Choose three places where you are likely to witness people in their personal bubbles. (Some of the examples we mentioned in class were bus stands, buses, streets, the mall, grocery store, cafe, place of worship, museum, bookstores, park...)
In each of your three places, choose someone to watch, and spend 20 minutes discreetly watching that person. (If that per leaves, switch to another person...) Make notes: where are you? What do you see? What might be in this person's "inward gaze"?
T.K.:
Person #1
I observed a woman in public
while she was shopping in a grocery store. I was in the Trader Joes in Warwick,
RI on a Sunday afternoon. The store was busy, but not crowded and the woman was
shopping alone with a grocery cart. When I first spotted her I saw talking on
her cell phone as she picked items off the shelf and placed them into her cart.
She is wearing large black sweat pants; pink Crocs and a maroon down jacket. Her
hair is up in a ponytail and her sunglasses are on the top of her head. She is
very casually dressed to be out in public. I wonder if she always looks like
this. Would she wear the same clothing if she were going to the mall or work?
She is probably just running a quick errand to pick up groceries for the week.
She came from home and will go right back home after the grocery store. I try
to imagine whom she is talking to on the phone. I usually have a hard time
focusing on shopping and a phone conversation at the same time. When I attempt
this I end up walking aimlessly around the store without actually picking out
items to purchase. She appears to have mastered this trick and she continues to
talk while she shops. Maybe the person on the phone is describing to her the
items to buy? Maybe they are telling her where in the store they are located?
Maybe it’s her aunt who is going on and on about her uncle, so the lady with
the pink shoes is not actually listening, her attention is focused on shopping
and her aunt is the background noise. I quickly snap a few photos with my phone
so I can remember some of the details later. She cracks a smile and then laughs
out loud. She must be engaged in the conversation. She stops walking, hangs up
the phone and places it into her purse that’s located in the child’s seat in
the shopping cart. She picks up a piece of paper that I assume is her grocery
list and a pen. After a quick check of the list she begins walking again.
Searching for the remaining items. She rounds the corner of the aisle and that’s
when I lost her. She somehow quickly disappeared in the store. I search for
her, only to find her checking out at the cash register. It’s time to do my own
shopping. I wonder if Trader Joes carries Velveeta?
Person #2
I observed a
man sitting in a coffee shop while he was working on his laptop computer. The
coffee shop/café is the Coffee Exchange on Wickenden in Providence, RI. The
environment inside the building is slightly hectic, and the coffee house
playlist emitting from the speakers turns the other conversations into one
large ongoing voice. The man is probably in his early thirties and wearing
jeans, a polo shirt and a leather jacket. His hair is loosely combed and he has
a dark beard. On his small round café table is a small IBM computer plugged
into the wall, a large hot beverage and loose papers. He does not refer to the
loose papers, or even drink from his paper cup, instead his attention is
focused on the computer. I can’t see his screen, but I think that he is on some
form of instant messenger. I believe this because he types a few short
sentences, and then pauses. After the pause he starts to read again with his
eyes focused on the lower right corner of the screen. Each passage of text he
reads elicits a different response. Sometimes he smiles and at other times no
response is seen. His face remains blank. Periodically he looks up and glances
over at another couple deep in conversation. I think he looks at them when he
overhears a fragment of their conversation that peaks his interest. Eventually
he does pick up the loose papers and begins to drink his beverage. The papers
appear to be a questionnaire or survey that someone else has already completed
and he is reading the responses. Shit, he caught me looking at him. Our eyes
briefly meet before I drop my head and dive back into my own computer screen.
He goes back to the survey. A different man walks over and stands behind me. I
think he is waiting for a table to open up, but he is blocking my light and
making me nervous. A door opens behind me and I realize that he was just
waiting for the bathroom.
Person #3
I positioned
myself on a wall along North Main Street in Providence, RI to observe the
people walking by. I was able to see people coming down the street as well as
the people moving to and from their cars in the parking lot behind me. Since it
was cold outside, not too many people were out walking but I did notice one
male in his early twenties. He approached from the south, was wearing a
backpack and large blue headphones. His hands were in the pockets of his black
jacket, but at one point he did take out his left hand to wipe his nose, and in
the process revealed a black leather glove. As he traveled north on foot he
kept his head down and his eyes focused on the ground. He looked up only to see
if there were cars approaching as he crossed the street or the entrance to the
parking lot. He looked very cold. As he crossed my position on the wall he
quickly glanced up in my direction. He studied me for one second before
returning his gaze to the ground. He continued walking north in the same
manner. He kept his head down until once again he needed to cross the street.
He pressed the crosswalk button with his leather glove before returning it to
his warmth of the pocket in the jacket. As he waited for the streetlight to
change he kept his head up and observed traffic. The light changed and the walk
signal illuminated. Walking across the street his gaze was once again focused
on the ground until he noticed a car quickly approaching him from the right
hand side. He glanced up, decided the car was not a threat and would stop for
the light. It was safe to continue. With his head down he
continued walking north until he was out of my view.
