Chez Shaffner

Monday, February 19, 2007

On Eavesdropping and People Watching

Above: I swear that I don't stoop to such measures as this lady...it works better if you youse an empty glass...

I don’t know where along the way I learned to categorize the act of eavesdropping as a crime. I certainly don’t recall any conversations on the matter with my parents, and thou shalt not listen to other people’s conversations was not among the many lessons taught in Sunday School. It must have been something I picked up from one of the televisions series now coming out on DVD. Whatever the case, it is one of the few fundamentals of common courtesy that I have chosen to ignore.

Now, I would love to take this paragraph to explain how the conversations of strangers benefit my writing: boosting the verisimilitude of my dialogue, giving me new and fresh ideas. While I could say that with a straight face—eavesdropping really does serve as fodder for my idea-engine—the truth of the matter is that I was an eavesdropper long before I started writing.

I read the phrase “people watching” for the first time in mid-July 1995, while seated on the foam-padded steel bench in a sorting booth on the conveyor belt at the paper mill in my hometown. I had smuggled The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard to the belt, to read during the periodic stretches of idleness. Although my matriculation loomed two months ahead, I had received a cache of publications, including one issue of each campus political rag, and this thick guidebook to Cambridge and Boston. I scanned every page, including several hundred restaurant listings. One of them—I believe it was on Newbury Street, a site I never visited while an undergraduate and now visit daily to lift weights—was labeled as “people-watching.”

Hmm. “What does that mean?” I wondered. “Why would someone choose a restaurant to watch people?” It was a curious label.

Up to that age I was a people-watcher in denial of my propensity.

People-watching and eavesdropping are near kin. Although I have engaged in both since an early, early age, I wonder whether my interest in writing correlates. Am I a (struggling) writer because of my predilection for spying on others? Or, since I have wanted to be a writer since fifth grade, did my quotidian habits extend from my professional aims? Chicken or egg?

My eyes and ears are always at work. Here in my home office (15.8% of my total living space according to the IRS formula). At my favorite writing spot, Trident Booksellers (which happens to be a great people-watching venue, for what it’s worth--seated at the bar or in the windows that face Newbury Street). On the Green Line or #1 MBTA bus. Walking through the Prudential. Browsing the aisles of Barnes & Noble. Waiting in line for a grande Earl Grey at Starbucks. Overlooking the dance floor at Avalon. Pretty much anywhere I find myself in the presence of people, I mine the visual and aural landscape.

It’s a blessing and a curse.

Why am I sharing this today? Last week I finally started my new project and wrote a scene where my protagonist was standing in a liquor store in San Juan, sipping a beer and eavesdropping on locals who incorrectly assumed him to be ignorant of their language. He isn’t. That passage set me thinking of the conversations I’ve overheard in my life. Humorous, awkward, banal, intriguing, uncomfortable: I’ve "observed" every kind you can imagine. And I’m certain I’ve been a victim as often as I’ve been an assailant; I’m far from alone in my weakness.

The next time you see a guy wearing headphones at the adjacent table, beware. There might not be any music in his ears except the spirited discussion you're having with your friends... :)

2 Comments:

At 3:39 PM, SusanD said...: I love to try and scandalize people if I catch them eavesdropping, but it makes me wonder how many eavesdropped conversations I've heard that were put on, too.
At 9:59 AM, Veritas99 said...: If you want to take things to the next level, here's an interesting guide so you don't go to jail:

http://www.rcfp.org/taping/