Psychogeography

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Comment by Marka Smith on July 8, 2010 at 12:22am

One summer I traveled from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest (USA) down to the Mojave Desert, and then on a big diagonal up to Mount Desert Island, Maine. My travels were directed by going into libraries in every town, finding the biggest dictionary I could, and randomly selecting a word or two as a clue. But the most interesting aspect of the journey was that in each place along the way, from beginning to end, there was a synchronistic message about Maya Deren, the avant-garde film-maker who was initiated into Haitian Voudoun and died the year I was born. The final place on the journey was the most amazing. I was in a little town called Blue Hill, Maine, sitting in a car while waiting for laundry to dry, turned on the radio and heard one of her actual recordings from Haiti from the 1940's.! The things I was given ranged from a poster from one of her movies, to an Anais Nin diary with entries about time she spent at Maya's place in NYC, to the word Maya written in the concrete on the sidewalk in Sedona, AZ. I never did quite understand the "reason" other than perhaps she was trying to contact me from the Other Side. Any thoughts???

Comment by John Rouse on June 3, 2009 at 11:29pm

during a recent visit to kuala lumpur i got into a little psychogeography with fellow create culture members amy, linda beck, and jeremy beck. please post your own psychogeography adventures as a reply to this forum post.

starting at jalan hang lekir in kuala lumpur's chinatown........
tails-left past the sugarcane stall and what appears to be coconut milk for sale on this hot, hot, day. tempting but we move on,
tails-left past the fruit stand, lychees everywhere,
heads-right past a catholic school all the kids are leaving in their school uniforms and then we come to a dead end.......
heads-after retracing our steps we are back to buy lychees (5 ringgits for 1 kilo) and this time we take a.......
heads-right thru a narrow, shaded food alley where 5 or 6 people are preparing pork buns on open tables.....
tails-left down a wider, yet still narrow alley, where a guy is welding and incense burns in a small shrine,
straight-after some discussion linda overrules the coin (we are supposed to go left) and we continue straight,
straight-thru the red like district, who knew?, in a back alley women sit in small rooms with dim red lighting to the right, men sit at small tables to the left selling pills and time with the women?
heads-right thru another alley,
heads-right on petaling st we stop in several stores to examine cheap sunglasses, wigs, and sponge bob attire,
left-on a busier street, there is more traffic now and it is hot!
right-thru an alley that turns into a covered market w/food offered...here we see "hotel aroma" which offers a sauna and karoke, we also see ducks, black chickens for making soup, intestines, and lots of yummy things offered for lunch,
left-more traffic and more heat,
right-we walk down a side street past vendors selling jasmine flower necklaces for offering at the hindu temple,
right-past a parking garage, watch out for the motorbike!
right-back on petaling st., you want cheap sunglasses sir?, linda bargins down the price for a nice dress, i have an ice kacang - red bean ice. made from read beans, sweetcorn, lots of shave ice.

then we seek air conditioning.

Comment by Amy on June 3, 2009 at 11:27pm

took the B train to the grand street station in chinatown and started at forsyth & grand.....
heads-right on forsyth watched some handball in the park-must be senior skipday all the highschool students are out enjoying the nice weather, no learning today...
tails-left on hester walked around the track in front of pace high school-nice track....
tails-left on elridge,
heads-right on grand
tails-left on allen,
tails-left on broome overwhelming urine smell,
tails-left eldridge stopped on the dumpling house for a nice meal of shrimp dumplings and honeydew bubble tea,
heads-right on grand,
heads-right on forsyth,
tails-left on broome watched some tai chi in the park and watched a bunch of people watch people doing tai chi in the park (tai chi groupies)....
tails-left on chryste,
heads-right on grand walked by a market with fish so fresh it was still flopping around taking their last gasps of air,
tails-left on bowery,
heads-right on hester,
tails-left on elizabeth,
tails-left on canal saw the aftermath of a yellow cab car crash with espiga de oro bakery truck,
tails-left on bowery,
heads-right on canal walked by the pawnbroker hotdog stand where you could get a hot dog for 92 cents, that's right 92, you can pawn something then pickup the hotdog special,
tails-left on chrystie past a place that makes neon signs....will have to get one made one of these days,
heads-right on hester,
tails-left on eldridge,
tails-left on grand,
heads-right on forsyth,
heads-right on broome past zheng yin buddhist temple where incense was being burned in honor or ancestors deceased,
tails-left on eldridge blissfully ate a chocolate banana puff from panade next to fuan gong temple of u.s.a. until i was showered with dirty water from above being used to clean the fire escape......loved my psychogeography date....

who's up next?