Podwalking

Another good start to another morning, as I relished Booker T and the MG’s playing “Time is Tight” followed by Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” while exercising the dog.

Lloyd Davis has staked out the term “podwalk” for his audiocasts of strolls through London. That’s fine, props to him — but I propose a secondary sense of the word, for the rhythmic stride one can’t help adopting when the music one’s listening to on a portable mp3 player hits a particularly compelling groove. In fact, I’m envisioning an advertisement that follows a series of pedestrians through city streets, each of whom is obviously wearing the recognizable white ear buds of an iPod, whose jaunty step differentiates them from their dragging, scuffling neighbors. They’re podwalking.

3 thoughts on “Podwalking

  1. I think of it as flashdancing, mainly because I take my flash mp3 player when I go walking (rather than the larger hard drive based one), which I load up with audio goodies just before I go based on my mood.

    I’ve also often felt there’s great potential in setting up a flash mob movement where people can regularly gather in parks to dance to their heart’s content without worrying about looking too silly, strength in numbers’n’all. Sure beats smelly gyms.

  2. Ah, the ubiquitous white earbuds of the iPod again, as though consumers had no other choice of mp3 player. Remember the days when Apple used to stand for noncomformity? Now I can rage, rage against the iPod as I MuVocise in the gym to 256 megs of my latest mix of old-school punk (the Clash, of course, and Iggy and Ramones) and ska (the Specials), some Ladytron, a dash of Franz Ferdinand and just a dusting of Film School and Cat Power.

    Nice picks for podwalking tunes, btw.

    AC

  3. Would the silhouettes of the figures in iPod commercials constitute “podwalking” by your definition? It looks like Apple invented something, but didn’t come up with a catchy name for it.

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