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Play in the City 2013
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
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Welcome to the on-line conversation for Play in the City, an Emily Balch Seminar offered in Fall 2013 @ Bryn Mawr College, in which we are addressing the question of how we construct, experience, and learn in the act of play. How is play both structured by the environment in which it occurs, and how might it re-structure that space, unsettling and re-drawing the frame in which it is performed? This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's not a site for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts." It's a place for thoughts-in-progress, for what you're thinking (whether you know it or not) on your way to what you think next. Imagine that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking. The idea here is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours. |
Who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in our course. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. You're writing for yourself, for others in the class, AND for others you might or might not know. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of LOTS of people. The web is giving increasing reality to the idea that there can actually evolve a world community, and you're part of helping to bring that about. We're glad to have you along, and hope you come to both enjoy and value our shared explorations. Feel free to comment on any post below, or to POST YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.
![ecohn's picture ecohn's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1259.jpg)
The City and Me
I grew up with a backyard and peaceful, quiet nights. I grew up climbing trees and driving fifteen minutes just to go to the store. I grew up knowing my neighbors and loving my community. I guess I grew up in the “suburbs”.
Although cities are foreign to me, I find myself to be increasingly comfortable with their quirks and characteristics. The notion of public transportation has grown on me, and I love how every necessity is only a short walk away. However, I don’t think I will ever adjust to the apathy when it comes to nature. I don’t understand how city dwellers can live for months without seeing a real forest.
North Carolina is different. Great pine trees grow everywhere they can, and no one wants to replace them with noisy highways. Also in North Carolina, however, there are some less appealing qualities. Public transit, although free, is equivalent to a horse and carriage—not frequently seen or used. In addition to this flaw, my hometown is pretty quiet.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina has over fifty-five retirement communities, and considering how small the town is, that is a considerable amount of the population who is past their partying prime. The only “hot spot” in Chapel Hill is Franklin Street, the main street near the local college. There, some stores are even open past nine!
![pbernal's picture pbernal's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1261.jpg)
The Melting Pot
Jessica Bernal
Play in the City ESEM
The Melting Pot
http://assets.upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/advice/puzzle_pieces-teamwork-shutter-UBJ*580.jpg?v=1
As human beings, it is in our nature to clinch to conformity. We pursue crowds in society in which we can associate ourselves and find resources available to our daily needs. We seek not only a friendly welcoming, but also a challenge to explore and venture through everything society can offer to its people. Without the voice of the people, there’s nothing worth establishing. Skyscrapers, restaurants, public transportations, schools, and etc. physically construct a city, but without people, without soul and diversity it means nothing. A city is a puzzle and the people are its pieces, without a piece you cannot put a city together, you cannot call it a city.
![Yancy's picture Yancy's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1278.jpg)
the city in my heart
The city is a limited area where people can live, trade, inherit and create culture. In the original, hominids gathered together to hunt, collect and make original deal because of the environment forced them to do so. At that time, because of the limitation of technology, they didn’t have enough power to resist wild animals which may threaten their lives. More people represented higher survival rate, because they had more power to keep safety and hunt. With the development of science and technology, the threat of environment became smaller, and they still gathered for different reasons, one of which was economy. They looked for more resources from other people to satisfy their living needs and tackled emergency. Basic financial trades appeared and developed, more and more people took part in and finally formed a steady area to trade and live in-a city.
![tomahawk's picture tomahawk's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1255.jpg)
"Let's go to the city!"
Every week during the Summer of 2012, Daniel would text me, “Let’s go into the city.” It was always spur of the moment. Immediately, we would bike to the train station and wait for the soonest train. Once it arrived, we would sit down and begin to discuss almost everything, from poetry to politics. Yet, there were two things we never spoke of: the city and what we would do in it. We did not talk about the city because its diversity gave us a variety of topics to consider; it was the place where events occurred, without being an event itself. Furthermore, we never proposed an activity because it would ruin the spontaneity we sought.
In my opinion, the phrase “Let’s go into the city,” is significant. Just this morning at breakfast, my friend said the same words to me. I immediately agreed. But, if my friend or Daniel recommended that we got to Safeway, I would probably say, “OK! Why?” Going to the city (unlike driving to Safeway) does not need an explanation or a plan: two things that have very different implications. The idea of “the city” alone appeals to us so we never need a reason to go. Simultaneously, the security that a plan gave us seemed unnecessary; the thought of “the city” is a fun and innocuous one.
