A little over two weeks after moving out of New York, I got a call for audio work -- in New York -- just a few days in advance. It brought to mind that quote from The Godfather Part III: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Given more notice, I would have opted for the Amtrak route. But given the last-minute nature of the job, I traveled by bus to keep travel expenses low enough to justify the multi-state trek. It had been a while since I traveled by highway for a trip. Looking out the window and seeing drivers in the next lane, texting while going 65 mph+ was a frequent occurence.
Since I'd been gone, I did not expect the city to have changed much, though I had. Walking with more ease and at a slower pace, I was unplugged from the frenetic energy that is all-consuming in public. I wasn't at a tourist's level of gazing upward and around in wonder, but I took it in without being propelled by the current and pace of surrounding pedestrians. Now, the fevered climate is more due to frustration than spontaneous interactions between strangers as people live increasingly insular lives. Exiting the bus near Penn Station, I immediately felt the misery in the air.
Phones were a fixture walking around Manhattan which is not news. But having spent weeks away in a part of the country where people comfortably navigate sidewalks and stores with fewer devices in hand, I noticed -- more than ever -- the critical clutching, as if it were guiding every move throughout the day. The phones have been the most destructive element of the landscape of interest for me and street photography (and likely my photography business). They have made people more boring and predictable. They take people out of the present and literally tell them where to go and what to do.
Pandemic theater was hard not to notice with all the pop-up testing tents polluting the sidewalks with questionable accuracy. What's the cycle threshold Kenneth? Despite the hypocritical mandating president's words of closure on 60 Minutes, "the pandemic is over,"there were still a good number of people wearing masks outside. For what reason, I can't be sure, either for their security, projecting concern for others, or both. I don't understand why you would want to be stuck in a pandemic land. It's an ugly reminder of too many miserable moments. It's over if you want it to be. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned from the last crappy years is that too many people want to be told what to do, and most are told what to do by their phones.
Look up from that device and take in the present before the transhumanists make that impossible.
A Brief Return to New York
Distance makes the eyes open wider