RIDERS ON THE TRAIN PROJECT

RIDERS ON THE TRAIN Project

2008-09-30T16:45:00.002-04:00

Click to play

2008-08-13T23:17:00.001-04:00

PARADOX

Clear scenes across smudged windows

Eyes distorted in reflection

Caution cones on a construction site,

colored glass and concrete walls.

Little girls walking in Mary Janes

past men carrying briefcases.

Starbucks coffee in laughing hands

entering elevators, climbing stairs.

Keys unlocking oversized doors.

Computer screens swelling.

Mannequins dressed in chiffon.

Foaming ice cream cones,

across steel bars.

Cheryl Caruolo

2008-08-12T22:56:00.003-04:00

1.
Broken glass and

we, only minor characters wailing in the rain, into the wild.

The stranger sitting beside you, like a wet match, is no help to you now.

It’s time. Step out from the shadows of loving, of leaving.

As a child steps out of the long grasses
when the game has ended.

Like the ocean, pounding, smoothes the sharp edges
of broken glass.

2.
Chase Street

in the chaos – and the children
upside down and dizzy
the music continues as before

floating with deception
around and through the voices
and the words continue as before

the grayness envelops
even the laughter
as the sky threatens us once again

and the only comfort
is the warm perfection of milk resting on my tongue

as life argues between the bitter and the sweet
just as it was that time before

Alexia Chamberas

2008-08-12T22:52:00.004-04:00

the grey patina takes over
the moment objects in the urban landscape
have no clear definition
no sign of depth from each other
there is one veil of vapors
escaping from the sewers below
people in streets are out of focus
blurred movement
some seem to be figures
descending lower strata
where other undistinguishable breathing corpses
lay in cement tunnels
trains load & unload the grey cargo
grey cadavers fill common graves below
grey patina takes over
the moment

Aldo Tambellini
from “brianscan 90”

there is no escape from the black
night
it compresses the negation of colors
into
the dense shield where no light
filters
keeping the sun’s corona
in
a forever eclipse
it’s
the last train & the next train that
takes
the human cargo into deeper tunnels
faces
in cars in carbon & graphite
features
imprinted in tar graffiti
details
lost in the even blackness
someone
forever sits in a station bench
before & after
the next train & the next
rush
tunnels to tunnels
someone
at another station
a face deformed
corroded by acid HATE
waits
for a train that never
stops
at that station

Aldo Tambellini
from “brianscan 90”

2008-08-12T22:49:00.003-04:00

D Green Line
14 September 2008

No smoking
Sold out laughing
Take your mother
Seriously
Transit Project
The destination of this train is
Put the phone to her
I just got off now
Reading a book
Stroking her hair
My mother always says
It’s not easy to
Stop requested
There is a passenger hugging his bag
Flower, Worldvision, North
Next Stop: Brookline Hills, Safety, Celeb
It makes your life so much easier
Fossil
Ring bell for all stops
Ouch!
Enter, exit
Next stop: Beaconsfield
Magenta umbrella, purple dress, shoes, man in suit, Shopaholic,
Talking on the telephone
Lopsided images
Transparent, parents, parenthesis
Reservoir
3642
Caution: Door Swings Open

Zayde Buti

Fenway Station
8 September, 2008

Tattoo leg and two girls—
Freckles everywhere
“…it was actually really cool…”
You have to bring everyone I know
Except for…
I dropped blood
Went in sideways
Puff-Puff
“I ain’t gon’ stifle myself, bitch!”

Zayde Buti

2008-08-12T21:59:00.002-04:00

Experience with trains and buses:

#1
Strangers get the best of you,
The did me that day too,
Turning my face to one side
I never wanted you to see me cry
But you did, and now I’m here
Bus stop, South Station
With a stranger man who
Rubs my back as I cry
Touching what should be you.