J.F.:
I am on Kennedy Plaza (Central bus hub in central Providence).
It is freezing outside. There is a good amount of people
sitting inside waiting for the bus.
Underneath a bus stop structure which houses a bench is a old
hispanic man around 65 years old.
-he is short around 5 ft.
-little eyes, looks like he is capable of generating a full
smile.
-he is a good man.
-Comes from a hard working family. People in his region where
being token advantage of by the government and there was not enough jobs that
payed well.
-He has a big family and grand children.
-He is standing at an angle where the bus would pull in. he
keeps his body centered to that angle.
-there is people talking loud around him but he doesn't look.
There is a group of young guys that walk in front of him and acting like young
gangsters yelling, they are making fun of each other and creating a spectacle
for the rest of the people on the bus stop. He is still looking strait forward
at the angle of the bus . a Group
of young boys with there mom walk to the side of hime and he looks over at the family. This
reminds him of his own grandchildren. He wishes he could see his grandchildren
more. He thinks about the last conversation he had with his children and when
he last saw his grandchildren.
-he looses track of that thought and thinks about his home and the schedule for the
rest of the day. When he is going to get the supplies to finnish a job around
the house. He is reminded of the bus.
-Dressed nice underneath his jacket. They are dress slacks
with nice leather shoes.
-his glasses are a nice rectangle shape made from thin metal.
-wearing a big down jacket. It is green on the top and black
bellow. The jacket was bought by his wife at a second at salvation army.
At TAZZA restaurant.
I walk in and
there is three sets of people two couple, two moms and their girls and then
there is a single woman.
-I see the woman's face.
-she has nice health skin and a disctintive nose. Slender lady
in her late 20's .
-she comes from
New Hampshire and is now living in providence to go to cooking school at
johnson and wells. It is a holiday and so she decided to go to tazzo to spend
40 minutes drinking a large creamy coffee. She is downtown providence because
she needed to pick up her working schedule at her on campus job.
-in front of her is a legal pad of paper and she is writing
down her schedule for next month.
-she always feels the need to be productive, but today she is
trying to do a bit of both, having a break while trying to get some work done.
But she is dozing off more than anything.
She looks around the room and looks out at the window and
remembers a day last year when the weather was like this. She often thinks
about the weather. She is good at dressing in layers. She is wearing a dress which
with a pattern similar to that of a checkered chief apron. She then has a long
sleave cream t-shirt above her dress and thick black stalkings. Over the
stalkings is a nice think pair of pink and purple socks.over her dress is a
thick zip up sweater, it goes over the dress. The jacket is a simple waterproof
ski jacket/shell. She has a giant
thick neck warmer. And a helmet in her hand for the bike ride back she knows
how to keep warm and how to do it in a fashionable . She follows blogs and is
crafty and eco friendly.
I am inside the kennedy plaza station,
where you buy tickets and wait for buses. It is about 100 ft
long and 25 ft wide. There is a long bench in the middle against the wall which
house the homeless people. Half the people in there are homeless. Not waiting
for a bus but soaking up some light. The roof is made up of glass and his
positioned to allow a lot of the light in during the day.
-there is a man standing in the middle. He doesn't seem
homeless but he could be - He is more like a junky. He has got a black jack and
his wearing a black hood. He is wearing kaki cargo pants with some boots.
-The man is black but he seems to have a bit of a hispanic
look as well
-he has a beard and mustache about an inch long. His beard is
dirty having spots around his throat, where his hair is growing thinly.
-his eyes are grim and penetrating.
-he slouches in a way which makes him look like he owns that
territory of the station.
-He is not focused on anything in particular.
-he is distracted by his cravings, He thinks a bit about the
night before, And the time he had while driving his brother's car. It seems
like he is waiting for nothing.
-he periodically hers something from around the rooms and
agrees to it and gives a pound to a man.
-he is restless and agitated. He wants an upper. So he moves
his hands around and walks around every once and a while.
-he knows a bunch of the people around here.
-he is not connected to a reputable business
L.C.:
1
A guy walks into a bar, and after a while from this unintentionally perfect vantage, Michael and I both realize how transfixed we are. We do our thing for a while, cocktails in hand, chatting and unwinding on on a Friday evening at the end of a long week, but it’s impossible not to notice you sitting there, in your own little world. Where we are sitting is a kind of funny spot- when we came in, there weren’t any pairs of seats at the bar, so we were relegated to this weird long table, parallel to and the same height as the bar, directly behind it. It’s kind of a weird setup and we joked about feeling like we’re at the secondary bar for losers when we came in. But now that you are here, my new friend from afar, I realize we couldn’t be sitting in a more perfect spot so that I can spy on you. You’ve got a fitted Yankee cap with wisps of short straight hair sticking out (perhaps with intentional carelessness?), tortoise shell horn rimmed glasses, a pin striped blazer with a t shirt underneath, skinny gray pants and very dapper shoes. Your hip Manhattan Portage bike bag is slung across the back of your chair, but the other bag you have looks like it would be tough to finagle on a bike. Wedged between two sets of canoodling couples, you seem beyond indifferent with those massive black headphones connected to your iphone’s infinite universe. I can see how easy it would be to cancel the noise of this place and get lost in oblivion. You even keep them on when you go outside to pace your way through a cigarette. As you re-enter, I curiously wonder which way your androgyny leans. Your posture is striking, such a severe slouch- perhaps one of the most memorable things about you, and it doesn't seem to stop you from sporadically moving to the beat in your ears - the only clue about the soundtrack inside your world that you’re too distracted to remember to hide from us. What a strange affect you have. Your spastic actions make me question if you have a few loose screws -or maybe you’ve just had a few too many? I think you’re putting on an act... at least to some extent. Now the whiskey is gone and all you’ve got are rocks. Somehow you just managed to wordlessly settle your tab without stepping out of your headphone world and shuffle out the door. See ya.
