31 August '07

Three weeks in New York has crept up without me even noticing. Not much of note has happened, but there are many subtleties of the City that are now familiar, and I guess that's about as good as can be expected. I have learnt, for example, to lean just in time for the slight jolt that comes at the end of the subway's slow deceleration at every station, a jolt just strong enough to destabilise a unprepared rider. I have learnt to speak more slowly and emphasise the 'e' in 'Ben'. Too many conversations have consisted of:

"what's your name?"

"Ben".

"Bin?"

"No, Ben."

"Huh?"

"You know, like Benjamin… shortened."

"Oh…. Beeeeen".

So, to the week. Yesterday I woke early to lay with some friends on a blanket on a tar seal footpath in Central Park. The idea was to get there at 7am to be among the first in line for free tickets to that evening's performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. As it turned out, when we arrived we were already 60th in line. And the tickets weren't handed out until 1pm. So for six hours I sat there, every minute the line growing until it snaked around the corner of the path 200-or-so metres away. It is testament, I think, to something quite sacred about a city when people line up for that long to see Shakespeare. Shakespeare! Justin Timberlake I could understand, but Shakespeare? Many of the people in the line missed out and returned to the theatre that evening to line up again for standby tickets As it turned out, the play was exceptional. Many recognisable actors performing in an open-air theatre with the illuminated giant-trees of Central Park serving as a backdrop. The audience was receptive, the wine flowed freely, a fine evening.

Much of the rest of my time has been consumed by trying to navigate the bureaucracy of Columbia. The campus I can navigate just fine, but registering for courses/libraries/insurance/gym/ID card/work is time-consuming and tedious. In addition, I have now been oriented four times by various groups. Last week the International Students Office reminded us to shower before going on a date and that the best way to indicate interest in a girl is to make eye contact. Useful information. I have now met most of the other anthropology MA students – a good bunch of people, it seems, and it's nice that my nationality is again a novelty – I've spent far too much time with internationals.

On the housing front I am still in Harlem. Yesterday there was a shooting about 100-metres from my house. Two Mexicans apparently. They had a stand-off. When the NYPD-guy told me that I had to restrain a chuckle. Not an appropriate response when the block is teeming with police, ambulances, yellow DO NOT CROSS tape and detectives with badges hanging from their necks. I have resigned myself to remaining in the room for another month – finding housing is just too difficult at the moment.

No doubt more has happened – various drunken nights, many fine meals, good conversations with good people, more conversations with idiots, momentary pinings for home, many moments of exultation where I feel like yelling out loud for the madness of it all – but they are of little consequence.

In New York, my ability to generalise is slipping. Every time I try to record my experiences, they are reduced to a series of unconnected vignettes. Not completely unconnected of course – they are linked by me at the very least – but lacking any common theme, occurrence, or idea. The vignettes are startling though – always notable.

Last night, when catching the subway home at 2:30am, for example, the carriages were just as crowded as they were at 5pm. In any other city I have visited, it would be easy to characterise the passenger as youthful drinkers, or wary seniors, based on the time of day and location. Not in New York. In New York at 2:30 in the morning there were children, seniors, hoods, backpackers, crazies, blacks, whites, Latinos, babies. Every demographic was represented and no one looked surprised. I just can't understand it.

Or today, as I sat sweating in the subway station, a woman stood on the platform opposite. Prone to admiring beautiful women, this time was no exception. I watched her as she stood with her friend, laughing, throwing her head back. Then there was the sound of her approaching train. I urged her to look at me before the train arrived, but she did not. I resigned myself to staring at the sides of grey carriages until in a wonderful turn, the windows of the carriages aligned and I was offered a filmstrip of the beauty. Each frame a flash of aligned windows as the train slowed. Every image offering a nuanced perspective, a rapid-fire model shoot.

Or on the weekend when a woman was holding a steel cage with wheels in front of her as she descended the stairs. The woman leaned backwards to counterbalance the weight of the cage. At each step the wheels teetered on the brink before landing with a thump on the step below. All of this was of no great consequence until, when passing the woman, I spied the contents of the cage. Sitting with his legs crossed like Buddha was a small boy. He fitted the bottom on the cage perfectly, covering exactly the amount of area he needed to cover – no room to spare, no room to be dislodged. And as the boy was ferried down the stairs, each one jolting him slightly, he did not raise his eyes from the brick game he clasped between two hands.

I guess vignettes constitute a vision as much as anything else. And it is probably naïve to expect more – a big city is only as large as it is filtered through a small mind. Still, there is promise, there is future, and there is a year left to try and make sense of it all.