Public Space

1)      Summary: The cluster Public Space is about what is public space. It talks about the different kinds of space. Such as “transit space” it is places where you stop from one place to another. Examples are: elevators, airports, trains, bus stations, and parking lots etc. Also in the cluster, there is an essay Nowhere Man by Pico Lyer he talks about the generation called “[…] transcontinental tribe of wanders […]” where nothing was strange, they were guest in their own homes, and the airport felt more like home to them. In another essay, personal essay, in the cluster called Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power To Alter Public Space by Brent Staples in his essay he talks about how he alters other peoples space in public. Depending on different situations he can alter people’s space in public and have them feel as if he is invading their space.

2)      Summary/Analysis: Nowhere Man by Pico Lyer

In this essay it is about the people who travel, their home is never set it’s a day by day kind of life style. A life style with a lot of airports, lobbies, trains and buses they spend a lot of time in transit space, the space between place A and place B.  What I thought was interesting about this essay is when he states how it was normal for him to have his closest friends around the world and his girlfriend a ten hour flight away. Most people would not find this kind of lifestyle normal, most people need that one place that is home, where their friends are, and family is and everything is familiar. The life of a “Transit Lounger” their home is around the world, they like a “[…] sense of freedom and mobility […]”.  There was a quote in the essay that caught my attention and it is “But there are some of us, perhaps, sitting at the departure gate, boarding passes in hand, who feel neither the pain of separation nor the exultation of wonder; who alight with the same emotions with which we embarked; who go down to the baggage carousel and watch our lives circling, circling, circling waiting to be claimed” This quote means to that there might be some of these people moving from place to place because there is nothing keeping them there. That maybe they are moving from place to place to find someone or something that will “claim” them.