Ten Walks/Two Talks
Jon Cotner

"Magic... A new way of moving through our worlds."
--The Boston Phoenix

"Fantastic... A deceptively simple book, TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS demands little but offers much. Cotner and Fitch invite us to experience our city with fresh pleasure and renewed awe."
--Time Out New York

"TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS is not a destination; it's a gentle journey with a pair of companionable friends."
--The Stranger

"Unusually quiet and beautiful... This book isn't like anything I'd encountered before."
--Time Out Chicago

"A clever, well-executed investigation of the poetics of the commonplace."
--BOMB Magazine

"Hilarious... Walkers, you have found your Socrateses."
--The Austin Chronicle

"TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS helps instill what is too frequently missing from books on buildings: the experience of the city."
--A Daily Dose of Architecture

"TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS is an associative journey where scents, noises, people, and buildings are meticulously described through the eyes of intensely attentive explorers."
--The Architect's Newspaper

"I hate exercise, and I hate conversation, but I love TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS."
--HTMLGIANT

"Cotner and Fitch's conversations zigzag between the philosophic and the comedic."
--Paper Magazine

"I've noticed more since I read TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS. I've listened more. It's made me feel better. This is a gift, a beautiful book, and nothing in it is forgettable."
--Bookslut

TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS combines a series of sixty-minute, sixty-sentence walks around New York City with a pair of roving dialogues--one of which takes place during a late-night ramble through Central Park.

Literary Nonfiction. TEN WALKS/TWO TALKS combines a series of sixty-minute, sixty-sentence walks around Manhattan with a pair of roving dialogues --one of which takes place during a late-night "philosophical" ramble through Central Park. Mapping 21st-century New York, Cotner and Fitch update the meandering and meditative form of Basho's travel diaries to construct a descriptive/dialogic fugue. (edited by author)

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Amazon Rating:
US$14.00
(As of Sep 07 15:17 , info)

1 review from Architecture blogs:

A Daily Dose of Architecture 09 Mar 10:
... ) But even a cursory reading offers much to appreciate, a subtle shifting in the way one experiences the city. New York is the ultimate walker's city, a melange of objects and people interacting in unique and unpredictable ways. This book is a great 'guide' to this aspect of the city. US: ...

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2 reviews from Thinkers blogs:

The Rumpus.net 27 May 10:
... Fitterman and Place also point out that “Pure conceptualism negates the need for reading in the traditional textual sense—one does not need to ‘read’ the work as much as think about the idea of the work. ” To be sure, Notes on Conceptualisms also confused me. I have no idea what to do with: “Radical mimesis is original sin. ” Do you know what that means? *** In Ten Walks/Two Talks, Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch revive Baudelaire’s flaneur, and Basho’s travel diaries, and Thoreau’s notebooks. The project began with sixty sixty-minute walks that Fitch took around Manhattan and Brooklyn on sixty consecutive mornings. Each “walk” is comprised of a sixty-sentence reflection. ...
3 Quarks Daily 04 May 10:
... For the past several weeks I've been trying to reconstruct conversations with someone I used to know. I've been trying to remember the last one, in particular: What are the last words I said to this person who is now gone? What are the last words he said to me? So I look down and I walk down sidewalks I've memorized. I've read Ten Walks/Two Talks three times now, once before something sudden and awful happened in my life, and twice after. I don't know if I would have even thought about how I walk in my city if I hadn't, or if I would have tried to commit every conversation with a friend I have to memory even while I'm talking, afraid I'll lose it like I've lost most of my first 32 years of conversation. ...

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