Walk Across America - Quotes
"My journey through America began in the early 1980s when, as the son of a traveling salesman, I took a cargo ship across the Pacific ... to Japan.
It was the first time I was there. ...
As I entered the harbor, I had the idea that I would... walk the country from coast to coast. It's not such a big walk, not such a big challenge.
I set out through these rice fields and began to awaken the idea of traveling.
...
I use the horizon and the setting sun as a guide. I fished my way through the rice fields and it worked pretty well. You improvise your way.
The longer you don't know where to go at night, the more you actually find a rescue, which is quite picturesque. So when that worked well, I came home and said:
"...I will walk across the United States."
Sometime around 1984, I left my New York apartment, walked through Central Park, past my alma mater, Columbia University, across the George Washington Bridge and found myself in New Jersey.
Most of the time I was alone with my Sony Walkman and my notebook in my bag.
....
“I made over forty more excursions, about three per year, and crossed the entire United States in about twelve years.”
From the “Across America” interview :
How did the press and Art Garfunkel's fans treat him during his walk?
"I was left almost completely alone.
There have been times when the press has pounced on me and I have to make a deal. If you leave me alone, I will give you an interview in the cafe in the town I am about to visit.
.....
But I've never really been harassed and I think the world... is a safe place.
Almost the whole world is trying to mind its own business, avoid trouble and find its way to heaven in its own way.
They just can't deal with you. There is another phenomenon that my fellow celebs may be familiar with.
When you display a non-persona, when behind your face you feel like I'm not a famous singer, I'm just a guy enjoying the beauty of the scenery.
The attitude you exude belies any sense of celebrity. So even if someone says, 'He looks like Art Garfunkel, but that can't be him, look at his tone, his attitude, that can't be him.' So I never get hassled."
What is the most surprising thing that has happened to you or that you have observed while traveling through America?
"The sun was setting in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and I didn't know where to stay. I knocked on the door of a private farmhouse.
Three college girls were in the middle of an LSD trip. They recognized me as Art Garfunkel. I learned that they were three of thousands (millions?) who are "invisible" - they don't pay taxes, they avoid the census; they're not on the American roll."
Tell me about it. What kind of walk did you take?
"I have walked around one-eighth of the Northern Hemisphere.
A few years ago I traveled from San Francisco to Japan on a freighter and I had never been there before, it was the early 80s. So when I arrived in Japan I checked in what little luggage I had and walked through the rice fields of Japan.
It took me three weeks because the country is not that big, and I found it to be very doable and very healthy and beautiful, and it calmed me down.
So I set out to do just that across the United States, and I did that from the mid-80s to the mid-90s in forty different excursions, always flying home and then flying back to where I left off a few months later...
Half the time I was traveling alone with my music and a notebook, and the other half I was traveling with either my wife or my brother, or Jimmy Webb joined me in Idaho."
Did you have a plan when you first did this in Japan?
Did you have a goal in mind every day, did you know where you would be in five, six or eight hours?
"No, I trusted that I would find a place to stay. I had my American Express card in my back pocket, but basically the travel spirit awoke in me and I replaced the feeling of, "Where are my car keys?" with, "There's west, and I have my map," and the rest is just following your sense of direction and making your way through the earth like you're two years old and an unprogrammed human being who just starts walking, you know, that verb "walk," and you see the hills that are 12 miles away and you say:
“I’m going there,” and you go there!
…
Even though I have the curly, recognizable hair, out there in the field with a cap and a book and the kind of non-personality that I wear, I find it very easy to be a nobody and not be recognized.
I think when people see me and think I look like Art Garfunkel, their next thought must be, "No, that can't be him."
Look, that's a guy walking across the fields..."
"It is the ignorance of the way, the discarded map, that makes the setting sun the guide and brings the scenery to life."
Art Garfunkel was the focus of a four-page interview with Tom Dunkel in the October 15, 1990 issue of Sports Illustrated.
Summary:
The article is titled “He’s looking for America – Art Garfunkel has been hiking alone cross-country for five years.”
Mr. Dunkel caught up with Art in the spring of 1990, 2,200 miles into his 4,000-mile hike in Nebraska.
The hike is done in segments of approximately one week and 100 miles, picking up where you left off.
About every four months, Art flies out of his Manhattan apartment and continues his journey through the back roads of America.
The original plan was to go in a relatively straight line between New York and Oregon, "but it evolved into a free-form flourish."
His footprints “are marked on a Rand McNally map that fills one wall of his third-floor office.”
Within 24 hours of his decision in 1984 to hike from the East Coast to the West Coast, Art packed a small backpack and began his trek through Central Park, across the George Washington Bridge, and into New Jersey.
Although he hikes 90% of his trips alone, he has also hiked with his brother Jerome, his wife Kim, and Jimmy Webb.
No, Paul Simon did not accompany him on his journey to “record the topography of the United States.”
According to Dunkel, “Garfunkel used to either hitchhike or walk to the nearest motel every night.
Somewhere in West Virginia, however, it occurred to him that all those wasted hours could add up to another decade on the road. Now, he says, he travels "like a rich man," with an assistant who drives him to the day's starting point, scouts out lunches and rooms, runs errands, and picks him up at the end of the day."
Dunkel notes that Art "carries only a road map, reading glasses, a watch..., a Walkman, and an eclectic selection of cassettes, including Peter Gabriel, Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and poems by John Donne read by Richard Burton."
Art put his Masters in Mathematics to good use at The Walk.
"He knows that his combined strides from left to right are five feet. That's exactly 2,112 steps per mile," or "2.6 miles per hour."
"There are a few rules for the walk that Art strictly adheres to.
Rule No. 1:
"no snooping. No exceptions."
Whenever Alan Lipson, his assistant, has to drive him over a stretch of unused road to get to their motel, Garfunkel drives with his eyes closed. Likewise, he will not fly to or from an airport that is in an unused area.
Rule No. 2:
2
Keep moving.
Constantly starting and stopping is a waste of energy.
Walking was never intended as an opportunity to mingle with the crowds.
It's not about socializing.
It's about being the perfect stranger."
Dunkel adds: "The rules reflect Garfunkel's perfectionism.
He is the rock'n'roll Felix Unger.
This is a man who keeps the 1,664-page Randon House Dictionary of the English Language on his kitchen table to read (albeit from Z to A).
He has a Rolodex full of words and their definitions, hand-printed and catalogued by number."
Dunkel quotes Garfunkel, who describes his journey through the dictionary as “a very similar thing to The Walk.”
Dunkel concludes:
“Both are comprehensive in their scope and deadly serious in their intent.”
Text source:
After Japan and America, Art Garfunkel also traveled across Europe.
He finished this journey (from west to east) in Istanbul in 2016
Quote by Art Garfunkel in Welt 2007:
"I've already crossed the United States. Now I'm walking from Shannon Island in Ireland to Naples, in twenty stages, since 1996. I always fly back to where I left off the last time. Then I take a rental car to exactly the same place. From there I continue walking. Always for a week, always a hundred miles."
Routes of the hikes as PDF
English language list
English language list
