Woman bending down, hands sliding down front of jeans, to address — a child or a dog? (I change my line of sight to get a better view of the entity addressed: a child.) “Instinctively, to appear less threatening, we lower ourselves to the level of those we address,” is thought.
A shout in the street evoking briefly a moment from James Brown’s Live at the Appollo recording (heh heh! I feel alright)
Spontaneously asking a person if she needed help. Not something I usually do, even at the risk of seeming discourteous or inhumane, particularly with a young woman, where “the implicature is especially fraught” — and because people in the U.S. simply don’t want help in the absence of some exceptionally obvious desperate need … “Need a hand?” I say, totally and honestly spontaneous. “Oh no thank you,” she says — well, of course she doesn’t, because America and “Implicature.” (“Implicature” — what is meant by this offer of assistance? Does it mean that it looks like I need help? Does it mean he thinks I can’t do without help? Does it mean he wants something other than to help?)
Workman cutting through concrete pipe segment. Making it the project of a moment to understand the drift of the dust his work creates.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 