2, an ebook about trains

7/28/2019 2, an ebook about trains

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trainsanthony peregrine


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There was a time before I had ridden a train.

Do you want to try the game?She giggles and takes the phone from him. He takes it back, pilots the way to the

app, pressing buttons in Korean. I do not know if he can actually read them which

is weird because there are a lot of buttons but for some reason the way he is

pressing them is making me think Wow, I dont think he knows Korean actually.

He hands it back to her and a car starts and he runs his hands through his thick hair,

pulling out a few curls which snap back in and I think he reminds me of a friend. He

reminds me of my friend. She isnt very good at the game. I get off the train and I

dont know what happens next. I hope she wins the game.

I want to take a picture of every person I see on

the train.I want to start a list of their favorite colors and if they have pets and whether or not

they vote and if they like broccoli.

How long has it been since you rode the train?His head bobs as he thinks then says 15 years. 15 years this month. 15 years last

month.

Pause, then I say Thats crazy.

He kind of stops and thinks for a second.

15 years. Thanks for making me feel old.

I want to take a picture of them all.I want to say Hi maam I think youre beautiful why do you ride the Green Linewhat is your stop do you feel like you are safe in your neighborhood what is your

opinion on the ocean just in general i guess do you like the ocean nevermind i

guess, can I take your picture do you have a pet?


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I often think that trains might be the most

important place in the world.And then I think about how you only ever see trains from New York City in

pictures and thats bullshit. Chicago has really nice trains and theyre different from

line to line. There are old trains and new trains that they are phasing in. The Brown

Line has more single seats because bourgie classist fucks ride that line. It also has

the cutest boys, and I work off two stops on that line (Montrose and Sedgwick).

Anyway I hate that line even though I spend like 3 to 6 hours of my week on it. The

Red Line is where it is at though. You can ride it from the tippy top of the city (my

neighborhood, Morse stop) to almost the bottom of the city, 14 or some miles of

track and honesty and racial segregation and class tension, through the Loop

(businesslandia and tourists) to the north (whites, gays, asians, then everyone in the

world all mixed together, in that order) to the south (mostly just black people its a

pretty racist system). There are some other lines, namely the Pink, Orange, Yellow,

Purple and Blue.

Here are some pictures of the train that I found on the internet:

in wintertime it is often very festive on the train


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sometimes people read also the weather here is confusing so wardrobes can be

interesting!


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the more u know

public artistic statements and also grafitti can often be seen here irl


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even peanuts ride the train here in chicago yes indeed!

bourgie fucks


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:)

this one is from instagram


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On my resume I list several often applicable

skills related to how good I am at riding trains.1) With trains I am always on time

2) I can sleep on trains and not miss my stop

3) I can dance on trains

4) I can sleep on trains and listen to music and not miss my stop

5) I am always on time too! Wow!

When men who are blonde get tan their skin gets

darker and their hair gets yellower and wow do Ithink that is handsome!Today I was on the train and this man was just like that. He had incredible shoes on

they were brown. His white t shirt made his blonde hair even more wow and I

thought WOW he is handsome. I fell asleep for a bit because I was very tired and I

opened my eyes to get off at my stop and forgot to check if he was still there and

ask what his favorite color is. This is really just a way to demonstrate that I fall to

love 4-7 times a week on the train (I ride the train a lot I guess).

In the Jackson transfer tunnel:

K: I hate this tunnelA: I literally love it

K: I hate it. I think its long and stupid.

~~~later~~~

J: What if we got everyone to bring a potted plant here on one day, what ifeveryone brought one plant and told everyone they knew to bring one plant. Then

there would be so many plants that they couldnt take them out.

:)


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I am riding the train with my friends and thats

kind of nice.I ride the train to work all the time alone so when Im riding it with friendss Im

thinking wow I am riding the train with my friends this is great. A lot of times when

Im riding the train w/ friends I like to talk about revolutionary shit because I like to

think that people are eavesdropping hell I almost always eavesdrop on the train!!!

And for when we are talking its like wow we are not talking about Starbucks wow.

For instance, I like to talk about how trains and highways were built in this my city

to keep certain people in certain people in certain places. You see, redlining was

done based on where poor people lived because poor people ruin neighborhoods,

& when you put redlining in contect you see that its in the 60s a lot and what else

was in the 60s?--racism and deindustrialization. So all of a sudden you have a lot of

poor black people with no jobs really and they can get around kinda easy until the

car, which is really becoming a vital component of post world war ii american

culture, is like a thing and the first highway barons are flinging pavement curses

from town to town. Now, in each town (BYC, Chicity, LA esp.) they have to put

the highways somewhere & of course the places that make the most sense are black

Harlem and the Southside because what are a bunch of poor black people who

cant even really vote going to do about the fact that youre destroying

neighborhoods with asphalt monoliths, uncrossable, insurmountable, as permanent

as we can make them, and strung through with trains every few miles to provide

another part of that simple myth of agency, mobility, the classic lie given down by

the white men of america.

So thats what I like to talk about the train ha Im literally reading this out loud to

my friends on the Red Line sometimes poetry to writes itself.


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When Im on the train I like to play music.No wait, the best cup of soup I ever had was in Germany. In Berlin, at David

Bowies favorite cafe. No wait, was it called the Black Cat? No wait, I want the train

cars to each be specialized to a kind of music or maybe just one band or composeror whatever but like, there would be a color coded system where you would know

okay, where this purple light is shining the car that arrives will play only early LCD

Soundsystem, green is Polka, yellow is the collected works of Claude Debussy and

pink is only music entirely composed, performed and marketed by children.

So then youre in the right train car every time. Every time you will make a friend.

Wow every time you get on the train you will make a friend!

One day Im going to break into the train corral,

wherever it is.You see, Ive been collecting rolls of receipt paper. Whenever the receipt paper is

about to run out, I take the roll with the little bit left of it and I put a rubber band

around it so that it doesnt unravel and I put it in a box with the other ones. I

currently have 325,803 rolls like this. I put poems and drawings and secrets on all

of them, and when I break into the train corral Im going to put them all over likestreamers. Im going to tie them to cabooses so they fly like streamers on the cars

of newlyweds but I wont attach them too tightly because I want the words to

pollinate the city. I want Kthe Kollwitz and Guernica and everything profound and

Jean Sibelius and T.S. Eliot and Mrs. Dalloway and everything by Marx and Milton

and all the poems Emily Dickinson ever wrote even the bad ones and Howard Zinn

and my own poems I wrote about the bells to go everywhere, to seed a revolution,

to make peace and sprout mint and offer a helping hand and a cup of coffee to

everyone, to you, to my neighbors, to everyone.


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Keep your eyes open when youre on the train

because literally everyone is beautiful.

anthony is an activist and barista and intern in chicago. his passions are not being

oppressive and gardening. he falls in love every time he rides a train.

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2, an ebook about trains