![](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/imagecache/featured_450px/haight-ashbury-sign-san-francisco-139-1.jpg)
![clarsen's picture clarsen's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1258.jpg)
The Cloisters
My mother introduced me to art after she and my father got divorced thinking it would be a therapeutic and meaningful way for me to release my feelings. As a toddler, she ensured we visited MOMA, The MET, El Museo del Barrio, The Guggenheim, and The Museum of Natural History often. My favorite by far, however, was The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and home to one of the largest medieval art collections in the world. I spent the majority of my childhood living in Washington Heights where The Cloisters was located. Manhattan, to me, is synonymous with medieval art and more specifically with the works exhibited at The Cloisters.
Although I was born in Midtown Manhattan, I soon after moved to Texas with my mother and father. After they divorced, however, my mother and I moved uptown to Washington Heights where I made some of my earliest memories and experiences with New York City. My favorite event by far was “The Medieval Festival”, hosted by The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park, where I saw jousting, puppet shows, jesters, and live music. It was certainly the flame that ignited my love of medieval festivities and art.
![Samantha Plate's picture Samantha Plate's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1270.jpg)
Is The City My Home?
Samantha Plate
Play In The City
09/07/2013
Is The City My Home?
When asked where I live I often tell people “I live just outside of Philly.” Philadelphia is a well-known city and it is easier to pinpoint than my small town of Holland. But in reality, I have no real claim to Philadelphia. I feel like a tourist in my own “home town”. In fact, my friends and I took a sight-seeing trip to Philadelphia this summer. We did all the touristy things: we took the Big Bus Tour, ran up the Rocky steps, visited the LOVE statue and went to museums. It was then that I realized I had only been to Philadelphia a few times in my life and I had never really experienced it. I couldn’t really call this city my home.
![](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/imagecache/featured_450px/stock-vector-suburban-houses-in-neighborhood-and-big-city-48018988.jpg)
![Cathy Zhou's picture Cathy Zhou's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1256.png)
The change of the city
I had a very vague impression about my city when I was younger. I spent most of my time in the neighborhood area with my peers, and my whole world was around those little corners: the grassland in front of our apartment, a little candy shop across the street, grandpa’s bike, and little toys got from KFC. When the holiday came up, my parents would take me downtown, for a good restaurant, a reward from the mall’s showcase, or a crowded festival that could fill a child’s eyes with happiness.
Then I turned five, my family decided to send me to an elementary school downtown, where I got closer to “the city”.
That time the city is a small city, a place known for spicy food, beautiful weather, old museums and tea houses. Cars are not widely affordable; people wander from streets to streets, if getting tired, they would stop by a tea house and have a rest. Sometimes I would peep from my classroom on 3rd floor, where I see a glance of “city”. The center of the city locates two blocks away from my school, which is a square surrounded by a sports center and a few shopping centers, crowded with people from inside and outside. Everyone looks forth to their destination, with a either desperate or hopeful anticipation, and therefore moves along. The old buildings, the tea houses, and the sparkling traffic lights filled my 6 years.
And it changes rapidly as the time passes.
![Grace Zhou's picture Grace Zhou's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1264.jpg)
chengdu, I LOVE YOU.
Chengdu, with more than 2300 years old, builds a strong culture affecting every generation. We live and enjoy like people did before. I want to show you an image with history, people, nature and development.
At front of image, you can see the vendors peddling their homemade cookies, vegetables and elegant pendants on the sides of narrow roads, with the rickshaw pullers carefully rush around; you can see the people with different ages sitting beside the river, enjoying some tea, and shaking the fans softly. You can see tea, mahjong and hotpot everywhere. People see tranquility in tea culture, happiness and excitement in mahjong, and comfort in hotpot to adjust the mild weather in Chengdu. Still, You don’t want to miss hundreds of condiments made from various chilies and flower pepper in the market. They are so hot, red and exciting. Also, you can see the adorable pandas sitting in their house and enjoying “delicious” bamboo. You can see the history here. This image has a city which invented the first paper money in world, owned the residence of the poet Dufu from Tang dynasty, got the earliest water conservancy program in the world.
![playcity23's picture playcity23's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1273.jpg)
Oh City, My City!
Geneva
If I’m going to tell you what my definition of what a city is, my personal style dictates that I use an original and slightly unconventional metaphor for it. This one was thought up today whilst I was burning calories in the pool.
