Andy Fitch, "Transcript of June 3rd"

Andy Fitch

 

Transcript of June 3rd

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In 2009, my colleague Jon Cotner and I edited a journal issue devoted to practices of Interdisciplinary Transcription. Since then, I have thought much about the relationship between transcription and translation. After completing a walking-based manuscript entitled Sixty Morning Walks (part of which appears in my new, collaborative book with Jon, Ten Walks/Two Talks), I decided to explore alternative means of communal authorship.

For my next project, Sixty Morning Walks, I thus have hired an error-prone transcription service from India (TransTalk Transcription Service, http://www.transtalk.biz) to type up audio files I create while walking through New York. Like my previous Sixty Morning Walks project (sixty-sentence descriptions of sixty-minute walks), Sixty Morning Walks traces a sixty-part trek across Manhattan. Here, however, the mediation of hired transcribers working in a different idiom and under different labor conditions has produced a displaced (in fact placeless) form of autobiography, one which allows for the simultaneous translation/creation of “my” book. The process of shaping my transcribers’ elliptical phrasings into clusters of haiku-like entries has produced a text saturated by local detail, yet as described from afar.

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June 2nd Wednesday…actually Wednesday June 3rd...I...Wednesday...June 3rd and feel bad for...Wednesday from Kristen’s sick but kept talking as I’d leave her room below the threshold of hearing...Outside seen through this dusty window our friend Susan walked Katya and Dudley...Dudley

the terrier...stubbornly anti-social until Katya visits...Now Dudley puts himself gregarious...I've got to drop with [0:02:39] ____computer parts be recycled...No response from Kristen

You can’t recycle by stairs yet take two rides down there...I wouldn't think about elevator carpet would not recording...sneakers soles

Hi Rafael! How are you? I got some mail for you...Great...I'd be...I'll just drop back

[0:05:02] ____cross downstairs? Up? Down? Yeah…Going down? Okay...Did you guys bring...I’ve forgot they wanted...Thanks...What confused interaction...That mom and children sacrifice the elevator but taking out garbage already become

more time consuming...expected...When to think add something in...Fold meaning form how long it takes with all this recycling [0:06:26] ____of fear…I've added to maintenance chores no time in which to do it...rushing to

reach upstairs yet avoid explaining

Few options talking here waiting...today a fifth taken off with raining...Yet should have stuck toward normal plan since nobody understands it talking

Oh hey...how you going? Could I use these stairs?

Don’t reason took forever...Switch from elevators

Great! You know I'm stepping out...Thanks what...Fascinating...As I don't set off an alarm...because that says alarm of sound...Oh I don't want to but it's great...You’ve smelled potatoes from [0:11:48] ____...or [0:11:51] ____God I can't believe she’s back done now

Again I’ll take the elevator...She'd somewhat get back...So would exit of through the building that

would be interesting to take...I didn't risk the alarm...Hey how you doing? Flower package? Yeah...Can I pick up on a way back? Sure...Is it...Construction…Something I could carry like a book? Okay...Don't you mind? Thanks see you soon...[0:13:40] ____Rafael called in lobby telling cool and gray...since air lingers facial pores providing the cleansing effect

No rushing...relative distant hums...I've gone to stop and sign a check

Thanks a lot and sorry...Thanks I can't believe lost time...[0:15:18] ____woman who’d headed to go back when the elevator came...told children she’d return for an umbrella...I’ll see why

yet risk again…background dim...exiting R. R. Donnelley & Sons with slacks ties black sneakers...Women wear sunglasses with bright gold boots...Glares form a certain angle on this grading

on a cloudy day...bright greens and khaki...crowding honeydew melons to capture bits of that

Flavored balls hung pale today...My hand bumped this woman’s arm regions crashed and my wrist [0:18:52] ____her purse as fist ends up

Sorry right along edge of cranes of City Hall Park...Maybe I'd never seen the Woolworth in such a clear puddle...Park Place as [0:19:31]  ____neighborhood capital for a...kind old-fashioned...I think what

used to be French cake doughnuts while shops move whole-grain bagels...The branches...this Sycamore branch’s...Bob...as if sighing

A flag...It sounds like 1921…It's buried what I'm passing to commemorate...heading back...already forgotten...In grateful remembrance of all lovers our country who died that the liberty won these shores...This fire truck marked Bureau of Training

breeze blown through right my eyes...Sycamores in 100 years producing a bright orange redwoods wound

Or long background conversation beyond the Department of New York Building...North pause Reed there's no doubt rain...Patterns caught in New York summer that I

for the week and a half...carry an umbrella just right or equally longer stood caught each day the same in the rain

Of women's...A woman exits Javit’s Federal gym duffle bag open...pink towel slid out like a tongue

Presume full background conversation...Black puddles sprayed not by a clerk...Just the round bronze shield says “African Burial Grounds 1712-94"…Cordoned Court of International Trades Plaza at Duane known at Paul O'Dwyer...Why kids...Why do skateboard kids push fountain? Whoa as I step fountains turn on