#2
Hello commuter,
I used to like the way we
Breathed through correspondence
But that changed the day
That you became my neighbor,
Well, the dysfunctional,
Same city, kind of neighbor,
Now I take the train
But never see you.

#3
I remember that morning,
How it was cold then too,
As we waited at the bus stop
At the same inappropriate hour
Which impatiently taps its feet
To the anticipated arrival,
It was different that time,
I remember how
It just came and left
We stayed to watch
It leave, south bound, and we
Were pleased by failed departure

#4

Stalled in the backseat
Of a sunrise train we were
Protected form the stiff
Air and the angry revving
Of early morning engines
In the sleep state of that hour
We fell asleep, confused
Between cloths we use
Then too often loose to describe
Our too quickly vocalized
“I love you’s”

Nellie Large

2008-08-12T21:58:00.000-04:00

LC Nojechowicz

Back on the Subway

I resumed commuting recently. Now I have a love-hate relationship with the subway. My eyes and ears almost burst some nights, amid the thunderous trains, the too-sweetened nut roast smell, and crowds banging up against me.

Working people. Frazzled mothers dragging kids. Teenagers in hooded sweatshirts. Loud girls in pointy shoes. Crazy people mumbling, toting old newspapers in shopping bags. Whether it’s Orange Line homeboys, or Kendall Square yuppies, the intimacy of riding with strangers offers mystery.

I got to the subway late one night, finding only stragglers. A Chinese couple sat entangled on a bench, oblivious. Sitting on his lap, she wore a short pink coat, and her dumpling legs were all over him. They spoke quietly, laughing and kissing. When they got off, I imagined them strolling towards a cafe, an intense romantic knot, separate from the world.

On another night, Downtown Crossing was particularly bleak in the overhead glare, and the young accordionist who so often played there, was gone. He’d always stamp out the rhythm as he played, and in his brown fedora, the slight, solitary figure seemed like he’d stepped straight out of a Milan Kundera novel.

He played a Paul Simon tune one night, and I found myself quietly singing the refrain, “they’ve all come…to look for America…..Cathy, I said, I am lost, but I know you are sleeping….We smoked the last one an hour ago….”

I hadn’t sung that tune in so long. Standing there, across from the huge Toyota billboards, I felt old, but beautiful, if only in my own head.

2008-08-12T21:54:00.000-04:00

Katie McCarthy

There was a screech that I felt through my chest. Lights started flickering for a minute and then they went our completely. I attempted to calm my nerves by using what little light that poured through the dim tunnel encompassing our metal death-trap to read my Boston Herald. After about ten traumatizing minutes of tedious squinting, the T took off again, lights resuming power and we pulled ever so smoothly into the Harvard Sq. stop. Terrorism? No. Thunderstorms? No. Just Traffic.

2008-06-24T10:02:00.007-04:00

Riding The Train:

It is raining and cold when I get to the Train Station. There is an orange sign that says “Green.” This station feels dirty. The train is dirtier. As we pull out of the station, there is an immediate thundering overhead. The subterranean nature of the experience roars in my ears.

I look down the long empty train. The hand holds hang like nooses. There are two men sitting a long way from each other. Their necks are bent, eyes straight ahead, looking somewhere near their feet. They look like they are on death row. I have joined them. We have nothing to bond us but our despair. It is a one-way train. I am snaking into darkness with the damned.

At the next stop, teenagers get on - tight jeans, puffy coats - pull out their phones, put their thumbs to work, easy focus on the screens on their phones. They seem hard-wired to the experience, thin white plastic cords discretely draping from their ears, like a tribal accessory.

The roaring above is too much. I get out at Downtown Station. I remember I didn’t make a plan, didn’t buy a map, don’t have an umbrella. I walk. I look for a drug store for something to write on. The sky gets darker. I go down a side street. On both sides the building go up, up, cutting the light. The architecture feels conspiratorial, like an Arthur Miller graphic novel.

