen round her fingers. She's techno'd out-- laptop with four or five open windows she cycles through; hooked up to that is a mini-computer, the kind that's half palm pilot, half netbook, and clamshells together; flashdrive in the laptop; and iPod too. She's got a giant steel water bottle resting under the lamp, and scratches research from her laptop on a pad, perpendicular to the paper's lines.
Asian girl and asian guy sit down, and she gets a call. She speaks emphatically into the phone, and her head bobs forward and backward when she does. shoulder-length hair follows the motion, behind the lag of air resistance. Her man grins at her, mouth open and toothy, till she goes to the bathroom.
Group of girls sipping drinks in to-go containers that are needlessly disposable. They're at a big five-person table, stabbing the slush in their cups with straws. A girl-- short hair, turqoise shirt under a white zipped-open hoody-- doesn't have a drink and cups her hands around her face and smiles like rain on a cloudless day. She sits across from a nervous girl with a bush of tightly waved hair. The second girl focuses on her drink mostly, and scratching her scalp. She wears a shapeless black hoody and only smiles enough to convince the other girls that she's having a good time.
There's a man in the corner whose goatee extends too far down his neck. It's just thick enough in some places, and too thin in others, but it matches his disheveled hair and intent focus on his work. His shirt is a patterned buttondown, with little splotches of earth tones over a solid redish brown. He reads more than he types, and when he does, his head dips close to the screen, like his glasses fail him on digital text.
The barista walks with a slight limp, black shirt, khaki shorts and sockless sneakers. His hair is so short his scalp shines through the little gelled spikes, even though it's thick enough. He smiles the vague smile of someone who is content with their job. Empty coffee cup in hand, he makes eye contact with each group as he tells us that they're closing in ten.
At this point in the session, the place I was in closed and I had to move. I took a gamble, and went someplace where people *might* have been. Unfortunately, it’s a gamble that didn’t pay off. So, instead, I shall describe the location I am situated in now, rather than any people.
There’s street lamps in a neat grid, along the pathways. Each one shines differently, some brighter, some whiter, some with gray and black shadows in the glass. The light fixtures are shaped like urns, and they rest on black steel columns with long vertical grooves. Trees litter the area, without particular pattern to their age. There are two enormous ones, that stretch high into the sky. Medium-sized trees are smattered around on the grass, and the city has deigned it necessary to install a handful of new ones, tiny little saplings, held straight by metal rods and wires. A semicircle of a basketball court reflects the orange from a bug light across the street. There’s a playground that’s dark and silent, its form casts weird shadows on the woodchips beneath. The slatted benches overlooking the playground are ergonomically dipped in the center, and the cracks are stuffed with woodchips from tired kids or bored parents. The shadows in the gazebo give it direction, like it’s an island of concrete that’s being spun roof-over-floor. Empty cups and newspapers, and grocery bags, and cigarette buts at my feet, and swept round the gazebo’s benches. It’s all constructed of dusty-brown unstained wood; the kind with long grooves that look like hellish splinters. The slabs that make up the pathways through the park are like the trees, mostly old and mat, some new and shining light back at the lamps. In between the slabs, grass forms little mounds, spaced evenly and gentle, like turf speedbumps. The playgrounds swing squeaks as a shadow sits and pumps its legs.
No time-posting.
No location tags more specific than city.
No listening in on conversations.
No specific identification details beyond the visually observable.
No posting about people I know.
No posting about the same person repeatedly.
Observation and posting happens for a solid hour at a time, every day.
The point isn't to invade anyone's privacy, and it's certainly not to produce good writing. It's just to practice watching, and to write every day (even if it's bad).
When the two of them leave, they step around a table and converge together. The girl sips her milky brown whatever, and hitches her thumb up inside the strap of her bright orange shoulderpurse. The boy lopes forward and tips toward her at the shoulders. And when they converge, it's in a tilt like a first-date kiss.
Brown braids down her shoulderblades, till she puts her hood up. She's got glasses, thick plastic rims that, from the front, seem to spike at the joints. Her face has a fair, earnest complexion, like she's avoided makeup for years in exchange for a natural resistance to blemishes. When the man comes and takes her spent espresso cup away, she thanks him and flicks her chewed pen round her fingers. She's techno'd out-- laptop with four or five open windows she cycles through; hooked up to that is a mini-computer, the kind that's half palm pilot, half netbook, and clamshells together; flashdrive in the laptop; and iPod too. She's got a giant steel water bottle resting under the lamp, and scratches research from her laptop on a pad, perpendicular to the paper's lines.