2
Alas, have I found my next victim? I have been sitting in this overstuffed coffee shop and all of my prospects are facing the other way or leave too quickly or are joined by a companion to pop that bubble i’m looking for. But here you are, my dear new friend. I’m going to visually stalk you for the next 20 minutes and it’s gonna be great.
Hair blonde, shoulder length, pulled back halfway. Eyes blue. Muted rainbow zip front sweater, shades of brown replace the purple and blue- the textile equivalent of a beacon in this sea of neutral winter gear. But I can’t look at you too closely because you’re facing me as you jot down your notes in swirly cursive on those computer print outs you’ve got. I really want to creep on you and read what it is you’re writing, but you keep glancing around. I’m trying to decipher you’re gaze, part inward, part nervous, part pensive. but you are a tricky one- are you distracted by this room or by your own thoughts? You seem slightly uneasy- I might be, too, if I was sitting at an island of a table in the middle of the room. Actually, I was when I first got here but I pounced the second a table opened up where I could anchor my back to the wall.
With your back square to the door, you keep glancing off distractedly in the direction of the counter. Or maybe at somebody in between? Is the conversation of the chatting couple beside you catching your ear? From where I’m sitting, their voices blend into the garbled, caffeinated, jazz-laced din of the room. It almost sort of seems like you’re peeking in my direction too, but that’s ok; after all, I am creeping on you big time.
DRAT you now have company. Who are these collegey twenty-something young ladies distracting you from my spying? One of whom has dropped her bag square on my foot and still hasn’t noticed. I don’t know if you really count now that your personal bubble is floating around somewhere else, but now I’m staring at you and I want to find out your deal.
I’m trying to listen to your conversation, but that’s difficult to do between your bites of buttered bagel and the untimely noise of the grinding beans. Apparently they roast them here, too- I should come here more often. (In my perfect world where I have the time and necessity for lounging around in coffee shops with a laptop.) Right! MLK day- that’s why it’s a zoo in here.
I just heard you say something about kids relating the lessons to real life.....ok, so I think you’re a teacher of some sort, definitely for younger kids. You seem to be mentoring the two girls who’ve joined you. Gosh, that explains why you are so animated. And that handwriting.
3
Maybe i’ll have more luck with this Yanni-ish fellow who just came in. Hello sir, I’m Lindsay. I’m going to creep on you for awhile. I see you’ve got the NY Times, and a paperback- Asimov, which a quick google search tells me is sci-fi. Medium coffee, a bagel on a paper plate with a few little tubs of cream cheese, oatmeal wool sweater, black levis. your hair smells strongly of hair smell. whoa. Every time you move, it wafts over my way. Unfortunately, your back facing me enough that I’m right in the line of fire. You call a friend on your flip phone... nothing that substantial, just a “Hey, man. What’s up?”
You leaf through the Times sort of quickly and coordinate the loss of interest in a given page with nibbles of your bagel. Now that you’ve finished your bagel, it’s sci-fi time. I am still amazed by the smell of your hair...not in a positive way.
The more time you spend reading, the farther from this room you seem to become. It isn’t until two friends run into you (to your partial chagrin?) that you are pulled out of your book’s universe. You seem a little bit distracted trying to get back into it, but I’m sure you’ll make it, my time here is up.