I go back into the subway, decide to ride to the end of the line with my new writing pad. Again, I am deeply aware of the descent. One stair case. Two stair cases. It gets dirtier. The dirt is greasy, almost slippery. The air tastes lethal, mechanical.

From the second staircase, I can see the crowds standing in the gloom, waiting for the train. It looks like they are on their way to concentration camps.

I realize people do this everyday – voluntarily. I think what it would take to steel to this every day.

I can’t find a place in myself that could do this. There would have to be people at every stop, reaching in, pulling me out of the roaring snake, dusting me off and giving me a high-five. There would have to be live video feed from the arctic with a large yardstick marking the inch that didn’t disappear because I got on the train that morning instead of taking my car. There would have to be people from the humane society with live polar bear cubs that you could hold and cuddle and feed with a bottle while you are waiting for a train – some connection to the outside world. Not the subterranean grave with the roar of despair overhead.

As I make my way to the Orange line, there is suddenly the sound of sad, Spanish music. I think it must be coming from a loudspeaker, but it is so precise and unadulterated, it can’t be coming through a speaker. I see a man standing with his denim leg up on a bench, holding his guitar with it’s neck toward the sky. The musician has his head cocked as if is he listening to a secret from its curved body. I feel so grateful for the music and the auditory interruption of the mechanical scream of the trains. He seems divinely sent, the beauty and fluidity of the music so incongruent with the atmosphere, it almost brings me to tears.

The train opens. I step in. It is crowded now. It’s shoulder to shoulder, wet, humid. Despite the crowd, it is the feeling of the trains rumbling above that is crushing.

I squeeze into a seat. There is no way to pull out a pad to write or a book to read, or do anything that involves violating the space outside of the immediate boundaries of your shoulders.

At the next stop, two women get on. Both look like they stepped off a page from the Macy’s catalog, fashionable coats, French berets, steele-blond hair descending, flawless skin. One sits next to me. One stands in front of me. They talk with easy intimacy. They speak Russian. I can’t understand a word but it seems they know each other well from the pace of the conversation, the lazy spaces between the questions and answers. And I wonder how I know what I know about people or if it’s all just projection.

One woman has a black, quilted coat with a belt cinched tight at the waist. The buckle is silver. It says “Pink.” I think back to “Green” on Orange. Despite becoming part of this mass of humanity and despite the fact that I have never felt so inconsequential in my life, my egocentrism still tells me that events are being choreographed for my entertainment.

I find myself reaching for a convenient way to put this experience in context. I say, well, this is a valuable experience in that I will really appreciate living where I do and enjoying the lifestyle that I do. And immediately the thought feels inspired by church ladies, clucking their tongues at the unfortunates in Africa. And I feel like I am leaving my fellow man in the dust, or in this case, in the grime of the subway.

A small boy comes on with his father. He is oblivious to the code of silence. He keeps standing up on the seat. His father say “please sit down, the train is going to go now.” He sits down. He is reciting the conversation he had with his dad about this trip. “A lot of people are on the train, right Dad?” “And they all have to go somewhere, right dad?” He stands up again, faces out the window. “Go train go.” He says. “Please sit down,” the father says. The boys sits down. The mechanical voice comes over the loudspeaker and asks people to pull their head in. The boy stands again, bounces, yells out the window, “go train go.” “Please sit down,” his father says. The break in the tension is almost palpable. It has the same effect on me that the guitar music had. His high voice almost like music. We finally pull forward. I can still hear the small boy chatter. His enthusiasm is like a wrinkle in the starched fabric of the collective silence. He could be in Disneyland.
I note that I have never met a claustrophobic toddler, can’t remember meeting one with personal space issues.

But I am not a toddler. I am a neurotic adult. I bolt at the next stop. I am finding a train back – up – and out, into the fresh air.

I try to feel mythological in my return trip, like I have just traveled to Hades – to go mano y mano with the God of the underworld. But I don’t feel heroic. I just feel like an escape artist. I anticipate my resurrection, out of the darkness, into the light of day.

