Songlines

The Aboriginal Australians are able to navigate across their harsh and unforgiving land by memorizing and following the Songlines--an intricate series of song cycles that identify the landmarks that one needs to pass to get where one needed to go. These songs describe how the features of the land were created and named during the Dreamtime, the tim... eless era when the giants, heroes and monsters who serve as totems for the Aboriginal clans walked the earth. By singing the songs in the proper order, the Aborigines can walk across their nation's vast deserts and always know where they are. Far from aboriginal, most New Yorkers weren't even born here, and this overpopulated isle may seem like the opposite of Australia's trackless deserts. After a slight period of disorientation, we generally find our way around all right, whether we rely on street signs, subway maps or the taxi driver's orienteering skills. North of 14th Street and west of 6th Avenue , at least, the streets mainly run in straight lines and meet at right angles, and you can usually get where you're going just by following your feet. But by relying on maps, signs and Manhattan's perpendicular geography, New Yorkers have given up something important: a sense of place. If you can get from your starting place to your destination without knowing anything about the points in between, chances are you won't pay much attention to them. And we do hurry about town without looking up, many of us, walking by the same buildings hundreds of times without noticing what they are or even what they look like. Which is a shame, because New York has its own giants, heroes and monsters who left their marks and their names on the land around us. If we learn their stories which are written on our streets and avenues, we'll have a much better chance of knowing where we've been, and where we're going. To this end I offer these as the New York Songlines. An oral culture uses song as the most efficient way to remember and transmit large amounts of information; the Web is our ...Read More