Reading Response #2

I chose to read “On the Aesthetics of Urban Walking and Writing” by Phillip Lopate because I remembered this article the best from when I first read it compared to the other articles. Also, I love writing, and enjoyed the comparisons between walking and writing. Throughout the article Lopate compares the two acts, writing and walking. He sees that one can easily become distracted during the process. Should someone concentrate on the pedestrians, the architecture, or nature? One could get carried away with lists. Lopate begins by explaining how he grew into having a thirst for walking the streets of Manhattan and pedestrianism, how a city like New York can absorb so many different people and how before his thirst, he would walk the streets annoyed and be too in-drawn to appreciate detail n brickwork. He also expresses how marriage has contained his ventures of walking the streets, as he is now always expected at home and calls Manhattan a “Mecca for singles.” He says that now he feels pressured to look for detail when walking streets and will often times attempt to read a book instead and comes to the conclusion that if New York City is going to astonish him, “it better do it without me lifting a finger.”

These ideas are relevant towards my media practices because at first, the idea of walking down the streets of the town you live in may not seem interesting, but if you give it a chance, you can learn to appreciate detail and architecture and the natural beauty of your surroundings that you took for granted. One must learn to look at things another way in order to appreciate it but not look too hard of course. You should have to put forth an extreme effort to find beauty in everything. After a while the beauty should be coming out on its own.