There are not many people in the library. I can count 8 within view. She sits in the central area that connects the circulation desk to the stacks to the main entrance. She is Asian, with glasses, around 20 years old and she reads a packet. She sits I a cushioned seat and there is no table. Her friend sits diagonally fomr her working on an ipad. She sits with her legs crossed, her winter coat is off, and her small notebook is on her seat to the left of her. She leans forward a little as her focus shifts to the bottom of the page she is reading. She turns the page. The library is very quiet. She does not speak to her friend seated next to her. She moves her lips as she reads the photocopied page in front of her. It is a packet of maybe 30 pages. She sits relatively still. 5 minutes have passed. She holds the packet the same way, with both her hands at the bottom, and her elbows resting on her torso. The pages are around a foot away from her face, near her chest. Her lips continue to mouth the words she is taking in. People enter the space. Her friend has arrived. She sits up and smiles. She quietly hands a small book to her newly arrived friend who is bundled up in a winter coat. She talks quietly to her friend laughing a little and gesturing at the packet she is reading. She nods and finishes talking to her friend who has taken the book. Her friend leaves, and she now gets up and points at a space up in the balcony area. She gathers her things and with her other friend, she moves. They move to a larger cushioned seat on the second floor with a view from a large window. She is looking at facebook on her iphone. She puts her phone down and proceeds to read her packet with a pencil that she uses to take notes. Her friend is sitting across from her now. She moves around on the chair to tuck her legs underneath and eats a cookie. She now has the packet up close to her face with her elbow propped on the high armrest. She continues to read. She has turned another page. 15 minutes have passed. She pushes her glasses up on top of her head and looks at her phone to text someone. She continues to read and turns another page.
Place: Providence Wintermarket
People #3
Transcribed Notes
Young woman with dark curly hair keeps her wool hat and coat on as she enters the building. She is with her partner, a young man with a beard but she wanders off. She immediately walks towards the stand selling tea leaves next to the entrance and stares at a jar of tea. She holds it in her hand and examines the label. The sales person greets her, and she responds by putting the jar down and smiling. She does not say much and she looks at some of the other tea leaves and walks away. She walks slowly through the crowd, being jostled a little. She looks straight ahead when she is not with her partner who occasionally wanders off. She does not accost people when she is at the stalls and touches things a lot, holds products in her hands, and gazes off into distance, not making eye contact with the sales people too often. The market is crowded and the people move slowly and gently. There is a lot of sound, and this young woman seems to block it out by just looking straight ahead. She does not turn her head much, and when she does it is quite slow and deliberate. She knows which stalls she wants to go to. She goes to the person selling lamb and asks the seller for a pack of stew meat. She smiles, nods her head and waits while the seller reaches into the cooler to find a the appropriate package. The young woman with dark curly hair goes through her large canvas bag on her left shoulder to find money and to clear a space it it. She takes the lamb package and shoves it into her bag while she walks away for the lamb seller. She goes through the entire market, and ends up buying greens, local honey, and boar sausage. She does not meet her partner again. I suppose she will see him later.
V.M.:
L.C.:
1
A guy walks into a bar, and after a while from this unintentionally perfect vantage, Michael and I both realize how transfixed we are. We do our thing for a while, cocktails in hand, chatting and unwinding on on a Friday evening at the end of a long week, but it’s impossible not to notice you sitting there, in your own little world. Where we are sitting is a kind of funny spot- when we came in, there weren’t any pairs of seats at the bar, so we were relegated to this weird long table, parallel to and the same height as the bar, directly behind it. It’s kind of a weird setup and we joked about feeling like we’re at the secondary bar for losers when we came in. But now that you are here, my new friend from afar, I realize we couldn’t be sitting in a more perfect spot so that I can spy on you. You’ve got a fitted Yankee cap with wisps of short straight hair sticking out (perhaps with intentional carelessness?), tortoise shell horn rimmed glasses, a pin striped blazer with a t shirt underneath, skinny gray pants and very dapper shoes. Your hip Manhattan Portage bike bag is slung across the back of your chair, but the other bag you have looks like it would be tough to finagle on a bike. Wedged between two sets of canoodling couples, you seem beyond indifferent with those massive black headphones connected to your iphone’s infinite universe. I can see how easy it would be to cancel the noise of this place and get lost in oblivion. You even keep them on when you go outside to pace your way through a cigarette. As you re-enter, I curiously wonder which way your androgyny leans. Your posture is striking, such a severe slouch- perhaps one of the most memorable things about you, and it doesn't seem to stop you from sporadically moving to the beat in your ears - the only clue about the soundtrack inside your world that you’re too distracted to remember to hide from us. What a strange affect you have. Your spastic actions make me question if you have a few loose screws -or maybe you’ve just had a few too many? I think you’re putting on an act... at least to some extent. Now the whiskey is gone and all you’ve got are rocks. Somehow you just managed to wordlessly settle your tab without stepping out of your headphone world and shuffle out the door. See ya.
2
Alas, have I found my next victim? I have been sitting in this overstuffed coffee shop and all of my prospects are facing the other way or leave too quickly or are joined by a companion to pop that bubble i’m looking for. But here you are, my dear new friend. I’m going to visually stalk you for the next 20 minutes and it’s gonna be great.
Hair blonde, shoulder length, pulled back halfway. Eyes blue. Muted rainbow zip front sweater, shades of brown replace the purple and blue- the textile equivalent of a beacon in this sea of neutral winter gear. But I can’t look at you too closely because you’re facing me as you jot down your notes in swirly cursive on those computer print outs you’ve got. I really want to creep on you and read what it is you’re writing, but you keep glancing around. I’m trying to decipher you’re gaze, part inward, part nervous, part pensive. but you are a tricky one- are you distracted by this room or by your own thoughts? You seem slightly uneasy- I might be, too, if I was sitting at an island of a table in the middle of the room. Actually, I was when I first got here but I pounced the second a table opened up where I could anchor my back to the wall.
