Crossing Jefferson and McClintock

At peak rush hours, hordes of bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians charge through the Jefferson Boulevard and McClintock Avenue intersection. While the streetlight timer counts down the seconds, a young woman strolls and chatters on her cell phone, people on cruiser bikes zoom in every direction, and students late for class dodge traffic. Light after light, people repeatedly break into their chaotic paths, and, except for the rare collision, no one has ever been injured, according to DPS Capt. David Carlisle.

The willy-nilly patterns of the junction demonstrate a shared defiance of authority. Official California law requires bicyclists to walk their bike in the crosswalk. But they hardly ever do. Most keep pedaling and ignore common courtesies of yielding to a mother and her child or slowing down before a large group.

Ashley Dotterweich, a junior majoring in English, meanders through the intersection at least four times a day to and from the USC campus. “It’s mostly making big arcs around everybody. People on bikes forget how to steer. They do this thing—” Dotterweich gestures like she is swiveling handlebars from side to side, “—like they don’t know where they’re going. It’s like, just choose a direction, already.”

Pedestrians concede the right-of-way to bigger, faster clusters of bike riders. Gliding off the curb like a flock of birds taking flight, the bike riders’ feet seldom touch the ground. Elevated on their seats, few yell out warnings to people in the way. In the absence of language, subtle gestures – a nod of the head, a slight shift to the right to allow someone to pass on your left, a sudden decrease in speed – govern the arena.

American intersections are masculine: one street joins another at a perpendicular angle. Unlike roundabouts in France, which guide pedestrians and cars in a circle, square intersections foster aggressive movements. Slower people shrink their strides, never straying outside the white parallel lines, while faster people cut careless swaths. For those who travel at medium speeds, navigating between slow and fast crossers requires flexible decision-making.

“You’re going, you’re flowing, letting someone by,” said Amanda Ashley, a senior majoring in communication who rides a neon green cruiser bike. “Everyone has formed their own mini-lane.”

The unpredictability of the intersection, the flirting with the “possibility of improvisation” as Richard Schechner wrote, is a charged field of free expression. People rumor that at the end of every month, police officers, looking out of place with their strapped helmets and tight-fitted navy uniforms, monitor the intersection to ticket and fine bicyclists who do not walk their bikes. Seeing someone walking their bike could signify the presence of a cop – common street knowledge. After the police arrive, everyone walks their bike. When they haven’t been seen for weeks, bicyclists resort to familiar law-breaking habits.

Skid Row Easter Celebration

Six rows of metal folding chairs, each inscribed with names in faded paint, were lined in perfectly straight queues in the center of Gladys Park, Skid Row at a Saturday morning Easter celebration. While the jazz band jammed to bluesy beats, hardly anyone sat in the chairs, except for one or two passersby or the occasional charity volunteer.

The real audience stretched out on the cement ground. Around the outskirts of the park, a woman with a bright red bruise on the left side of her face reclined on the legs of her partner. Other homeless people rested in disorganized groups, most curled in sleeping positions, the lullabies of the jazz band echoing over their heads.

Gary Brown, the solo alto saxophone player, belted melodies unfamiliar to my classically trained ears. His accompanists, two percussionists and a keyboardist, provided steady patterns of beats while he improvised unusual rhythms to no particular sheet music, in no particular major or minor key. The free flow of his performance, unconfined by written music notes and scripts, was jarring.

I was used to audiences filing into striking concert halls, sitting in evenly spaced cushioned seats and focusing their undivided attention to the show. Viewers were not allowed to talk, and profuse coughs drew glances of annoyance. The enforced silence mystified the musicians onstage, a scene removed from daily life. The conductor and orchestra were a spectacle of talent that I paid high ticket prices to watch.

I identified with the musicians for their classical training and strict discipline. They too, endured hours of music theory, scales, practice and rehearsals. Because I believed in the lifelong devotion to perfecting a traditional craft, I valued European classical music above all other music, and I carried an air of elitism.

Skid Row was a different kind of spectacle. The fluid spontaneity of jazz music reflected the disorder of homelessness. Jazz is not bound by the lines on centuries-old sheet music created by a famous European composer. The genre encourages the freedom to play according to your sense of timing, tempo and melody. If the notes keep coming, then keep playing. “You never run out [of keys] or anything,” said Brown, who was homeless for nearly 10 years but now lives several blocks away from Skid Row. He practices with another band every Saturday afternoon and sometimes performs at a pizza parlour down the street.



On a day meant to celebrate a figurehead symbol of suffering and resurrection, there is certainly suffering at Skid Row, but there is also life. Basketballplayers grunt groans on the court, two friends wearing boxing gloves jab at a bag, and the police blast reprimands over the megaphone about jaywalking. Amid the cacophony, Brown blows smooth sounds from his saxophone with the persuasion of an orator. I take a seat on a metal folding chair painted with the words “Skid Row Gladys Park” and listen.