The return trip is relaxed, the intensity is lifted by the promise of the known and predictable. I am simply observing now.

There is a guy with a stocking cap about ten feet away. He catches my eye because he is looking at people like me. Our eyes meet. I pretend that it didn’t happen, keep scanning the crowd or stare straight ahead, letting my eyes glaze over. We stop at Ruggles Street, more people get off. There is a noticeable iota of breathing room. I meet the guy’s eyes again. I decide it happened accidentally, fidget with something I don’t need in my purse, adjust its shoulder strap, loosen my scarf. A young woman gets on with glow-in-the dark white pants and a matching white hat. The pants are transparent. I can see a dimple in the fat on her but. It is too much visual information, too close. I avert my eyes. My gaze passes the gaze of the man in the stocking cap like two people crossing the street. I am on to him. He is working for Nancy - another cultural spy. We will glance at each other as we leave the train, our heads will nod imperceptively, like two FBI agents.

Tomorrow I will rise several thousand feet into the sky. When I do touch down, it will be 5280 feet above sea level. That may be as low as I ever want to go again.

Laurie Davies

Thinking out the Window

Have you ever thought and thought until you begin to think you have thunk yourself silly? When I’m not talking, I’m thinking…always especially when I ride the bus. I sit watching the sad woman sulk in her seat across from me, and the homeless man mumble pieces of words and I wonder what would happen if everyone’s thoughts just came popping out of their heads in full animated sentences. Would it fill the bus? As I sit on my two-o-clock bus headed down town I start to think as the road passes below me. I have way too many complex thoughts to fit in a small place such as ones head. So as I begin to think out the window, letting selected thoughts flow into the warm afternoon air. My thoughts begin to fly, some up some down, one hits the pavement maybe to be found by some hobo who has lost any rational ones of his own. It’s like a gift. Or maybe the old woman inching across the road will be swept away by the thought about my juicy summer romance, and instead of going home to her microwave dinner and two hours of “The Price is Right” she will be inspired to go and find a scandalous one of her own. Now that I think about it, it’s selfish not to share all these amazing thoughts with my city. I have far to many anyway. I may not be able to see or touch them, but I feel as it slams concentrated feelings into my soul that are forever changing me… and now there is no way I could think about having thought myself silly.

By: Chelsea Davies-Lechner

2007-09-30T00:32:00.000-04:00

We are forged in fire
each of us.

Tragedies that pass through our lives
are forces that
bring strength to our bones
and guide us toward heaven.

A young girl holds an infant on her lap.

The infant is distraught
screaming
coughing
pleading.

We all wonder what she will do
and it is clear who among us are mothers
as looks pass from face to face
in communion, acknowledgement.

The woman beside me shakes her head.
“Too young,” she says to me.
“She doesn’t know what to do,” I reply.
“Mmm hmm,” the woman says.

Isolated
confused
burdened
the girl stares blankly into space.

The child continues to scream and cough.

It’s difficult to know which to mother -
the Mother or the child.

A woman approaches.

She places her bag between her feet
and lifts the child from the girl’s lap,
cooing and scolding in her voice,
she puts the babe to her shoulder,
rocks back and forth,
whispers in his native tongue.

Lisa Hiserodt

2007-09-30T00:27:00.002-04:00

one self
meets the other self
casually
in the subway platform
one asks the other
where are you going
it’s a question where I belong
says the other
the train arrives
the self & the other self enter the car
they sit across from each other
then suddenly one of them
rushes out of the station
realizing it was the wrong direction

Aldo Tambellini
from “brianscan 90”

