Wisdom, lullabies and chickens

One of my favourite “little books of” is Taxi Driver Wisdom by Risa Mickenberg, a series of quotes taken from conversations with New York City cab drivers. It contains page after page of classic real-world wisdom, though not all of it you want to hear! I was reminded of it when I discovered, Ceyda Oskay’s “Sleepdust: Uber Drivers Singing Lullabies”, an eight minute edit of dialogues between the Turkish artist and Uber drivers that took place in London in 2019. You hear the drivers sing lullabies from the countries they migrated from. It’s a very gentle and poignant listen. A natural miscellany of cultures. It reminded me of cab rides I took from Brixton to Heathrow, always with Floyd who I brought back duty free and who told me about his plans for a chicken farm. His wisdom one day: you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. So I didn’t.