Imagine a bowl half-filled with water.
Now imagine this bowl with blue food coloring diffused coloring in it. It’s a pretty shade of lavender. There is no obvious nucleus where the color leaks from because you’ve stirred the bowl to avoid this.
Next, you carefully place the vial of food coloring into the bowl of water. Being only half-full, it bobs happily on the surface. Since you spilled a little on the vial itself before putting it in, the immediate water enveloping it is a darker shade of lavender.
The bowl is the border of a country, the vial with the food coloring is the only city, and the water is everything in it. Granted, I can’t think of any country that only has one city in it, save for the Vatican but they don’t count for the purposes of this essay.
![Everglade's picture Everglade's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1277.jpg)
Umbrella romance
My avatar is a picture of two umbrellas. A traditional Chinese umbrella is made of paper, making it delicate, romantic, and leading to dramatic possibilities. A man and a woman sharing an umbrella during a sudden rain and falling in love at the first sight, that is the start of a famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake. The story is set in my homecity, Hangzhou, the production site of the best traditional umbrella, the inspiration of artists and poets, a unique city where a beautiful lake is located in the city center and exists in harmony with skyscrapers. The city kind of shaped my qualities: able to see beauty in every corner in daily life and keep a peaceful mind in the fast-paced city.
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
poetic distillations
Here are the "poems" Anne's class distilled from our texts today.
The first one we wrote is called "What is a City?", the second
"The Cultures of Cities," and the third "The Metropolis and the Mental Life."
Also of interest, we found, was the history and etymology of "gentrification."
![Student 24's picture Student 24's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1253.jpg)
The Fenceless
I'm an absurdist. I'm also a musician and my stage/performance name is The Fenceless. The photo I've chosen illustrates a phrase that inspired me to choose this stage name, which goes along with my personalised definition of absurdism, in which I believe anything is meaningless, so therefore anybody has every right to assign anything any function or meaning they choose. I took this photo while on a trip to Northern Kenya two years ago, and it is of a chicken perched comfortably on a fence made of sticks. It just happens to illustrate a phrase that I heard for the first time this past year during a debate in my literature class. One of the students couldn't pick a side in the debate, and he said he was “sitting right on the fence” about it. That stuck in my mind, and irked me because of its discomforting connotations about limitation in expression and choice-making. It didn't bother me in the context of the present discussion, but in issues in life in general, when people take opinions on “current issues” or make statements about “right” or “wrong.” I haven't fully thought out my philosophy about this to a point where I can eloquently present it, but it goes something along the lines of working towards the removal of the ability to separate opinions or stances, therefore eliminating the issue to which it pertains. I think that separation of parties is what contains and fosters the glaring dynamic for having a conflict in the first place. I don't like homogeneity. I like contrast, mix, and confusion. I don't like fences. I like open spaces which allow liberty and motion.
![lksmith's picture lksmith's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1263.jpg)
A New Beginning
Hello everyone!
My name is Liane and I came to Bryn Mawr this year from the amazing city of Portland, Oregon. Although I love being here, I had to leave a lot behind to make that possible. My avatar is a photo of me with one of my best friends from home taken at a picnic just before I left. That afternoon was the last time I saw many of my friends and so that moment holds a lot of significance for me. It also reminds me of the way my life was before I came here and all the wonderful people that I left at home. It was hard for me (as I am sure it is for everyone) to leave all of that behind in favor of a new, far away place. With that in mind, it was very difficult for me to make the decision to come across the country and start over on my own, especially when many people I knew stayed together in Oregon. As I continue to piece together this next part of my life here at Bryn Mawr, my family and friends from home will always be in the back of my mind reminding me of not only where I came from, but where I plan to go.
![Clairity's picture Clairity's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1275.jpg)
Family: Clarity and Obscurity
![Frindle's picture Frindle's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1262.jpg)
To Whom It May Concern
When I was growing up, my favorite hobby was reading. Now that I've "grown up," my favorite hobby is still reading. I suppose in that regard, I haven't changed much. Or at all. I've always believed that while a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words is worth a thousand worlds, because that's where those words can take you. To one thousand different places.
Literature has already done what ever other field of study is trying to do. It has brought us to the past and to the future. It has created new creatures, peoples, vaccines, technology, languages, methods of transportation. Indeed, it has discovered the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. How could anything else hope to compare?
