ossobuco wrote: Too bad I don't keep it up day to day.
You could start one today! Or plan a trip and buy a new notebook!
Bookstores, airports and train stations are my favourite places to people-watch, people-watching being one of my favourite activities. Gyms are also good.
I've been thinking about this, since I made my last post.
It was sorta done as a joke, but you know what? That really is seeing people as they are, the common denominator.
Strange as this may sound, I mean this in a respectful way....People ARE grotesque at times, all of us. You, me and the Queen of England. Perhaps we can learn a lot more about the human condition by watching people when they don't think anyone is noticing, or when they don't care.
Sitting in a cafe, airport, etc. watching the world go by can be fun, sure. However, When people are walking down the street, there's ususally an awareness that there are other people around, and our behavior is altered slightly by that (or altered greatly)
Thinking...if I wanted to view people because of their clothes, accessories, appeaerance, I'd just as soon pick up any fashion magazine.
If you want to see the real human condition, go to, for instance, a nursing home. In particular, go to one that has an altzheimers unit. There you will see peoples souls. I worked in nursing homes for I think about 3 years, and one of the things I really miss is the opportunity to talk to someone who had so much life experience to offer, but no one to listen. Some of those who had a lot to offer where those who you wouldn't see walking by a cafe, and, if you had to describe them, sometimes there were grotesque aspects to their appearance. But, you can find a lot of beauty in the grotesque, if you look. Look at some the the scetchings DaVinci did.
The unemployement office is probably a good place to hang out, or the DMV. Everyone ends up at the DMV sooner or later.
airports used to excite me, but in the last few years they have become burdensome (is that a word?). Plus, I spend far too much time in them to be excited. only when in a totally new environment, then it's semi interesting again. India airports are funny, because they are so overstaffed. I sat many many hours in many many airports there - same story. Hundreds of staff sit around, stand around, do absolutely nothing. When you approach anybody for help, they will send you to one overworked person in a cubicle somewhere and they continue to do nothing. Strange setup.
I agree that watching people in their environment is far more interesting and one can learn much more from it. I used to love spending summers at my grandma's, small village at the end of the world, where the bus turns around. Observe my grandparents who worked their fields all of their lives, observe their neighbors with their chickens and pigs, observe the village in the church, at the pub... it was a completely different world from my city world.
I still enjoy airports. I like the feeling that I get when I go to an airport. When I'm there it normally means I'm going on a trip, picking someone up, or dropping someone off. They mean travel and seeing the world and seeing loved ones so all of that is a great thing! Also, definitely a good people watching destination which I love!
Other people watching sites - city streets during lunch hour, parks, malls, sporting events.
State fairs are another great one, you're right, Eva!
What an interesting creature homo sapien is. O, his many trials and tribulations, his foibles and follies!
How I love to disappear into the masses at the local shopping mall and walk beside him, in my superhuman yet life-like bionic exoskeleton, and, using the powers of my highly evolved brain (thank you, chemical experiments!), make profound observations.
And with these observations (o, with them indeed!) I will sit in my attic and write a fictional masterpiece no one will ever f---ing read!
A ha ha ha ha!!!
Gargamel, you are, like, SUCH an English major...
(What? Some of my best friends are English majors.)
And sadly my education (or what have you) is only appreciated (occasionally) on an internet message board.
Well, duh. That's what you get.
(Yes, I'm also a former English major. Shall we start a support group?)
sozobe wrote:Well, duh. That's what you get.
(Yes, I'm also a former English major. Shall we start a support group?)
I knew that.
And yes, please, let's start a group.
hey,i write for nobody as well, can i join? it's damn lonely over here for us political shmientists.
OK.
The group needs to have a literary but ironic name -- conveying both our hipness and our despair.
Um...
I think I'll go to a cafe and people-watch and wait for inspiration.
(See what I did there? Back on topic and everything! Why am I ending every post with these parentheticals? I don't know!
haha, it will take us months just to come up with the name. i'll join you at the cafe.
Can someone close those parentheses?
)
See ya there dag!
(Months? Try years.)
(D'oh!)
I honestly don't feel like I need to deliberately sit and watch people for inspiration. I was kind of trying to be a sarcastic jerk in my first post, exaggerting the idea of withdrawing from a species you are too enlightened to admit you're a part of.
This is not to say I don't attempt to melt with my eyes half the people I'm forced to "cuddle" with on the overpacked train to and from work. There's certainly a temptation to criticize humans en masse--like Cubs fans, in my experience.
But I draw mostly from myself for inspiration, quite often from the stupid **** I do.
I draw my inspiration from the stupid **** you do too Garg.
Oh, I got what you were saying.
Where do I get inspiration? I dunno. Hardly anywhere lately, but I'm not particularly trying either. I've definitely seen public interactions that have gotten wheels turning though.
depends, for what. if i need to write my godawful Diss, I will not go people watch. If I want to write a blog, I will.
Chai wrote:I draw my inspiration from the stupid **** you do too Garg.
You're inspired by my ****? That's disgusting.