Sometimes it is wonderful to go for a (moon)walk by yourself through the night city.

is not a modular space- adapting to host a variety of activities; but a variety of activities adapting to the diverse spaces offered to us by sympathetic property owners, shop owners, squatters, buurtcentrums, and artists: like-minded people with a burning desire to see the cohesion of the neighborhood grow. Together we can critically examine our surroundings, create new relationships with our neighbors, and revel in the knowledge of each others perspective.

If you are in Amsterdam Saturday, April 23, check out their kickoff event!

Last week, my friend Tom Croll-Knight, sent out this recording, which was played on the BBC. Tom is a researcher, sound artist, producer and DJ, currently living in Paris and working on the doctorate in Human Geography at The University of Sheffield, UK.

This particular recording includes his field recordings of various locations in Paris, along with his own commentary, in rhyme no less!

Listen up:

Now this is urban research we can all get down with!

I remember Harry where I met him, in his berth behind the piano at Arturo’s, the pizzeria-restaurant-bar, on Houston Street. A non-musician, I can only appreciate the steadiness of his time, his soulfulness. Also there was that pile of books, filled with markers and notes that sat on the piano, evidence of his voracious appetite for books. Histories, biographies, philosophy–Harry read a lot. Musicians appreciated his flights of mind, the way he took them high, and kept them there. “Everytime he played, the music was fresh, new. He never played the same old shit. I can’t say that about too many people,” says Itai Kriss, who played frequently with the great pianist. Harry was a real teacher, what Jacques Ranciere might call an ignorant school teacher: one who shares his knowledge openly, without imposing relationships of inequality on his students. He taught without his students knowing he was teaching. He taught them how to be free, by being emancipated himself. Most important, Harry was a sharp wit:

“I’m having fun, this is the best time of my life. I love music and I’m passionate about it. It took me a long time to realize this is what I want to do, I just need to keep working on it. Money is no problem, it’s about how do you want to make the money.” Whitaker laughs, warming to his subject. “I’m a runaway slave. I ain’t in the kitchen, I ain’t in the fields picking cotton, I ran away and they have to come and get me! I’m doing what I want to do.”

–Harry Whitaker

for more about Harry’s life and work, visit waxpoetics.

Emotional landscapes,
They puzzle me,
Then the riddle gets solved,
And you push me up to this

State of emergency,
How beautiful to be,
State of emergency,
Is where I want to be.

(If the video won’t play, click “Watch on youtube”)

In his song “Ebonics,” is the entirety of a kind of Harlem life.

At first it appears that the song is a short dictionary—a brief English-to-“criminal slang” guide–aimed at beginners.

Yo pay attention/And listen real closely how I break this slang shit down

He proceeds through a list:

Weed smoke=lye
Ki(lo) of coke = pie
Lifted=High
Cars=whips
Sneakers=kicks

But as the list goes on it seems that what I am hearing is the story of a day in one life, the parameters of an entire world. A list of words, definitions, everyday objects, places, situations, his body and yours:

Burglary=jook
Wolf=crook
Sweat box = small club
AIDS=germ
Angel dust=sherm
Relax=max
Heart=Tick

This is not a simple list. The cadence of his voice—fast, insistent, yet never out of breath, deliberate, could-go-on-forever, the sound of New York—its energy and intelligence, makes my tick stop at times. This happens especially when his voice rises and speeds until it creates an entire picture, suggests another sound, places me where he is. Example:

The iron horse is the train/And champagne is bubbly

The words on the page, as empty and soundless as they are, still remind me of standing high above the street at the top of an elevated train platform made of crossed metal bars, wood and cement, in the winter. My body is shaking with the wind chill, tipsiness left over from a night out, the force of the train approaching at top speed, and the skyline is glowing. All of this is in those lines, his voice, and the beat.

Listen real closely while Big L breaks it down

So while you imitatin’ Al Capone

I’ll be Nina Simone

And defecatin’ on your microphone

–Lauryn Hill

“Sinister Resonance begins with the premise that sound is haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location in space is ambiguous and whose existence in time is transitory. The intangibility of sound is uncanny–a phenomenal presence both in the head, at its point of source and all around–so never entirely distinct from auditory hallucinations. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there. Listening, after all, is always a form of eavesdropping.”

Book review coming soon. Stay tuned.