Asian girl and asian guy sit down, and she gets a call. She speaks emphatically into the phone, and her head bobs forward and backward when she does. shoulder-length hair follows the motion, behind the lag of air resistance. Her man grins at her, mouth open and toothy, till she goes to the bathroom.
Group of girls sipping drinks in to-go containers that are needlessly disposable. They're at a big five-person table, stabbing the slush in their cups with straws. A girl-- short hair, turqoise shirt under a white zipped-open hoody-- doesn't have a drink and cups her hands around her face and smiles like rain on a cloudless day. She sits across from a nervous girl with a bush of tightly waved hair. The second girl focuses on her drink mostly, and scratching her scalp. She wears a shapeless black hoody and only smiles enough to convince the other girls that she's having a good time.
There's a man in the corner whose goatee extends too far down his neck. It's just thick enough in some places, and too thin in others, but it matches his disheveled hair and intent focus on his work. His shirt is a patterned buttondown, with little splotches of earth tones over a solid redish brown. He reads more than he types, and when he does, his head dips close to the screen, like his glasses fail him on digital text.
The barista walks with a slight limp, black shirt, khaki shorts and sockless sneakers. His hair is so short his scalp shines through the little gelled spikes, even though it's thick enough. He smiles the vague smile of someone who is content with their job. Empty coffee cup in hand, he makes eye contact with each group as he tells us that they're closing in ten.
At this point in the session, the place I was in closed and I had to move. I took a gamble, and went someplace where people *might* have been. Unfortunately, it’s a gamble that didn’t pay off. So, instead, I shall describe the location I am situated in now, rather than any people.
There’s street lamps in a neat grid, along the pathways. Each one shines differently, some brighter, some whiter, some with gray and black shadows in the glass. The light fixtures are shaped like urns, and they rest on black steel columns with long vertical grooves. Trees litter the area, without particular pattern to their age. There are two enormous ones, that stretch high into the sky. Medium-sized trees are smattered around on the grass, and the city has deigned it necessary to install a handful of new ones, tiny little saplings, held straight by metal rods and wires. A semicircle of a basketball court reflects the orange from a bug light across the street. There’s a playground that’s dark and silent, its form casts weird shadows on the woodchips beneath. The slatted benches overlooking the playground are ergonomically dipped in the center, and the cracks are stuffed with woodchips from tired kids or bored parents. The shadows in the gazebo give it direction, like it’s an island of concrete that’s being spun roof-over-floor. Empty cups and newspapers, and grocery bags, and cigarette buts at my feet, and swept round the gazebo’s benches. It’s all constructed of dusty-brown unstained wood; the kind with long grooves that look like hellish splinters. The slabs that make up the pathways through the park are like the trees, mostly old and mat, some new and shining light back at the lamps. In between the slabs, grass forms little mounds, spaced evenly and gentle, like turf speedbumps. The playgrounds swing squeaks as a shadow sits and pumps its legs.
Peoplewatch Blogject: Day 1, 06/13/09
Hiya. This is my first Daily People Watching entry. The concept is pretty simple, really. I sit in public for an hour every day, and I write down things I see. I do not listen to what they say; I don't care what they're saying. Similarly, I won't people-watch someone I know, nor will I post precisely where or at what time I was watching. If I find out any personal information about someone I'm watching beyond what I can see (i.e. overhear a name) I'm not going to post that either.
The point of this project is not to invade people's privacy, but rather to write about observations rather than ideas. To write without editing, and to write every day, and to try to find the beauty (or at least uniqueness) in everything everyone does.
Beard is red, pale green T. He talks with his hands, pounds them together, slaps them, cuts the air as he talks. When he swings his arms from the shoulder, his wrists and hands approach and hit each other like a wavebreak. He talks to a man behind a tree, wearing formless gray hoodie and formless black and white shorts. And when they leave, they disperse heads down and quickly, like spies with clandestine work to do.
