fortunes read from traffic cameras
and other tales of wonder
from Paris, London, NYC

Before going to Paris, Mom and I saw the Merchant of Venice in "Shakespeare's" restored Globe Theatre. We liked the atmosphere so much that we saw a new play there the next night, We the People, by Eric Schlosser of "Fast Food Nation" and "Reefer Madness" fame. It's amazing to see new plays with 20+ actors covering what could have been very dry subject matter--the US constitutional convention--with such a large audience and up tempo. I regret slightly that we missed the London Youlan Qin Society's yaji outside of town because London sucked us in.

After three nights in Paris (ok, three hours), I was ready to move there. Unlike London, everyone elegantly moseyed, except the tourists. In a cafe, a Parisian recovering from cancer told us how much she loved Bush "because he's courageous" as she puffed on a cigarette. We climbed over some ancient buildings, rode the bus, learned a little French, and stayed in the Latin Quarter. Being back in London was brief and pleasant.

After one last walk through my neighborhood of Hasidic Jews in their fur and coats, a couple more flushes of the "crappy" English toilet, and goodbyes to roommates, my summer in London was over.

In New York, I saw my friend Chipp Jansen's exhibit "Counting Cars" at the Conflux Festival as part of a Psychography exhibit. Given six cars on the West Shore Expy Victory traffic cam during my thirty seconds led to the 6th RSS feed of the New York section of the NY Times, which means I got an article about bowling in Central Park. "Wiggled a dance of delight" and "silence is an anomaly" stood out, as did "a compelling distraction for tourists".

Or according to Chipp's co-conspirator, Will Pappenheimer,

Counting Cars is an interface and consulting station that connects Manhattan traffic cams to local New York RSS Internet news of the moment via the vernacular consultation practice of "counting crows." As a performance, I will assist participants to seek the moment's situational wisdom for a question they might entertain. With the aid of computer equipment, we will consult a live NYC traffic cam and initiate a programmatic process that utilizes motion detection to count cars within a certain period of time. The number generated as the "car" or "crow" count and is used to retrieve the text and imagery of a current corresponding RSS New York news story that is related to the participant.

As fine a counselor/psychic as e'er I saw.

Labels: London, NYC, Paris