No
moon, no people. Black starless sky all around sinking into fog sinking into
wet, shiny streets on which my rubber-soled feet make no sound, silent invisible
me, sliding past the city again. Down the hill and down the tunnels to the
station. MORDEN via BANK 4 min. Sitting down next to a couple of
Japanese
kids, staring up at the empty ad spaces on the wall, rough squares of torn paper
showing through many layers of removed ads. Thinking about
Jorge Rodriguez de
Gerada, the 'citizen artist' in
New York who made an
installation showing a
child's face, painted in rust on an ad
billboard, as if the face had been
there and had been smothered by years and years of images perpetually burying
it,
branding it. Here I stare at the empty space, and imagine with what I would
fill it. But I can't think of anything meaningful, only funny
stuff...
The train arrives: wedge self and backpack into seat, start
reading
Invisible Cities again, disappear into fabulous realms of magical
places. Then someone claps both hands together loudly, almost in my ear
-
"Oi!" shouts he. "I know you're not supposed to talk on the train,
BUT!"
and he pulls a bow, and introduces himself. He's a
street artist. He
announces that he's going to give us a poem, and does, at full volume over the
rumble of the train. The shouting is somehow uncomfortable in the cramped space.
A few weak grins appear in the crowded carriage (except for one girl at the end,
who is smiling rapturously) while the face of the poet contorts with the effort
of making himself heard, twisted stretched sinews bunching round his jaw. The
poem is perfectly timed to last the two and a half minutes between this and the
next station. It's about travelling by tube. It's not totally awful, but it's
not good either. The train stops, some of the
captive audience escape. The poet
exhorts them not to, and explains that this is his job, this is what he does,
entertains the people of
London. The people of London smile weakly again as he
whips out a suitcase, opens it on brightly coloured balls and proceeds to
juggle. It's a good feat of balance, with the train moving. It gets a little
applause. Then the hat goes round.
"Pay me what I'm worth," he yells. I dig
in my pocket and find 500 yen, an Australian 50 cent piece and 7p. He gets
the 7p. Everyone else in the row coughs up politely, and off he gets, to find
another train.
Back home round the tea table the story comes out and I realise it reminds me
of school concerts, trapped in a hard chair forced to listen politely to
alarmingly tuneless clarinet solos and stumbling recitals, making stickman
animations flipbook style on the corners of my hymnbook to ease the twitchy
fidgety boredom. I love the concept of street art, I applaud the intention: but
the reality of the train poet was uncomfortable and boring. I can't work
out if it was because the poem was bad, or unsuited to the small space, or just
because we were captive, and had not chosen to listen. Does it have to be good,
to be art? Or is the intention, of random chaotic intervention, enough in
itself?