2007-09-30T00:24:00.002-04:00

these are people
in the super wide angle lens
they come out subways
flies swarming by thousands
over rotten meat
exposed to a decaying sun
figures stooped over
climbing stairs
each with a briefcase
crossing streets
in every direction

these are people
adjusting antennas
on millions TV sets
catching up
to what the world has done
waiting for an endless game
a wheel of fortune
just any game
for there are never enough
games to be played
scores to keep

there are the rhythms
flipping over days
trains from uptown to downtown
commuting to suburbia
people reading sport news
stock reports
leaving military experts
to keep the globe in check
for the benefits
of the thousands the millions
swarming over rotten meat
abandoned dogs waiting
for the remaining bones left over

Aldo Tambellini
from 'brainscan 90'

2007-09-30T00:15:00.006-04:00

Writing on the Train

The electric sounds of the train fill the silence shared between several strangers, I myself am one of them. Everyone has their Monday faces on; droopy mouths, faded make-up, and ruffled hair. It's evening, I'm on my home from work and from the looks of everyone's expressions tied with their body language, so are they. Most of the time on my way home on the train, I plug my ears with music, close my eyes and isolate myself on the awkward, uncomfortable seat. But this evening, I am observing. People are interesting, intriguing creatures really, and when I read them, I realize more about them. Like these several strangers sharing a small space on a Monday evening, for example. I'm looking at this young gentleman, facing directly across from me. He's handsome, sports a smart brown coat and wears an outfit that tells me he spends time picking out his clothes in the morning. He's listening to his i-pod, escaping business. Then there is a doctor, a nurse perhaps. She is sitting across from the businessman. Her brown shiny hair is pulled back in a taught ponytail. She has a young face, wearing pretty earrings that compliment her brown eyes. She has an engagement ring on her finger. Her elbow rests on the window, and her left hand holds her head up. Looking just beyond her, I see an older man, I see his eyes, but the rest of his face is inside a book he is reading. He has a classy look to him, long coat, a wool scarf and some sort of Scottish cap on his head. Although I see him sitting there, I know that he has been abducted by the setting in his book. Today I see the train as more than transportation. I see it as a state of being, from one place to another. Where people sit and wait and do nothing until their destination. And watching people do nothing is what fuels the pen in my hand. I was fascinated by people when they are at rest, when they have nothing to do but sit and wait, closed off from the outside world around them. It's a complete contrast from that outside world, where the movement of people never seems to cease. This ride home is probably the slowest these strangers have felt all day. Perhaps it is the only time in their day when they notice that they are breathing.

I'm going to enjoy the period of time I have left until my stop, sink into the awkward seat, and watch the world go by out the window through my reflection.

Madison Mastrangelo

leaving

God, goodness and Pete have so much
at stake
In everyday language
subway talk
Tongues moving in directions
we can't measure
and you tell me this
fascinating story
about your Mother
her Father
and the adoption.
To hear your words
fill the same space
where grafitti prevails
where babies cry and Mommies
even yell at them
where the crowd
has no mercy for beggars
or fund-raising basketball students
Your words
spell out exile
in my head
your words
(litanies and departure)
travel from 1926 to the present
where I have no idea
where I am going
"This Is Avenue J. Stand clear of the closing doors"

One stop away from home.

written June 2007 by artist, C.J Stephens

Riding Alone

I really need a cigarette. I always feel like smoking when I am in the middle of the crowd. I need some air, it’s very hard to breathe where there are so many human beings around you.

I am looking to my left - there are so many people to my left. I am looking to my right- my right is occupied by those people too. I notice the smell of each one of them.

I need a drink. A drink might calm me down a bit. Vodka can be a huge chill. Even a beer would make me feel less attached to myself, in the center of all these bodies.

They all are talking. So many languages. Maybe they talk about me in so many languages. Maybe they notice the person inside of me. Maybe my movements reveal the stupid things I’ve just done.

I need a man. A man could hold my hand now. If he is big enough he can hide me from everybody’s eyes. A woman is good as well. If she is more attractive than me, everybody will stare at her.

