Mille pas

About four years ago I had a Eureka moment triggered by frustration with my original dissertation project. I realized that
... my favorite writers make the city one of their subjects
... art, especially photography, to me is at its most fascinating when it deals with city lives, sites, and faces (some of my favorite artists, such as Andy Goldsworthy or Richard Long, notwithstanding)
... I really like densely populated places (if I also get to look at an ocean or a couple of mountains every once in a while)
... I must have walked thousands of miles in cities over the years
... there's no point in spending a lot of time thinking and writing about something I'm not excited about.

Then I wrote an outline for a dissertation on city walking, space, and memory in the novels and non-fiction of Paul Auster, Peter Kurzeck, and Iain Sinclair. I'm almost done with it, and there are about half a dozen new projects I can't wait to start working on.

There's also photography, which started as a by-product of my walks and has turned into my "second hustle," with art shows and sales and a web site.

And there are many notes and thoughts that never found a place in the dissertation. Some of them will go here. I'm going to use this blog to share good stuff I come across and to try out some ideas. I'll keep a list of links to artworks, movies, music, and whatever else has a city/walking/space/psychogeography connection, which includes maps and labyrinths especially.

I'm naming the blog Of Cities, after the excellent DJ Signify album that came out around the time I set it up.