With your back square to the door, you keep glancing off distractedly in the direction of the counter. Or maybe at somebody in between? Is the conversation of the chatting couple beside you catching your ear? From where I’m sitting, their voices blend into the garbled, caffeinated, jazz-laced din of the room. It almost sort of seems like you’re peeking in my direction too, but that’s ok; after all, I am creeping on you big time.
DRAT you now have company. Who are these collegey twenty-something young ladies distracting you from my spying? One of whom has dropped her bag square on my foot and still hasn’t noticed. I don’t know if you really count now that your personal bubble is floating around somewhere else, but now I’m staring at you and I want to find out your deal.
I’m trying to listen to your conversation, but that’s difficult to do between your bites of buttered bagel and the untimely noise of the grinding beans. Apparently they roast them here, too- I should come here more often. (In my perfect world where I have the time and necessity for lounging around in coffee shops with a laptop.) Right! MLK day- that’s why it’s a zoo in here.
I just heard you say something about kids relating the lessons to real life.....ok, so I think you’re a teacher of some sort, definitely for younger kids. You seem to be mentoring the two girls who’ve joined you. Gosh, that explains why you are so animated. And that handwriting.
3
Maybe i’ll have more luck with this Yanni-ish fellow who just came in. Hello sir, I’m Lindsay. I’m going to creep on you for awhile. I see you’ve got the NY Times, and a paperback- Asimov, which a quick google search tells me is sci-fi. Medium coffee, a bagel on a paper plate with a few little tubs of cream cheese, oatmeal wool sweater, black levis. your hair smells strongly of hair smell. whoa. Every time you move, it wafts over my way. Unfortunately, your back facing me enough that I’m right in the line of fire. You call a friend on your flip phone... nothing that substantial, just a “Hey, man. What’s up?”
You leaf through the Times sort of quickly and coordinate the loss of interest in a given page with nibbles of your bagel. Now that you’ve finished your bagel, it’s sci-fi time. I am still amazed by the smell of your hair...not in a positive way.
The more time you spend reading, the farther from this room you seem to become. It isn’t until two friends run into you (to your partial chagrin?) that you are pulled out of your book’s universe. You seem a little bit distracted trying to get back into it, but I’m sure you’ll make it, my time here is up.
H.S.:
People #1
Place: Coffee Exchange
(written real-time, onsite)
Place: Coffee Exchange
(written real-time, onsite)
Man with long black hair and beige wool sweater reading
Isaac Asimov. Large hot drink on
table in front of him and a cellphone that is not a PDA. Puts hand to his chin and face. Moves head to left as if to adjust a
crick in his neck. His hand
returns to his left knew. He bits
his lip while reading. He has
turned a page I his book. A person
has entered the café space near him and he glances at this man. He bites his lip and occasionally
glances up from his book.
Some more people enter café space through a door but man remains focused
on his science fiction novel. He squints his eyes and continues
to bite his lip. He looks up from
his book often. There is loud
music playing in the café a mixture of international music. Figaro’s opera, and now a Celtic harp
piece. The man glances up from his
book again. 4 minutes have
passed. He holds the book in the
same position, around one foot from his nose in his right hand. His right elbow is propped on his thigh
near his hip. The music has
changed to French cabaret music: Ella Fitzgerald singing French? He adjusts his lips onces again and
shifts his posture so that his head and right shoulder are leaning again the
wall to his right. He reads, and about
once every minute, glances up from his book to look elsewhere. He brushes the lower part of his face
with his hand as if to feel his own and skin and then rubs his eye and right
temple. He moves his left hand
back to his left thigh and reads.
He scratches his eye and yanks an eyelash. He turns a page in his book and purses his lips while
glancing away again from his book as if to say, “hm. He puts his book down.
He picks up the newspaper on his table and the empty dish and cup to
throw away in the garbage. He
returns with a cup of water. He
drinks from his cup. He stretches
with both his fingers intertwined and pushes his palms away from his torso,
then picks up his book to resume reading.
He massages the back of his neck and has moved his hand holding the book
down so that his right wrist rests on top of the table. He sits still and reads. He purses his lips and sighs. He moves his tongue inside his
mouth. He has moved his book from
his right hand to his left hand.
He scratches his head. He
moves his book back to his right hand, and leans forward so that his left elbow
is now on the table. Hi rests his
face gently on his left hand. 12
minutes have passed. He runs his
tongue along the bottom row of his teeth.
He turns a page in his book and then strokes his temple and left cheek
with his left hand. He takes a sip
from his cup and looks around the room.
15 minutes have passed. He
drinks again from his cup. He gets
up and leaves his table. 18
minutes have passed. He has gone
to the bathroom.
