Slow Down.

Steve Reich, New York Counterpoints, Nonesuch, 1985.

Paul Benjamin: Looks like someone forgot a camera.

Auggie Wren: Yeah, I did.

P.B. : It's yours?

A.W. : It's mine all right. I've owned that little sucker for a long time.

P.B. : I didn't know you took pictures.

A.W. : I guess you could call it a hobby. It doesn't take me more than about five minutes a day to do it, but I do it every day. Rain or shine, sleet or snow. Sort of like the postman.

P.B. : So you're not just some guy who pushes coins across a counter.

A.W. : That's what people see, but that ain't necessarily what I am.

P.B. : They're all the same.

A.W. : That's right. More than four thousand pictures of the same place. The corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue at eight o'clock in the morning. Four thousand straight days in all kinds of weather. That's why I can never take a vacation. I've got to be in my spot every morning. Every morning in the same spot at the same time.

P.B. : I've never seen anything like this.

A.W. : It's my project. What you'd call my life's work.

P.B. : Amazing. I'm not sure I get it, though. I mean... What was it that gave you the idea to do this... this project?

A.W. : I don't know, it just came to me. It's my corner, after all. It's just one little part of the world, but things happen there, too, just like everywhere else. It's a record of my little spot.

P.B. : It's kind of overwhelming.

A.W. : You'll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend.

P.B. : What do you mean?

A.W. : I mean, you're going too fast. You're hardly even looking at the pictures.

P.B. : But they're all the same.

A.W. : They're all the same, but each one is different from every other one. You've got your bright mornings and your dark mornings. You've got your summer light and your autumn light. You've got your weekdays and your weekends. You've got your people in overcoats and galoshes, and you've got your people in T-shirts and shorts. Sometimes the same people, sometimes different ones. And sometimes the different ones become the same, and the same ones disappear. The earth revolves around the sun, and every day the light from the sun hits the earth at a different angle.

P.B. : Slow down, huh?

A.W. : Yeah, that's what I'd recommend. You know how it is. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, time creeps on its petty pace.

Paul Auster & Wayne Wang, Smoke, 1995.