An Urban Ethnography
photos: (top left) The man sits on the aisle so no one can sit next to him and avoids all eye contact; (bottom right) Disembarking with a purpose
Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 4.1 (2008)
ISSN 1557-2935
Renee Human
University of Kentucky
Field notes and photos
Guy with journal
Thursday, August 30, 1:55pm
I wait at the stop to take the bus home from UK [the University of Kentucky]. A monster of a man sits down on the grass about five yards from me. He pulls a journal out of his backpack and begins to write. After about five minutes, he looks up and checks his watch. Seeking a conversational entreé, I quip “the bus must be late again” with a smile. “Yep,” he says with barely a look in my direction and returns to his writing. The bus arrives a minute later, he puts his journal away and steps on the bus ahead of me.
September 11, 2007, 11:10am
Just a little less than two weeks later and he’s back on the bus, this time we’re on the inbound bus. This time I have my camera and I snap a photo as he looks out the window. The reflection of light in his glasses is menacing, but the heightened space above his head due to the angle of the photo makes him appear smaller.
When it’s time to get off (at the same
stop), I snap another quick photo, but this time, he appears to be bearing down on me. I say thanks to the driver on the way out the door, my giant says nothing.