Place: RISD Library
People #2
(written, realtime, onsite)People #2
There are not many people in the library. I can count 8 within view. She sits in the central area that connects the circulation desk to the stacks to the main entrance. She is Asian, with glasses, around 20 years old and she reads a packet. She sits I a cushioned seat and there is no table. Her friend sits diagonally fomr her working on an ipad. She sits with her legs crossed, her winter coat is off, and her small notebook is on her seat to the left of her. She leans forward a little as her focus shifts to the bottom of the page she is reading. She turns the page. The library is very quiet. She does not speak to her friend seated next to her. She moves her lips as she reads the photocopied page in front of her. It is a packet of maybe 30 pages. She sits relatively still. 5 minutes have passed. She holds the packet the same way, with both her hands at the bottom, and her elbows resting on her torso. The pages are around a foot away from her face, near her chest. Her lips continue to mouth the words she is taking in. People enter the space. Her friend has arrived. She sits up and smiles. She quietly hands a small book to her newly arrived friend who is bundled up in a winter coat. She talks quietly to her friend laughing a little and gesturing at the packet she is reading. She nods and finishes talking to her friend who has taken the book. Her friend leaves, and she now gets up and points at a space up in the balcony area. She gathers her things and with her other friend, she moves. They move to a larger cushioned seat on the second floor with a view from a large window. She is looking at facebook on her iphone. She puts her phone down and proceeds to read her packet with a pencil that she uses to take notes. Her friend is sitting across from her now. She moves around on the chair to tuck her legs underneath and eats a cookie. She now has the packet up close to her face with her elbow propped on the high armrest. She continues to read. She has turned another page. 15 minutes have passed. She pushes her glasses up on top of her head and looks at her phone to text someone. She continues to read and turns another page.
Place: Providence Wintermarket
People #3
Transcribed Notes
Young woman with dark curly hair keeps her wool hat and coat on as she enters the building. She is with her partner, a young man with a beard but she wanders off. She immediately walks towards the stand selling tea leaves next to the entrance and stares at a jar of tea. She holds it in her hand and examines the label. The sales person greets her, and she responds by putting the jar down and smiling. She does not say much and she looks at some of the other tea leaves and walks away. She walks slowly through the crowd, being jostled a little. She looks straight ahead when she is not with her partner who occasionally wanders off. She does not accost people when she is at the stalls and touches things a lot, holds products in her hands, and gazes off into distance, not making eye contact with the sales people too often. The market is crowded and the people move slowly and gently. There is a lot of sound, and this young woman seems to block it out by just looking straight ahead. She does not turn her head much, and when she does it is quite slow and deliberate. She knows which stalls she wants to go to. She goes to the person selling lamb and asks the seller for a pack of stew meat. She smiles, nods her head and waits while the seller reaches into the cooler to find a the appropriate package. The young woman with dark curly hair goes through her large canvas bag on her left shoulder to find money and to clear a space it it. She takes the lamb package and shoves it into her bag while she walks away for the lamb seller. She goes through the entire market, and ends up buying greens, local honey, and boar sausage. She does not meet her partner again. I suppose she will see him later.
V.M.:
Small point café: The
‘French-like woman’
The small point café is my favorite
stop in the mornings before I get to class .Its a quaint little café on
Westminster Street right behind my studio, which serves the best
freshly-squeezed-orange juice and bagels.
As I sit here
drinking my orange juice I notice a woman seated comfortably on the couch
diagonally opposite from me. She sits by the large window facing the street,
sipping on her large mug of what I assume coffee, while she reads a book. Her
face remains hidden behind the book, and I cannot see her face except for the
glimpses I get when she takes a break to sip on her coffee. On the coffee table
next to her, sits a glass of water and her fur scarf. She wears tan colored
boots, olive green corduroy pants, a shirt and a jacket. She is resting on her
olive green jacket, which she has placed on the sofa. A large big canvas bag
sits at her foot. She has now lowered the book and I get to see her face. She
has blonde hair and looks very ‘French’. She has found what seems to be the
perfect corner of the café.
As she reads
her book she seems very oblivious to her surroundings. The book seems to have
taken her off on a trip and she seems very immersed in reading it, which makes
it easy for me to easily observe her. The only time she ever looks away from
her book is when she checks her watch, which she has done twice in the last 10
minutes which leads me to believe that she is waiting for someone or that she
is trying to kill some time before she has to go on her way to do something
more important than lounging around in a café. She looks away from her book
briefly to observe the girl who was sitting next to her wear her jacket and
leave .She has probably lost interest in the book that she was reading as she
begins to get distracted by the dog which is being taken for a walk outside, a
group of noisy girls who enter the café and the waitress to comes to set down
bagels at the table next to her.
As i notice more carefully I see that she has hardly been
flipping the pages of her book showing that she is not as immersed in the book
as she appears to be .The book seems to be more of a mask that she wears,
something to hide behind, as her companion, as she sits here waiting for
something or someone else more
interesting.
Kenedy Plaza: The
impatient traveler
Kenedy plaza is a square in the middle of downtown providence. It is
usually a place filled with very interesting and loud people .People who are
cold and waiting for the bus-people smoking ,laughing ,staring and having loud
and forceful conversations with other people.
