walking in the city

Things extra and other (details and excesses coming from elsewhere) insert themselves into the accepted framework, the imposed order. One thus has the very relationship between spatial practices and the constructed order. The surface of this order is everywhere punched and torn open by ellipses, drifts, and leaks of meaning: it is a sieve-order. (De Certeau)

While reading Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark, I came to the conclusion that not everyone can become a Certeauian walker who can "practice the everyday." There are characters like Anna (she's the narrator of the book) who will be so easily, devoured by the city. The city won't allow her a street of her own (much less a room of her own). Although I failed to revise it during the short winter break, I will revise my paper on Anna's walking + identity + the city + the text as a thing that walks (in the De Certeauian manner), in the summer. So, this post is kind of like a reminder to self: REVISE IT IN THE SUMMER, SINCE YOU PROMISED RIGHT HERE, I should say to myself. And I should also ask my friends who see this, to ask me during or after summer: Hey Jade, did you revise the paper you were talking about? What happened? Show it to me before you submit it anywhere!  Do that to me, okay? Otherwise, I will just be a lazy lazy gal postponing the revision until who knows when!?

The photo up there- it's of me "walking" but not in a city.. The pic was taken by hubsy, when we were in Qutub Minar in Delhi (2008). And I think "walking" as a tourist and as the city's inhabitant, must be two very different things. I'll talk about that later, though. I'm also thinking about "the right to the city" Lefebre talks about, and how that right gets all messed up when the inhabitant is also the colonized (or under neocolonial powers. Or, under the power/gaze of the tourist, who actually stands in for the tourist industry)...and so on. BUT!!! Now, I have to go and grade 7 papers, read The Open by Agamben (I have no idea what he is talking about. Shoot), and finish the rest of Our Mutual Friend. I know. I won't be able to do all of those things, but that's the plan for today, and tomorrow, and the day after. So, should be doable, right? :)

2.24.2013