Barefoot man tossing an undersized soccer ball in the air with his feet. He tips it to his son who's almost as good-- tip, tap, toe-to-air missile. The man's daughter, four at most, gets the ball and runs onto the playground, hugging it to her chest and beaming. When the dad kicks the ball it's controlled; three inch high bursts, till his ankle gets tired or the ball gets too much torque, and he passes it off to his son. His son kicks and knees the ball up above his head. He loses it more, but chases it better. Sometimes, he kicks the ball into the bushes and runs to pick it out of the leaves and twigs and flowers.
The lady's dress is black and she walks with conviction. Horizontal ribbing on the skirt portion, dark lipstick, legs shaved and stockinged, hair up, and high-heeled. She walks with impatient conviction.
Young-to-old, nicely dressed crowd. Women in dresses with colors according to their age-- the youngest in vibrant beetle-eye blue and green, or red-and-white flower prints; the oldet in an all tan dress complete with all tan stockings and an all tan shawl.
A grandma, red-auburn dyejob on her rhort permed hair, holds the scruff of a toddler's shirt. She walks him in circles round the jungle gym's chain ladder that he seems hell-bent on holding onto. His forehead hits his hairline about 4 inches too late, and his fat eyes ignore his grandma, because the rubber-coated chain he's got is just so damn interesting.
There's little boy testing his footing, atop a spiral slide. As he straddles the gentle pike of the roof, his Reebok's tap at the green plastic, until he decides he can't get purchase and slides off, onto the gym proper.
I'm sitting across from a man who looks like he'd be a natural at transvestitism. Thin face, sunshine smile perfectly proportioned to his peak of a nose. I think it's his eyes-- the lashes are long and full, and thick enough on the bottom so they look like natural eyeliner. His eyebrows too, flow to the bridge of his nose in shapely curves. Or then maybe it's his hair, that swoops over his ears, all salt and pepper and expensive shampoo. Step 1: Wax face. Step 2: Don heels. Step 3: Look fabulous.
Here's the dude that just walked by: Shock of blond hair receeded at the front and exploded in the back, like someone yanked a hanful of scalp back over his skull and left it there. He wore a sharp-green tank top, similarly vibrant red shorts and a fanny pack that jolted on his crotch as he walked-- what a schizoid color pallate!
A little girl climbs the chain-ladder, long brown hair in waves down her back. When her feet slip, the tangerine flower of a sundress billows at the ground like fire, and when her arms catch her full body weight, the hem of her dress flicks. She hangs there, dangling like an upside-down candleflame.
Young guy walks by, dark but pasty, brown eyes, hair long and swept back. Which is fine, except it's maybe half the thickness it needs to be; his skull shines through the whisps. He's gaunt-thin, and walks with his head bobbing forward. He's also the first person to look at me all hour. When he looks, it's wide-eyed and with the flesh round his sockets betraying fear. It's a vague fear, and not a nervous one. It's there before his head turns and it stays after he looks away-- grinding tension from something constant; not the sharp uncertainty of making eye contact with a strange man sitting at a computer. And then, when the gears click and he realizes I'm looking back at him, his head flicks away, back to his walking, and he turns into the shop.
The employee with blue hair scrubs tables down. Her hair's pilled into a loop of a pony tail, with long side-framing bangs round her face. She lopes with huge hoop earrings and glasses pushed to the top of her head. She sees some garbage on the floor and bends to pick it up, resting her wrist on a table. As she bends down, her off-hand curls delicately in a subconscious flex.
A man (my dear compatriot!) sits in a black leather coat and stares at nothing. He's got a G3 pen and a tiny pad, and scribbled lines of poetry that he mulls over before scratching out. His beard is curled and untrimmed, and he's pulled his hair back underneath a navy and red Nike hat. His leg bobbles up and down. He squints at the words in his head; he jots; he scribbles.
The point of this project is not to invade people's privacy, but rather to write about observations rather than ideas. To write without editing, and to write every day, and to try to find the beauty (or at least uniqueness) in everything everyone does.
Beard is red, pale green T. He talks with his hands, pounds them together, slaps them, cuts the air as he talks. When he swings his arms from the shoulder, his wrists and hands approach and hit each other like a wavebreak. He talks to a man behind a tree, wearing formless gray hoodie and formless black and white shorts. And when they leave, they disperse heads down and quickly, like spies with clandestine work to do.
