A Song of the City: Haunting Nest - J. Hackson

To live in a city is to live in a community of people who are strangers to each other.

You have to act on hints and fancies, for they are all that the mobile and cellular

nature of city life will allow you. You expose yourself in, and are exposed to by others,

fragments, isolated signals, bare disconnected gestures, jungle cries and whispers

that resist all your attempts to unravel their meaning, their consistency.

                                                              - Soft City, Jonathan Raban

J. Hackson spent a few months listening to 'the tune of the town' (Luton) and has assembled snippets of what he heard into a fascinating kaleidoscope of voices, the resulting booklet being something like a cross between Mark E. Smith's lyrics and William Burroughs cut-ups. 

'A bout of clap would even have its refrain I defy myself not to hear some tune in this he can't eat it cold he says he can't eat it if it's cold   get a taxi home I've got a tenner'. 

Highly recommended for those who love the poetry of the streets. Available here.