Oh, this is my stop. How the hell am I suppose to walk through this crowd? All these men and women thinking that I am not what I really am, how can I pass through all of that?

I really need a cigarette. A cigarette and a drink. A cigarette and a drink with a really tall man, or a cigarette and a drink with a very beautiful woman.

‘Bar’

BUS STOP JIM

I first met Bus Stop Jim one blustery morning at the bus stop on East Broadway waiting for the Copley bus. It was cold that morning we struck up our first conversation, both of us talking through our thick scarves.

Jim was a retired gentleman but not one to sit on his hands. This twinkly little Irishman didn’t stop for a minute. I thought he was a hoot.

I would run into him a few times a week. He would look for me at the bus stop and we’d find a seat on the bus together. For months we rode the bus in town and talked and talked.

After I left the job that took me downtown I never saw Jim again, but I still have a photo of him as a priest from one of his commercial spots.

Some years later I saw his obituary in the Globe and it listed all the creative things he had done in his life—I felt glad to have known him. Jim did leave me this legacy—he would always say, effusively, “there’s a lot of life out there, Pat, go out and get it.” Yes, thank you, Jim.

31 October 07

Pat Sullivan

I was eavesdropping on the train the other day, a weekend day when the N-Judah was not very crowded. Nobody on the train seemed on the way to work. I can't help listening when people talk in a way that everyone can hear. First two young men got on board the train. Then a pretty young woman who had a crutches got on the train. The men were apparently good friends with the young woman.
One of the young men teased the young woman. He said, "So you're on your way to the Haight to spare change."
She appeared a person who probably had a good job. Her clothes were casual but neat. Sounding as serious as she could, but actually teasing back, she said, "Yeah, I'm going out to 'spange' on my favorite corner."
One of the young men said, "I've never heard the word "spange" before. It sounds like a foreign country. "I just got back from Spange."
Anyway, I was quite amused, that day on the train.

Tom Cambronne

9/8/07

Riding the train is an excellent time to practice meditation for those who are interested in developing their meditative skills but find it difficult to create a space and time to do so on a consistent basis. On the train, the seat asks you to sit; the awkward silence of everyone around you invites you to turn your attention inward. At this point, you can either talk to yourself, fiddle with your cell phone, or just try to surrender to the fact that you are

a) on a train
b) on a train with an (often times) unknown driver
c) on a train that you have placed your faith in to stay on track and deliver you safely.

On a train, you can find the moment and its uncertainty. You can see the art of each moment dying to the next as you peer out the window and watch the moving picture show. Death lives between the present and the future. The only way to get to the future is to die to the here & now (which in the future will be the here & now).

You are riding on a train.
You are in the moment.
You are riding on a vibrator with periodic stops.
Suddenly, you are the train.
Suddenly, the many becomes one.
Suddenly, surprise!
You are the here & now
You are the hero now

Welcome aboard...

Zayde Buti

2007-09-30T00:10:00.003-04:00

the same street
the same snow
the same rain
the same sky
artificially saturated
in cromakey

the same frame
the same dream
the same utopian illusion
the same rap sound
the same counterfeited faced
the same stare
devoid of content
empty of meaning

the same tabloid TV doll
with robotic gestures
selling-smiling

the same train
uptown/downtown
outbound/inbound
running
on the same track

the same spectre
moving
the throw away landscape

the same clone
repetitive
monotonous
recycled images
projected
over the cornea

Aldo Tambellini
from 'brainscan 90'

2007-09-30T00:02:00.001-04:00

the old man in black sits and waits
by the deserted railroad station
holding a plastic bag full of smoke
& dreams heavier than led
the old man sits & waits
time passes
with gray poisonous dust filling the sky
slowly the old man gets up
forgetting the bag at the station
his feet dragging along the side of the tracks
suddenly a train appears
filling the old man with a smoke cloud
the train & the old man disappear

Aldo Tambellini
from 'brainscan 90'