I sit myself on a bench and observe a girl waiting for a bus
.By the looks of it ,she is travelling somewhere as she has a suitcase and
three large bags with her .She has a brown backpack on her back .She is huddled
into her jacket as it is extremely cold. She keeps shifting on her feet to try
and get some circulation and somehow beat the cold .She gets a phone call and
she animatedly talks to the person on the other line for about 5 minutes. Then
she continues to stare off into space, waiting for her bus to arrive. She is
probably trying to think of other warmer and happier things as she tries to
think of anything other than the cold. She is probably looking forward to the
journey that she has ahead of her. She looks like a student, so she might be
going to visit her family. She then takes out a cigarette and lights it and
begins to take long drags of it. When she is done with it, she throws it down
and stamps it out. The ‘New York bound’ Peter pan bus then arrives and she
rushes forward, after having picking up all her bags with great difficulty.
The local bus: The stressed
mother
As I sat in the RIPTA bus, a service I have become very used to as I
don’t have the luxury of owning my own car Providence, I get to see a lot of
different and interesting people. This time I went with the intention of
observing someone for the purpose of this assignment and sure enough I found a
mother of two adorable babies. The twin babies seem to be in the mood to give
their mother a tough time. As she tries to pacify one baby, the other starts to
wail. I watch as she repeatedly tries to soothe and pacify her babies, but they
are very adamant and refusing to listen to her .The mother takes out tissues to
wipe off the tears of the wailing babies. She tries to feed them with their
bottles and pacifiers, but all to no avail.
The mother looks very stressed out and embarrassed to be in
the bus, with two unruly and unwilling kids but she knows she has no choice .As
the bus comes to a halt at her stop she quickly slides out the pram from under
the seat and puts her crying babies in it and waits impatiently as the bus
driver slowly lowers the ramp of the bus out. I can make out from her
expression that she wants to leave the bus as soon as possible into the open
air where her babies’ crying would dissipate into air to a degree rather than
be confined in a small bus with people looking at her curiously. She gives a
tired smile to the people near the door and leaves the bus, relieved.
She seemed to have wanted to escape the situation and the
place but she had no choice than to sit and try to make her babies feel better.
Maybe they were hungry or maybe they were just cranky. The mother seemed very
hassled and very embarrassed by
the whole situation.
S.D.:
J.M.:
S.D.:
J.M.:
“Books on the Square” bookstore
A young man sits on a wicker loveseat at the front of the
store near the window. He is wearing blue/gray pants, gray Nike sneakers, and a
black and green winter ski jacket over a tan turtleneck sweater. He is sitting
alone with his smart phone in hand. He appears to be texting. He is gently
rocking back and forth. The store phone rings and he briefly looks up
acknowledging the sound, but immediately returns to his own phone. Soon after
he briefly looks up again and makes eye contact with me. He looks away
directing his gaze out of the window behind him and then at a woman in a leopard
print fur jacket looking at books. He then returns to his phone. He is now
looking at a map on his phone. He moves the map with this finger. After a while
he begins to rock back and forth again. Another person walks into the store and
a chime goes off as the door closes softly. The man looks up again and then
back at his phone. He seems to be trying to locate a place on the map. He turns
his feet inwards and on their sides. A woman with two large bags of potato
chips in a CVS bag tightens her grip on the bag causing a rustling sound. The
man looks up again and then back to his phone. The woman with the potato chips
sits down next to the man and they acknowledge one another in a different
language. They talk briefly and then the woman begins to read her book and the
man returns to looking at the map on his phone. They sit quietly for a while
and then each begins to speak to the other again. They talk, but do not make
eye contact. The woman continues to look at her book and the man at his phone.
The woman gets up to put the book back and the couple exits the book store. The
man continues looking at his phone and gets his jacket caught on the door on
the way out of the store.
The man seemed to be preoccupied with knowing how to get
where he was going. Although at points he was able to go into his personal
bubble he was often pulled out of it by what was going on around him in the
bookstore. I speculated that the couple was killing time before going to a
friend’s house warming party. They bought the bags of potato chips for the
party and decided to stop by the bookstore since they were running a bit early.
While the woman looked at books, the man tried to locate the friend’s new house
on MapQuest.
L’Artisan
Café
A man sits at a café table near a window. He has long blonde
hair almost to his chin and a short beard. He is wearing gray pants, a tan and
orange argyle sweater, gray sneakers with bright green soles, two scarves; one
is in a tan and brown herringbone print and the other scarf is electric blue. An
empty bowl of soup sits on the table in front of him. His plaid hat and a book rest
on the table as well. He is writing something on a paper and he just placed it
in his camel and gray backpack on the chair next to him. He is now reading
additional papers. He picks the papers up and begins flipping through them
furrowing his brow. He continues to hold his papers, but briefly looks out the
window. He appears to be in deep thought, but then turns his back towards the
window and returns to reading his papers. He makes a mark on one page. He puts
his hand to his mouth as if deep in thought again. He continues to read. He
looks out the window again. A woman sitting at the table behind him returns to
her seat. He seems visibly distracted by this. He looks back at her and her
friend. He turns back to his table and puts down his papers. He again begins to
gaze out of the window. He then takes a sip from his coffee which is in a Starbucks
paper cup. Obviously he does not like the coffee at this café either. I think
he sense that I am looking at him, but he continues to look out of the window.
