I love walking to Madison Square Park during my breaks in between classes and listening to a podcast or reading book while eating my lunch. Sometimes though, the “theater of social action” distracts me from my solitary acts. It can be nearly as interesting to people watch or pretend to listen to music while listening intently to a conversation of people sitting on the bench next to me or start talking to a stranger. It’s interesting to think about how the city seems to be so interesting and diverse in people, thoughts and actions by nature, but when I think about it- the people of the city are operating under the guise that strangers are watching them, at least this is how I feel. I am always watching people and am interested in what music the person next to me on the train is listening to or what book they’re reading or what language they’re texting people in on their phone. This in turn makes me hyper aware of what I am doing and how I am presented to others. In sociology this phenomenon is called civil inattention, when someone is trying to communicate something to the people around them, but at the same time they are trying to appear as if they are not. If it is a fact that we all do this, why don’t we just let down our guards and speak to each other?
The day that I went to Madison Square Park for this project there was a lot going on. There were people spotted across the lawn on the north side of the park who all had large portable easels. They were scattered around, apart from each other for the most part but some people were sitting in pairs. Everyone was sketching the trees and the buildings jutting out from behind them. I asked one person what they were there for, he said that they were in a class together but didn’t further elaborate. I thought to myself, would these people have come here alone? Is it because they are part of a group that they feel more comfortable letting their guard down and spending a prolonged period of time at the park? Do they feel like they are a part of a “collective unity” as Lewis Mumoford says?
I couldn’t find a comfortable spot to sit on the lawn so I walked over to the benches and sat down. I overheard a woman speaking loudly to her friend about her identity as a bisexual woman and a recent relationship she had with another woman. I was going to start reading but I decided to listen to their conversation instead. It was really interesting to hear what she was saying because I felt like her ideas about sexuality were a lot different from mine, probably because she was a bit older than me. I pondered Mumford’s idea of the city as something more than just a collection of people, I thought about how similar I was to the people around me, but also so different in very stark ways. I thought about an interaction I had with an older lady a few weeks ago in the park. I was sitting and eating salad when the woman who had been sitting next to me got my attention and complimented me on my tupperware. Before I knew it, we were talking about where we grew up and what we wanted to do with our lives. It was strange to me how I might’ve thought I was more similar to the woman talking about her relationship to her friend at first because we were both white queer women who dressed similarly, but I ended up having more to talk about with the woman who complimented my tupperware. The city is more than just a million and a half people crammed onto an island, we are all performers and we are all audience members at the same time- we become art because we are being watched. We may all be working towards different things, but we all would have something to say to one another if given the chance.
