the advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
- friedrich nietzsche
so i love new york city. absolutely adore this city of mine. i love it from the balls to the bones and back again. its in the blood. but every once in a while, after a lifetime of living here, i get disenchanted with it. i begin to loathe the grey and burgundy brick walls or the cold way the glass buildings turn a beautiful blue sky into a… well that’s irrelevant. the point is every so often i forget, simply forget, why this ridiculously noisy, dirty and crowded city is a place everyone with a dream outside of a garden wants to visit.
new york.
reggie and i was on our way back from a casting call we were hosting for a film we are about to shoot and decided to stop in union square to relax before parting ways. typical scene, really. the multi-tiered steps were filled on each level with people from all walks of life, all age ranges, all racial and financial breakdowns. they were gathered here to talk, to relax, to just watch the passersby and no one had issue with anyone else. in the distance the portuguese drums were hitting it… hitting it… hitting it. some guys couldn’t help but gravitate to those powerful drums… that crooning voice in a language that wasn’t mine and just dance. they danced. many watched. union square.
reggie and i finally found a seat and between the couple arguing behind us, the dancers flowing with the rhythm, the setting sun and the hackeysack guy that found fit to query the camera in my hand. we found a type of calm. a peace and sense of well.. union. it wasn’t long before that natural magnetism that is ours began to sink in and people just gravitated to us. talking to us like we’d been friends for years. the dancers. the passersby. the night air. we all talked about everything and nothing.
at some point in the middle of this. in the middle of idle conversation and joking. in the middle of taking pictures of anything interesting that moved or didn’t move i realized that i was perfectly at peace. i stood there in the midst of both revelry and calm. speaking to both old friends and the new, single serving friends. taking pictures of everything from soon-to-be brazilian fashion models and ballet dancers from crown heights to capoeira dancers that battled, passively, against the breakdancers.
ahhh new york. there is love here. there are terrifying waves of love here with swells high enough to drown any man.
..ra
