Theatre of the City

from: Sinclair, Iain. "Theatre of the City," Guardian Unlimited, 14 July 2005.

"The city shimmers, traffic moves a little more slowly, but it was never fast. The clients of the 30 bus out of Dalston Junction are no stranger than they ever were: an excitable young man smoking dope, two women talking fast and loud in Spanish on a shared mobile-phone, a very local youth proclaiming a sudden interest in voodoo. "You find a piece of gold, bruv, an' you kill your mum and dad. It's interesting, bruv. It's powerful. Africa is powerful, bruv." Noise levels drop as a sallow, bearded man in an unexpectedly good suit, white shirt, no tie, wrestles with a cumbersome black rucksack. He struggles to extract something and we all struggle with him: designer dark glasses. Now he looks more than ever like a movie assassin. He returns to the bag. Three upper-deck passengers make for the stairs. "Allo, mum. It's me." One week on and Hackney transport is the performance art it always was, but more so. The audience is sharper, more alert, quicker to respond."