-----Original Message-----
From: david bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
To: brit poets <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 01:03
Subject: Re: Place, Locality, Environment
David writes:
> that apart, i do echo positively and recurringly to the remarks about
>walking & thereby mapping a place - if i'm just driven about a somewhere i
>come away feeling i don't know this place, whereas if i walk it .....
>am interested too, of the many facets of this remarkable thread, in the
>notion of place as speech,
>
>
>Fair enough but why do you and all the others writing seem to think that
cars EXCLUDE walking, exploring. There are places you just don't get to on
foot. When I was learning to drive half the time was spent jumping out the
car (after I had signalled correctly and stopped of course) in parts of
Sheffield we didn't know existed. It was/is a marvellous adventure to turn
a corner and be confronted with architectural oddities, hidden oases or
Beirut-like landscapes that we just would never have walked through unless
we had either a gun or a car for a quick getaway. As for the countryside
most of it is simply inaccesible without a car. You all seem to be talking
as if once in a car you can't stop the damn thing, open the door and walk
away. You can, I learnt how to do it on my first lesson. The car can take
you past the familiar, past the public transport routes, past the limitation
of ones footslog ability into the unknown. So rather than being a
hinderance to personal mapmaking it really is quite the opposite.
Geraldine
>
>
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