Sunday, September 17, 2006

Saturday, September 16


This is the first time I've been out with the Listening Station on a week-end. While there are more people out on the street, especially towards evening, there's not that much of a difference in their willingness to stop for a few minutes.

The first user of the day is a woman who is on her way to the ATM from the diner. We take just one minute each, so that she can get back to her breakfast.


Jim came back again today, on his way home from visiting an African-American Jewish congregation with the West Philly synagogue. I forgot to ask him what brought him back a second time- maybe he'll post a comment here for us.

After a long lull, during which I walked around the block a bit ( being out on the street with the listening station for 3 hours is a lot different than being out for one hour!), an artist who I had met through a craigslist posting about studio space arrivd with her partner. They were excited to try out the station, and remarked that it felt quite different from a regular conversation. He noticed that he used the time to give a report on his day, which was different from how she had talked about things.


A short while later, a woman and her boyfriend stopped by. She was definately more interested than he was, and she convinced him to try it with her. When I asked afterwards, she told me it seemed like "a complete waste of time", which I could beleive judging from the look on his face. The listening station is like a lot of things - you get out of it what you put into it...


My last visitors are a man and his nephew, who give it a try for a short time. I end up just having an off-station conversation with him about creating a website or blog to document his work with homeless men on the "back streets".

Throughout the day, the students who came by were a little more curious, and I had a few short interactions with folks, inviting them to give it a try. But in the end, there were still no students who decided to actually stop and try the listening station. Not that this particular population was my ultimate goal- I have been working towards a goal of general involvement with whoever I encountered. Simply offering the possibility of a different kind of experience in the daily public life of the city is one of the purposes of this project. And in that respect, I feel I have been successful.

The next installation of the listening station may be in 30th Street Station... stay tuned!

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