You have to admit that there is something about living in a city like New York that makes you think that you're some kind of loner/artist/writer/
poet/ wanderer/freethinker/sociologist/ coffee/whisky-drinking / smoking/beatnik-hippie-punk that makes for endless diary writing awaiting tempura maki and hijiki salad (alone at a table for two, naturally), on the train to wherever you are going, or drinking vodka at a friends bar, there is something about cities like this that makes it happen.
althou, there isn't much of the privileged artsyness that goes with sushi and a comfortable solitude in Chinatown, where i sat writing yesterday at dusk, or in Bushwick where i type now (essentially alone, thou my roommate is plugged into whatever obsessive game hes been doing since i left the apartment on saturday).
Mostly, these places are filled with poverty, although Chinatown is also filled with seemingly
endless stalls of strange dried things, questionable fish, even worse durian in yellow mesh bags, cheap vegetables (not organic & with a carbon footprint of >500mi), knock-off purses, watches, belts, dvds, &anything else that can be ripped off, and the
holy home of vegetarian drumsicks (along with something called vegetarian fish ham, which, for the record, im not the slightest bit interested in eating).
in addition to trying not to open the bag of drumsticks and sort of wishing we had a deep fryer, here's a list of things i expect i will not be doing in my last four days here:
- visit the Whitney / Kara Walker solo exhibition
- visit the Met who were bold/moneyed enough to install Hirst's
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living which includes an updated shark from the original display in Saatchi's BMA "Sensation" show
- visit the Guggenheim, more for the art cred of having gone. the facade is under renovation/scaffold anyway
-see a film at BAMcinematek, Film Forum, or some other ultra indie or notedly cinephelic theater. In fact, the only film i saw that is likely not available in DC was
Wristcutters: A Love Story, at Times fucking Square.
-visit all 5 boroughs. Sorry Bronx and Staten.
-burlesque, strip club, peep show, or something equally old-new-york seedy
-find the international spice market or that huge greenmarket you see on TV cooking shows where tv chefs buy their groceries
-close a bar at 4am.
-walk across brooklyn, williamsburg or manhattan bridge
-find a magically beautiful and cheap bicycle to coast around brooklyn
-make it big time as a Broadway dancer (the stagehands are on strike)
I blogged for Filmmaker Magazine about the dazzling animation in the tunnel after the B/Q DeKalb stop here in Brooklyn. Masstransiscope (1980) is by my former Hampshire film professor Bill Brand, restored after 20 years of negligence. Actually, I'd been riding past it nearly daily since I moved here, but they only turned the lights on the show a few months ago. The short article is mostly factual, and upon reflection, I feel like I've neglected to mention how nice it is to have art on your commute. It's easy enough to miss with your head in a book, your headphones on and spacing out into your own world, but once you notice that there's something to capture your attention out there in that dark tunnel, it's hard to ignore it when you go past. Your fellow commuters wonder what you're craning your neck at, and most feign disinterest when they see it too. But many, like these folks, get caught up in the joy of having something unexpected like this in the otherwise bland subway. 
Art in public places can be tricky. it can be ugly or creepy, and people can disagree about whether it's art or not (I'm looking at you, graffiti). I think this one falls into the category of art to enhance ones surroundings.
