Performance Story

Andrew Noerr

Feature Writing

27 January 2014

                                                    Building A Better Balboa Street

            Calm and composed, a Hispanic man wearing a yellow safety vest watches a batch of oozing cement spread into a long crevice in the ground. This occurs during a foggy afternoon on Balboa Street between 34^th and 35^th Avenues. With a focused demeanor, the construction worker speaks swiftly in Spanish to his co-workers and then goes to work. He starts by shoveling blackened dirt over the now unmoving cement until the gap is completely covered. Once this task concludes, the man stops to help direct a 31 Balboa Muni bus weave its way around the construction site. He then decides to broom some loose gravel into the crevice, and he does this in the inadequate space that he has been given to complete his task. Dust and loud noises are seemingly ubiquitous. Tractors, traffic cones, and other workers cram the Hispanic man into a small space to work, and yet he fulfills his duties.

            Later, the construction worker notices that the cement and dirt are hardening, so he takes a broom and pats down the soon-to-be concrete meticulously until every little spot is covered. His hard work for the day looks to be ending until he notices a sewer hole elevated above the crevice at the end of the block. After he gathers information from a seemingly higher authority on the site, the Hispanic man brooms more blackened dirt around the sewer hole until it is totally surrounded. He shares a chuckle with his co-workers and calls it a day.

Elevator Story

Andrew Noerr

Feature Writing

23 January 2014

                                                Zone of Distraction

            Yesterday afternoon, I rode up and down the elevator in Cowell Hall for 30 minutes. I noticed several physical details concerning the numerous passengers of the elevator along with details about myself as well. Some of these details are more important than others, and the most significant physical detail that stuck in my mind was the difference between how younger passengers and older passengers rode the elevator. The young college students mostly peered into their cell phones and did not pay attention to anything else surrounding them. Older passengers meanwhile either looked down into the ground or up at the ceiling, as they were much more attentive to their surroundings.

Therefore, my elevator journey revealed to me that younger people are much more distractible and are not aware of their surroundings. I admit that I had many urges to check my cell phone during the journey too. Older passengers acted much more nervous, as they looked around the inside of the elevator more often and looked at the numbers of the approaching floors when they appeared on the screen. However, this told me that they are more attentive to the things around them and are not as easily distracted by modern technology. Perhaps they were reflecting during their ride. An elevator ride is a zone of distraction for younger passengers, but older passengers seem to use it as a zone of reflection instead.