I speculated that the man was working on something related
to his job. He didn’t seem to be writing a paper. He was doing a lot of
reading. I’m not exactly sure what he was reading so it is difficult to say
what kind of work he does. He seemed to be challenged by what he was reading.
He furrowed his brow a couple of times and a number of times turned to look out
of the window. I suspect he was thinking about what he had read and trying to
make sense of it. Unlike the man I observed in the bookstore, this man stayed in his personal bubble the entire time that I
observed him.
“Restoration
Hardware” in Providence Place Mall
(I decided to observe an employee rather than a shopper.) A
tall young guy wearing dark blue jeans, a light blue button down shirt, and a
bright blue cardigan stands behind the counter. He obviously works for
Restoration Hardware, but is staring blankly out at the crowd in the mall.
Eventually he snaps out of his gaze and moves from behind the counter. He first
goes to a table and picks up a knick knack briefly looking at it and then puts
it back. He moves further into the store and grabs onto the back of an upholstered
dining chair with his right hand. He stands there for a while gripping the back
of the chair staring out at the crowd in the mall. He eventually moves further
towards the front of the store and begins tapping an end table with his pointer
finger. He taps it in a consistent rhythm as he looks out into the mall. People
walk in front of the man, but he is not fazed. However, one woman walks behind
him and his tapping pauses as she passes by him. Once she has passed by and
exited the store his tapping resumes. He stares a bit longer at nothing in
particular. He begins to walk slowly to the back of the store. As he circles
back to the front of the store he touches something hanging from the ceiling.
He returns to the area behind the counter and begins looking at the computer
screen on the counter. He begins scrolling through some text on the screen, but
doesn’t appear to be reading it.
I speculated that this employee was fairly new to the job. He and his
co-workers didn’t chat at all during the time that I was in the store. I also
predicted that his shift was almost over and he was anxious to leave, but also
kind of tired from his shift. He looked like he was in his 20’s and I thought
he might be a college student who works part time for extra cash. Since it was
a Sunday evening I thought perhaps he had work to do after his shift was over
and he was feeling restless thinking about it. Similarly to the man I observed
in the bookstore, this man would seem to be deep in his personal bubble and
then would be abruptly pulled out of it by something going on around him.
D.R.:
exactly 3:00 Starbucks, January 14th
-every seat full
-girl sitting on floor near fireplace
-when i came in she was sleeping with her head on her laptop on the coffee table
-by the time i sat down she had opened it and was looking
-had to snipe a table from two adorable old men (who had been there for an hour and knew that someone was gonna jump their table as soon as they got up - which we joked about)
-a few times she looked over the top and we made eye contact (oops)
-made a kind of funny slanty eyed face at an old man when he stood up to re-angle his large cushy chair cause the sun was lowering and now in his eyes
-looks like probably a brown student
-harvard tshirt
-dark hair pulled back with messy bangs
-big thick granny glasses
-ski jacket
-those awful swishy sports pants
-a binder and a few folders
-3:07 closed laptop got up and sat on fireplace edge, looking suuuper sleepy
-yawned
-looked around watching people
-another old man leaves and she grabs his chair
-3:09 covered herself completely with jacket, slumped over to her left and went to sleep (with laptop in laptop bag on lap)
-3:16 a little boy used her leg as a balance as he walked by, she peered out then went back to sleep
-3:38 leaving, she's still asleep
- saw jillian on my way out
-every seat full
-girl sitting on floor near fireplace
-when i came in she was sleeping with her head on her laptop on the coffee table
-by the time i sat down she had opened it and was looking
-had to snipe a table from two adorable old men (who had been there for an hour and knew that someone was gonna jump their table as soon as they got up - which we joked about)
-a few times she looked over the top and we made eye contact (oops)
-made a kind of funny slanty eyed face at an old man when he stood up to re-angle his large cushy chair cause the sun was lowering and now in his eyes
-looks like probably a brown student
-harvard tshirt
-dark hair pulled back with messy bangs
-big thick granny glasses
-ski jacket
-those awful swishy sports pants
-a binder and a few folders
-3:07 closed laptop got up and sat on fireplace edge, looking suuuper sleepy
-yawned
-looked around watching people
-another old man leaves and she grabs his chair
-3:09 covered herself completely with jacket, slumped over to her left and went to sleep (with laptop in laptop bag on lap)
-3:16 a little boy used her leg as a balance as he walked by, she peered out then went back to sleep
-3:38 leaving, she's still asleep
- saw jillian on my way out
R.D.:
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