Sex in front of the Unicorn tapestry and random NYC encounters
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| Image edited from http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/467642 |
There are the beautiful tapestries hanging on the wall in the Cloisters museum with the medieval collection. Conversation had started with how people can watch through the stained glass windows and see the bad weather coming in. The woman explained the tapestries and then we ended up at sex...
Big city and lots of people walking around. I keep hearing loud voices and I wonder if people are talking to me but when I look back , they are talking to themselves.. or rather their phones.
I see a man sitting at the base of the Columbus statue and he has lots of bags and he is talking.. but he has a phone with headphones dangling too..
It is unnerving, because I am accustomed to listening into people's conversations. But it seems that more people are talking to themselves than to each other and now and then I have listened to people talk to themselves, or talk to the wind.
Sometimes people do talk to you.... I am wearing an old comfortable sneakers that have not been worn in a year or two and I thought that hey.. in big city nobody will notice. But walking in the East Village, and then a teenager shouts "What the f...k... where you get dem shoes from man, what are you wearing" and his friends look as puzzled as I do.. and then I manage to turn back and shout.. "dese shoes got gold in dem... and I think he says something like 'you are f...g crazy" and I think it is the ultimate NY affirmation.
I am walking with a journalism student who had visited Guyana and liked it. We hear loud Lata Mangeshkar playing.. no noise except traffic hum, but the loud Lata stands out.. I turn back to go see what it is. The man asks me.. "Do you think he is Guyanese".. and I went to see, a black car parked up, not a taxi.. I am not a journalist so I did not go up to ask if he was Guyanese and why the loud Lata in the East Village.
My companion then shows me his phone. He is of Italian origins and asks me if I had ever heard of Juthika Roy.. he likes her bhajans. I hadn't heard of her.. and the bhajans are not ones we hear in Guyana..and so , not as loud as the man who might have been Guyanese with the Lata Mangeshkar we walked a bit more, while I listened to some of the bhajans.
People do seem to talk to each other randomly here. I sit in a donut shop and I am sure that the cream is all over my face. I go 'yum yum oh man' it is that kind of donut.. and a lady with a laptop and papers is smiling not in my direction but in the general direction of the glass behind my donut eating face.
I say.. oh oh I hope I am not disturbing you.. and she smiles and says 'Oh no, you are having such a good time. I am enjoying watching.. this is what I have a skimmed milk pumpkin latte'....
I make sure I wipe the cream off my chin.. while the lady looks at me..still smiling.
Eating in public.. well is bad eye they say. I jump in the late night subway and smell fry chicken. Lady in the corner, eating quietly. Apparently, there are messages on the subway saying 'this is not a dining car'.. but people eat. The lady packs back the chicken. The smell is there. I am watching her.. trying to learn how to stand and sit close to people and watch them without watching them. This is an art in the subway. IN the minibus.. you only see the back of people's heads.
When I look back, the lady has a Bible. The book of Jonah. The tissue that wiped the chicken is still there in her hand. People read on the train. The lady is reading and turning the pages. AT some point she dozes off... the Bible is open in her hands on her lap. She wakes up and turns a page and dozes off again. Something about the lady sleeping with her Bible.... fry chicken smell is gone as the doors are open and shut several times.
I could imagine if I had the inclination I could read out the entire Hindu scriptures in the subway instead of minding people business.
I can't read since I get a little headache. So I watch people reading. The young chinese guy reading 1984. Other people with big books.People with their phones. It is awful.. how close the phones are. I peep into one or two of them.. one girl who I thought looked smart and so, was playing some game. Another man who did not look so smart was actually reading something on his phone.
When I can't look straight ahead without making eye contact ..I look down. in the rush hour.. so many shoes.. different kinds of shoes and colours.. and in the cold weather, some have sandals. And I wonder if somebody puts on salsa if the feet would move.
When you cannot read on the train, and there are no conversations to listen to, the imagination has to stretch.
I don't like rush hour because of the manners thing.. I stand up to offer my seat to two old ladies who tell me no,no.., it's okay. So I stand up in front of an empty seat and then a lady comes and pushes me aside and sits down.
Midnight .. train to Brooklyn. Sleepy.
Man opens the door between the carriages of the moving train, and we realise he is peeing outside. People look without looking. Some people move.
He closes the door, and sings moving back in.. walks,skips all the way back to his seat.
Closest Guyana equivalent would be peeing out of speeding minibus.
I hear a man telling another man something about 'you never hear about when monkey dip a stick in he sh..t , " the accent sound familiar. I staring ahead at the door and have a half smile on my face.
The man turn to me and say 'you is Guyanese?".. I am sleepy and wonder if I am dreaming. Black man in a midnight train in Brooklyn asking me if I am Guyanese.. " I look in the window.. beard and so there.. in Guyana, people ask me if I from India.. and a taxi man had called me Gringo.. and here in Brooklyn, man identify me...as his own.
I hear he talking about how 'country life nice'.. and an old man say yes, in an American accent, back in the day they had macaws but now there are not so many.
It is midnight but trains move fast so I jump out .. no excuse though for not hailing up.. and hoping that I not getting into the fast life of the American culture.
I end up in Harlem one night with a man who lives in Harlem .. at a club with live music.. and thinking soul and so. American culture though.. evening started with two men and their guitars singing 'blue grass'.. something about not able to find their red rooster.. and then the blessings of the holy spirit and then after all things ending with nails in the coffin. American culture in the time of Obama must be fascinating.. two white men not finding dey fowl cock in Harlem .. this we would not hear in Guyana. They have a facebook page though
But things got a lil more nice at the ending.. when another group of white people strike up the brass band with tuba, sax, trumpet, djembe and keyboard /xylophone.
I am asked.. what would I recommend for Guyanese music and I show on youtube Eddy Grant and Terry Gajraj.
Subway have some curt messages about manners. I like to hold on to the pole and do a stretch - apparently that is rude.. the pole is not for my routine. They say give up your seat for the elderly and give someone a smile.
I try the smiling thing. Two Jehovah Witness ladies on the square. Place is cold. I smile and say.. 'aren't you cold' and they smile back. One of them says, no no.. we are warm and I say 'ah yes, warm with God's love'.. (I am such a hypocrite )... and they laugh...
45 minutes later.. walking around two blocks or so later.. I see them again.. lady laughs and says.. you know what they say that you don't see one person twice in NYC the same day.. and I smile and say .. yes yes.. I am blessed..
I am gonna keep smiling at strangers.. and see what happens. I was thinking of smiling at some police too.
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