Because I believe so much in the power of words, I chose my avatar only after I had created my username (or pen name, if you will). For those of you who don't know, Frindle is a children's book about a fifth-grade boy who decides to start calling pens "frindles" instead. The other children in his school begin to use the term as well, and soon the nation joins in, to the point that twenty or thirty years later it is an officially recognized word in the dictionary. This showcases how important words are to a community, and how a word means only what the general population believes it means.
Also I enjoy puns, and a pen name in which the name meant "pen" was just too good an opportunity to pass up.
![AnotherAbby's picture AnotherAbby's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1252.jpg)
Fancy Meeting You Here.
Well hello everyone,
I am one of the many Mawrtyrs named Abby in the class of 2017, and one of at least three in my dorm. That's where my username comes from. It's kind of self-depricating, in a way; like, I'm just another Abby, with nothing special about her, which isn't the case at all. But I personally think it's funny in a dry sort of way, and distinguishes me from other Abbys moreso than calling me "Abby 3" or something along those lines.
The picture of me was taken around Junior year of high school, by my best friend, while we bought supplies for our first big physics project of the year. I typically make faces in photos, since I'm not one of those people with the perfect photogenic smile, and I think it makes me seem more approachable, anyway. Besides, in every horror film it's the woman down the street who never stops smiling who turns out to be the murderer, not the girl who sticks her tongue out as you as you walk by in the beginning of the movie. She's got nothing to hide.
I also don't mind putting my face out on the internet, attached to my work. I feel like even if I wake up twenty years from now and think everything I've written here is juvenile and stupid, I won't regret it and want to deny that I'm the one who wrote those things. Everything I write is going to be a reflection of how I think right now, and that will make my work something of a time capsule for future-me to laugh at, maybe feel a little embarrassed about, and then think of fondly.
![clarsen's picture clarsen's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1258.jpg)
Hi everyone!
One of the most difficult things about coming to Bryn Mawr was leaving behind my five year old Golden Retriever, Phoebe, with whom I share a very strong bond. I adopted her when she was nearing eight weeks old from North Shore Animal League after what felt like a lifetime of begging my mother to adopt a dog. Growing up in the city (where our apartment did not allow dogs) my mother actually banned me from visiting pet shops in fear that I would break into a temper tantrum while demanding a dog. So, five years ago when my mother announced we were moving to our house in Long Island, the first thing that came to mind was that we would finally be able to get a dog. Before we had even finished unpacking or settling in we had adopted Phoebe. My high expectations of finally becoming a dog owner did not dissapoint. Phoebe and I have been nearly inseparable since.
![nightowl's picture nightowl's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1260.jpg)
Avatar and Name
I used to have a tee-shirt with the slogan “Night Owl Mystery Book Shop” on it. When the tee shirt got to small for me, I decorated my binder with it. I am now using that binder for this class, so the words “night owl” have been in the back of my mind lately. I chose my name to be “nightowl” because it reminds me of the school mascot and idealizes the time I will spend here in the libraries late at night. It is also nostalgic for my love of Harry Potter, which then reminds me of how much Bryn Mawr looks like Hogwarts.
My profile picture is of Cat Stevens with cats. The picture satisfies some sort of primal desire in me that wishes to see things organized by categories. I am going to listen to his music whenever I am feeling a bit down this semester.
![ecohn's picture ecohn's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1259.jpg)
Missing Home?
I miss the snuggles and the cold nose waking me up from afternoon naps. I miss his whining when bored, and his excitement when stimulated. I miss the constant sound of his snoring (yes, even when he was awake). I miss my dog.
My avatar is a picture of Oscar (also called "beast", "dog", and "93-pounder"), whom I've had for about three years now. About four years ago, my home was broken into. It led to horrible feelings of insecurity, so we ended up adopting a twenty-pound dog from our neighborhood shelter. Although I was scared of dogs at the time, he and I soon bonded so closely that I'm not even scared of his now 93-pound self.
I love this animal, so I chose to make my avatar a picture of him. This particular picture was taken when I returned from a study-break, only to find that he had taken my seat. As he stared up at me intently, probably wondering "when do I get to eat again", I was struck with the sudden urge to snuggle-study, which I soon found greatly decreased productivity, but helped stress levels.
I don't even remember how I lived without a dog for my whole life, and I keep expecting him to push my hand with his nose, silently pleading for a scratch. I look forward to skyping with him, and to fall break, when I will get a snuggle-fix for the next few months.
I guess you could say I'm feeling slightly homesick?