New York Crazy

Riding the subway yesterday afternoon it dawned on me that I was humming...in public. Seeing the crazy people on the subway who talk to themselves, sing to the tune in their head and preach the local patois to anyone within ear shot, I wouldn't say I identified with them.

Yesterday I finally felt I had a small understanding of what might compel them to act the way they do.

My adventure out was the first in four days. Four long days spent locked up in my room, reading, writing blogs, chatting with people online, but not speaking to anyone in person.

After several days of this it was as if my brain hadn't registered that indeed there were living breathing people around once again and that they could in fact hear me.

But living breathing people - let's think about that for a minute. One of the things I love about NY is that you can be as anonymous as you want to be. The catch that I hadn't really thought about is that this works in two directions. People can, and most of the time will, ignore you. They won't strike up a conversation. They won't smile. They won't even acknowledge that you exist if you happen to be between them and the door to their train stop - they treat you like just another iron beam holding up the ceiling of W4th street station.

After a while, it doesn't really matter if you are humming to yourself or screaming out loud for that matter - people don't listen, don't care and it's NYC so why should they. Crazy shit happens here all the time. But it did occur to me, perhaps the people that talk to themselves on the subway are just that lonely. Maybe they haven't had anyone to talk to for so long that their internal dialogue being external and no one was around for the first few weeks to alert them to this or respond.

In the hopes of not becoming the crazy lady on the train I thought about some solutions. So being alone, how does one meet new people? And the more important question for me became - how do you act, upon meeting these people? I've never had to tell myself (in my head this time thank goodness) not to be socially awkward. Not to look like I'm starved for human contact and that anyone to talk with would be most welcome.

Though I will admit it was with some difficulty, I did manage to converse with others at the art exhibit I went to without becoming "one of those people."

I'm happy to report that not only did I manage this new skill, but I also got to the point where I was ok with being alone and thought more of the type of people I would want to spend my time with than who I could meet in general.

It might seem like an odd set of things to ponder to some, but when faced with this whole new social situation - my life as a new comer to NYC and not knowing more than two people here - I realized that I've never been alone. Not really alone. I've had a parent, friends, class mates, co-workers, a husband, a boyfriend...someone there with me. Which has indeed been good, but it is also I think important to face something daunting like NYC on ones own.

So at the end of all this thinking and worrying I discovered that once again the city is making me stronger. Of course I will not totally loose it being on my own. And shock of all shocks - I might actually enjoy it after a while. And besides some good lessons learned...I saw some very intersting and worthwhile artwork.

Actually it was wonderful - I treated myself to 5 1/2 hours of nothing but great art. Most of this was film, and two of the pieces were quite amazing.
The first is called Beyond Guilt Trilogy and they have a website for it: http://www.beyond-guilt.com/
The film is of course in three parts. Each part focusing on the effects of war on sexuality. To explore this topic the women who made the film used three different settings - the first being public bathrooms, the second a hotel room where men arrived who had responded to an online ad the women had posted for sex, and the third another hotel room where they had a hooker meet them and they paid her to talk about her experiences.

I'd not seen anyone explore this topic and thought that their findings were not only compelling but very important for any nation involved in a war to pay attention to.

The second film is called Operation Atropos by Coco Fusco and you can watch it here: http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?OPERATIONA

Coco Fusco took seven women including herself to a camp where retired interegators for the US Army do a training day in which one experiences what it feels like to be a POW. They have some restrictions of course, but mostly the interegators treat their prisoners as such - stress positions, hoods, cuffs, dark rooms where the women were interogated alone with very large angry men.

I thought it was a very interesting look at not only what happens when people are put into a situation like this, but more importantly as a glimse into what our military is doing to the prisoners overseas and perhaps even in our own country.

Other than that one of the most compelling things I saw on the wall - plexiglass cubes with blood spattered in beautiful designs, kept from oxydizing by copper.

That and what looked just like bubble wrap but was actually glass.

A day spent as a spectator, of art and of myself.