The Art of Walking

Posted about 1 year ago

Yesterday, or better said this morning I was walking home, maybe 6 km or so. But walking through fields in the night when there is hardly moonlight is a rather bleak activity.Walking through big cities otherwise is often much more interesting, especially when the city has various facets. There's a nice video about walking on intersections, that I'd like to share with you. The music is from Blockhead, a great producer of instrumental HipHop. I don't know, if this is the official music video to the track or not. But I don't think, that this is of big importance. I always wanted to cross big cities by foot, just to see the change of its character from quarter to quarter or maybe even from street to street. Thereby I would prefer to cross itdiametrically, not lead by the routing and configuration of its streets and roads but more by the geographical degrees of longitude and latitude. And I hope to see things, that you would never see, when crossing the city by a faster means of travel. Enjoy the video

Comments (7)

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Lady Miss Ian says That was a great video, Hermes. Great city feel. I know what you are saying about discovering things you never thought you would see in the city. I love to bicycle and explore unknown streets and neighborhoods and to see how things slowly (or quickly) change from one kind of place to another. It makes me look at the city as a very organic (as in living) entity.

Permalink posted 03/08/2008
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Hermes says Glad, you liked it. I'd love to live in a big city, but still I'm not. Maybe soon. But independent of that I'm going to make a such an "by foot" exploration somewhen and take my camera with me. Cycling is also very nice, it's my mayor means of transportation, if it's not too cold, but not the same thing. Btw: Did you recognize one or more of these corners? Must be one or more U.S. American cities, I guess.

Permalink posted 03/08/2008
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Groon says That's a pretty sweet track, and a cool video. I'm pretty sure I caught NYC and Chicago in there, but wasn't really trying to catch what cites they were. Where I live, in the small town of Summerville, it's a typical suburban sort of thing where everything is so spread out you basically have to use a car to get anywhere. walking will just get you more of the same. It does have a nice "downtown" area which has a very old-fashioned feel to it, but it's about two clocks wide and you can cross it in a couple of minutes. The rest is basically sprawl unless you know where to look. However, in nearby Charleston the downtwon area is prime for walking,. Every street has a different "feel" to it, and each one is full of shops, restaurants, hotels, old churches and private homes. There are hidden, private graveyards that beg to be discovered, and one side is full of ocean-side parks with views stretching out intot he harbor. It's a beautiful city,

Permalink posted 03/09/2008
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Hermes says Charleston sounds great. I have to visit this town somewhen, when I'm gonna make a trip through the U.S., what I certainly plan to do. I already heard that many towns in the U.S. are constructed for cars - there was a short article in the Time magazine on the influence of the "car culture", that is the suddenly vast availability of cars in the 40s or 50s, to U.S. town development, if I'm remembering right. On the countryside here you usually also need a car, but in the bigger towns it would be rather annoying for me. Alone the quarter hour search to find a parking lot at the university drove me crazy, the few times, I had a car. When I'm thinking about it, my fist "town walk" should be through Stuttgart. That's pretty close to here and the whole town consists of a bunch of hills, so that you have some pretty nice views. The only problem is, that it's hard to determine, where the town starts, as it's situated inmidth of a widespread industrial area. But that shall be a minor problem, let the chance rule.

Permalink posted 03/09/2008
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Willie Beamen says Thank you Hermes I'm liking your page and your videos too. Please stay in touch and I will be checking in on you from time to time!!

Permalink posted 03/10/2008
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glammerhammer says great track....and nice video.....I love walking thru the city......you see so much more than driving......I just moved to dallas, TEXAS and it is such a change from Hollywood, CA.....I will update my prof soon.....been gettin' settled, ya know....(texas twang)..lol

Permalink posted 03/11/2008
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Hermes says I dunno texas twang ;). I know only that New Yorkers sound more like British English to me and people from hillbillie and southern states sound it bit more broad and streched what makes it at times more difficult more me to understand. (like Bavarian in German, haha). But anyway, there are nearly more people speaking Spanish than English in Texas, no? So no communication problem for me ;). Glad you like it.

Permalink posted 03/11/2008