----- Original Message ----- From: Sam Pawlett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2000 4:02 AM Subject: [CrashList] The Future "So going somewhere where there is very little motor traffic can be a revelation, even when this lack is not so much planned but produced by economic strangulation. There are few places where a major city can be experienced without the assaults of the internal combustion engine, but Cuba is one. Lying awake listening to the sounds of Havana, you have the impression of being in a vast dormitory. Only an occasional engine masks the tapestry of sound woven near and far of peoples' voices and animals' cries. While in most cities the life of the place is blanketed out by the monotonous drone of traffic, here the complex spaces seem alive with incident. The remarks of your neighborhood are distinct. Crowing cockerels wake you in the morning, and in the soft light you can feel the city stretch. At night artificial light is scarce. The city has protective darkness thrown over it, lifted in some areas only by candles and oil lamps from open windows, in others by occasional electric lamps which dramatically highlight some crumbling coloumn or portico, while throwing the area around it into it is the people and particular sounds that seize the attention against a background of deep silence. "Daylight reveals a disintegrating city of grand colonial palaces and mansions, impresssive in scale and detail, inherited by the poor, who nowlive in a chaotic and ramshackle splendor. Each doorway is a porch and each workplace open to gaze. People treat the street as their home, and it returns their intimacy and warmth. Children wander freely and without fear. They play hide and seek in and out of the doorways, or around skips and giant 1950's cars beached on the curb; or they careen down the streets on makeshift go carts. Even hardships are remade as virtues by these people; petrol shortages have led to the rule of the bicycle each one precariously carrying two or three people over potholes and obstructions, their warning bells rung assidiously. "Cuba's strong sense of community life is of course based on many other factors besides the lack of motor traffic. Nevertheless it is important that here streets are no longer merely roads, where people pass but do not stop and where no one can afford distraction (on pain of death), but rather a common ground on to which homes exit, a place owned and used by people. In surrendering this to the car, we have unwittingly given up a precious asset, owned by no one and everyone, andin doing so have altered every facet of our own lives." *Gargantua*.Julian Stallabras. Verso.1996.p131-2. Sam Pawlett _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