Barefoot man tossing an undersized soccer ball in the air with his feet. He tips it to his son who's almost as good-- tip, tap, toe-to-air missile. The man's daughter, four at most, gets the ball and runs onto the playground, hugging it to her chest and beaming. When the dad kicks the ball it's controlled; three inch high bursts, till his ankle gets tired or the ball gets too much torque, and he passes it off to his son. His son kicks and knees the ball up above his head. He loses it more, but chases it better. Sometimes, he kicks the ball into the bushes and runs to pick it out of the leaves and twigs and flowers.
The lady's dress is black and she walks with conviction. Horizontal ribbing on the skirt portion, dark lipstick, legs shaved and stockinged, hair up, and high-heeled. She walks with impatient conviction.
Young-to-old, nicely dressed crowd. Women in dresses with colors according to their age-- the youngest in vibrant beetle-eye blue and green, or red-and-white flower prints; the oldet in an all tan dress complete with all tan stockings and an all tan shawl.
A grandma, red-auburn dyejob on her rhort permed hair, holds the scruff of a toddler's shirt. She walks him in circles round the jungle gym's chain ladder that he seems hell-bent on holding onto. His forehead hits his hairline about 4 inches too late, and his fat eyes ignore his grandma, because the rubber-coated chain he's got is just so damn interesting.
There's little boy testing his footing, atop a spiral slide. As he straddles the gentle pike of the roof, his Reebok's tap at the green plastic, until he decides he can't get purchase and slides off, onto the gym proper.
I'm sitting across from a man who looks like he'd be a natural at transvestitism. Thin face, sunshine smile perfectly proportioned to his peak of a nose. I think it's his eyes-- the lashes are long and full, and thick enough on the bottom so they look like natural eyeliner. His eyebrows too, flow to the bridge of his nose in shapely curves. Or then maybe it's his hair, that swoops over his ears, all salt and pepper and expensive shampoo. Step 1: Wax face. Step 2: Don heels. Step 3: Look fabulous.
Here's the dude that just walked by: Shock of blond hair receeded at the front and exploded in the back, like someone yanked a hanful of scalp back over his skull and left it there. He wore a sharp-green tank top, similarly vibrant red shorts and a fanny pack that jolted on his crotch as he walked-- what a schizoid color pallate!
A little girl climbs the chain-ladder, long brown hair in waves down her back. When her feet slip, the tangerine flower of a sundress billows at the ground like fire, and when her arms catch her full body weight, the hem of her dress flicks. She hangs there, dangling like an upside-down candleflame.
Young guy walks by, dark but pasty, brown eyes, hair long and swept back. Which is fine, except it's maybe half the thickness it needs to be; his skull shines through the whisps. He's gaunt-thin, and walks with his head bobbing forward. He's also the first person to look at me all hour. When he looks, it's wide-eyed and with the flesh round his sockets betraying fear. It's a vague fear, and not a nervous one. It's there before his head turns and it stays after he looks away-- grinding tension from something constant; not the sharp uncertainty of making eye contact with a strange man sitting at a computer. And then, when the gears click and he realizes I'm looking back at him, his head flicks away, back to his walking, and he turns into the shop.
The employee with blue hair scrubs tables down. Her hair's pilled into a loop of a pony tail, with long side-framing bangs round her face. She lopes with huge hoop earrings and glasses pushed to the top of her head. She sees some garbage on the floor and bends to pick it up, resting her wrist on a table. As she bends down, her off-hand curls delicately in a subconscious flex.
A man (my dear compatriot!) sits in a black leather coat and stares at nothing. He's got a G3 pen and a tiny pad, and scribbled lines of poetry that he mulls over before scratching out. His beard is curled and untrimmed, and he's pulled his hair back underneath a navy and red Nike hat. His leg bobbles up and down. He squints at the words in his head; he jots; he scribbles.
Blogject
Here's my new blog project: Every day, I''m going to go somewhere and people-watch. I'll blog about it real-time and post when I'm done.
Yup. That's my project. And I'm sticking to it.
Yup. That's my project. And I'm sticking to it.
