Tag Archives: New York

Williamsburg fears and guilty pleasures

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McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is jammed with beautiful girls on a sunny day. 

It’s part of the hipster-coolness, and either you’re in or out. I was out, my friend was scared. He was scared of beautiful girls, of matching outfits, of sun-bathing bodies. He kept saying that girls are mysterious creatures, often repeating “They laugh, and they cry. Then they cry, and they laugh. But they they cry, and laugh back again”.

I was totally amused by watching his reaction while crossing the park, his eyes wide open to the horizon, always talking about his funny behaviour as uncool kid. He was true, the overall feeling was of a superficial and constructed environment made by young people who were trying pretty hard to feel unique and yet part of a selected, unique social group: the Williamsburg peeps. He, on the other, was born wise and old, out of the Facebook circuit, even of Craigslist’s one too. And I was born to disagree with most of his ideas, but generally to be amazed and to truly adore him.

My friend is a big chubby boy, with a white shirt and an easy smile on. He think fast, he speaks even faster with a mixed accent that it’s hard to get at times. He sang a song that day he listened to on my ipod, while walking along the neighbourhood, while avoiding those beautiful girls. The song speaks about a woman who feels and wants to be strong and superior, but always goes back to the same old mistake and gets together with his lover, a merciless, arrogant man. No illusions or dreams left, just a little, meaningless feeling she’s holding on. The song says that a woman, when in love, can’t tell the difference within a blind love and the silliest patience.

My friend on a pavement, under a very hot sun on a Saturday morning was singing his guilty pleasure meaning every single word, letting his inner female side talking, maybe? Not at all, just endorsing the lyrics to explain why women are not ruling the world, because of their eternal hope towards love. And love is scaring as much as beautiful ladies in the park are. Bless him.

Argh, no possibility to find a better version, my apologies

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It’s New York City, baby

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It’s silent when you walk home during night in New York, even if you are have music plugged in your ears. The cliche’ of ‘City that never sleeps’ is partially true: see, in the dark, in most parts of the town, people are actually sleeping. But the city still lives with the Chinese 24 hours, where you can buy your breakfast for the day to come, or the 24/7 pharmacy-drugstore, where if by accident you think you should wear a bright red lipstick, well you’re still in time to do it. And then the rats: New York is a vivid city when dark, it’s the city of rats. Not a bad thing, when you learn not to cross their way and do your damn business walking straight home.

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And so, when I am not working on telling my past months, I am inspired by an old song to talk about some years ago when I was in New York City, yes that New York, the famous-in-many-songs-and-movies city.

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It’s basically the center of the world.

What you’re looking for is there, and I am not talking nonsense. you can go there with any good or bad intention you want, and the city will automatically change it, usually using a smooth glove, so that you don’t feel it…and everything the result will turn out, it is always compelling.

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It’s a city where you constantly adjust yourself and your human being.

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It’s a city where you walk for miles without feeling it.

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It’s a city where you find yourself having lunch on a bench in Union Square and listening to a nuts next to you who apologies for his behaviour with his dead sister.
Ironic that, it’s the city where strangers always talk to you and everybody is eager to tell his story, his art, his feelings.

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New York City is a natural social network, even before the creation of social media.

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It’s basically impossible to feel lonely, because when you are you just have to walk a while and let the lights in Midtown crush your heart. They can literally make you hold the breath and nuke your heart in atoms of joy and inspiration.
In NYC even if you are a single atom, even if you are a bloody meteorite, you keep in mind you’re a peculiar part of the universe .

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“Is it you? Is it me? Nobody knows, nobody knows, nobody but me”