Not Shopping

My riffs on street art and graffiti in Germany, Italy, New York City, Mexico, Ecuador, and Russia are not meant to be exhaustive catalogs of either street art or graffiti in any of these places. Instead, they are meant as a reminder to travel with your head up. At home, too often, my focus is on the sidewalk, in getting from one destination to another as quickly as possible. On a trip, I can wander, look around, contemplate what I see. Why is that statue there? What is the intent in defacing that wall? How different is a culture from its reputation?

I recently return from a quick trip to Chicago and am surprised when a friend asks, “Did you go shopping?” Why would I visit a place to shop? I don’t ‘shop’ at home, loath setting foot in a mall, and try as hard to purchase as little as possible (except for books, which are my one grand sweeping indulgence). I do cruise bookstores almost everywhere I go, and I might window shop on the Magnificent Mile and remember a time when I was far more materially intentioned than I am now, but I’m not going shopping. I’m going to learn—about a new place, about its discontents, about its heroes, about myself.

—Lori Tripoli