Bright boost of Thomas Park story core...You’ll make a reservation...You bring somebody else so one person tells the story...This photo with mom and daughter before two giant mics...distributed on these court house steps...supreme court...I guess a state supreme...How perfect leaves spread across the plaza

Here the glimpse looks on her own Chinese since you could tell by dun clothing...This

this certain polyester seems taken upon herself to pick a garbage triangle off Foley Square Park...She’ll sort recyclables...draining and bagging cans by adding some civic component to her labors

Tall obnoxious boys of hunched lady intermingle...First fierce badminton doubles played in Columbus Square on a weekday...Oh guess Canadian doubles...All overhead smashes...I never can tell somebody's setting

up his...What do you call a partner for a smash and there's…soft tai motion seen by 50 women together...tai chi set to synthetic music...Short arms hold partial unison

Polyester shirts and slacks...Most slacks turn together...60 pairs on a handball court with boom box in this synthesized flute...And then as I...watch...the sudden...women's motion spun towards me...Mott construction man says “contractor’s vest”

orange clipboard on a lawnchair yet carries no pen...His partner does...This bus called Chinese Skyliner/25 crossed out 13...Parking ticket under windshield wipers where the driver sat...idling bus...leaving New York 8:30 that Wednesday

from a Chase Manhattan and people congregate...perhaps everybody making use of one card...The banks...a door opens I'm on [0:33:21] ____...what becomes [0:33:23] ____doors open to see long blank inside...a Chinese bank form wonder…gold tiles...imported

65-year-old squat exercises with scaffolds they've worked into the routine…Transfiguration Kinderschool dot Roman Catholic...Now north blows of different breeze...Jing Fung

Complex…Sunshine 27 Seafood Restaurant...China Family Plus Pharmacy Corp....Rocky Star Super E-world Travel Tours...Who distinguished those businesses? Certain shops build bigger signs...Then am I on a bridge? This winding elevated past faux Greek columns hoping to climb the Manhattan Bridge...Here in puddles...a

um barbed wire weedy trapezoid with grackle with the Q rubbles past...Eew! Eew! Soft gross things too often involve flies

From the start did I see men charge a platform...25 stories up...banging walled windows...platform fleets hooked out (I mean a public passed code...past top high-rise)...Below the way figures spread on the

wide avenue…Zee Chow Press, Inc....Z...E...E…What they publish?

Chinatown summer morning and…smell

wide...train part of bridge...Hues and bees flowed by...Summer mornings you’d scent produce not

off the...not just cooking oil...Bob as you don't live in a city or never crossed the bridge with rumbling train nor if regularly you don't...You’ve maybe...perhaps won't understand pleasure below on a roof tons...that most improvisatory rooftop gardens...Myriad plants off styrofoam containers where I'm convinced were used for salmon...Laundry alone up on such roof...hand rags dove t-shirt hanging

Picture a rooftop on satellite dish sprayed with graffiti...UDQO...Or how...how pleasant to hear sledgehammers below long Bridge

I’d love how peace buildings...residential towers’ red framed windows...how much they’d...red balconies...really are Chinese

That box...brick box...you’d climb stairs covered in graffiti how does this top of that box get sprayed? DOZ equals SPELL...dot...dot...DOZ asterisk SPELL

Basketball beneath the river...Graffiti improves flow quickly here...These black...black/midnight blue combination

pylons...striped while trains pass...with endless parked Chinatown buses below the FDR

Often a seagull coasts before it...and I...And

A sense of Brooklyn cables thought suspended beyond wet bridge

Clotted cars...green water pocked for fingerprints

That fence is...appeared capping on me...so they be harder...Exhaust [0:50:21] ____could my eyes strong enough...But there's a [0:50:32] ____the way of exhaust...that froth boiling out

The Chinese couple…two women...move slowly...long climb in visors…East dim rusty glow off storms’

change in luminosity causes the jogger in navy-gray to glance up simultaneously...Would they put four trains from a bridge...You you’ll pass

on rooftops the occasional tennis jungle gym below lines along some buildings…clinics or jobs...expensive patio

blown beside train tracks...[0:54:57] ____keep

staring in bedroom windows waiting...Forge Adams La Bagel stone formed above...From that tennis court you could tan

lie out and tan to watch...as though crossing through the Jehovah's Witness Watchtower straight forth Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn...Before 9:20

crossing a highway...it's possible...It always...Men's mohawks before 9:20…narrowing as bridges...Buildings rise as the bride angles down

So human or animate at least a train slowing as peering into the tunnel

Brick parks up here...no reason to name it

Boy on black...all black...hooded face feet dangling

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Andy Fitch is an assistant professor in the University of Wyoming’s MFA Program. He is the author (along with Jon Cotner) of Ten Walks / Two Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). His critical study Not Intelligent, but Smart: Rethinking Joe Brainard is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press.

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 4 (2010): Emergence