For some of you that don't know, I'm going to be partaking in UNI's National Student Exchange next year. I have selected a few schools I'm really interested in attending, and unsurprisingly, they're all in New York. (Queens, Saratoga Springs, and Stony Brook, to be exact). Perhaps my mind is a little bias about where to travel next, but I am just dying to get a taste of the Big Apple. Even if it is 3 1/2 hours drive. I wanted to compose this intro for some people who weren't aware of my traveling plans and more-or-less gush about ten things, not in order, that I'm jumpy or that dreams could only suffice to.
1.
Woody Allen. Gah. I am a total fool for his films. He has the most remarkable high-brow, intellectual sense of humour that if you the listener are tuned-into enough to catch, you too will see what I mean. He also has this beautiful dedication to his city, almost like a romantic life partner. The way he way he romanticized the city he loved (particularly in the opening of Manhattan) is breathtaking. And Annie Hall, I could go on for years about..
2.
New York Public Library. I am already a sucker for being in a library for what feels like a year at a time and I go numb thinking about spending an entire afternoon-turned-weekend sitting between the hundreds of book shelves and taking in that calming, historical, nostalgic smell of those library books that have sat on those shelves for the number of years they have.
3.
Seinfeld. This could probably pass as that one television show I could watch reruns forever of, lounging on my tethered blue sofa, eating chinese take-out from the deli (or from the Soup Man restaurant) down three blocks in my Nike shoes and sweatclothes (I don't wear any of that, really.) Just on days when it's grey, and I can't leave my apartment. I need to stay in (which is more-or-less often). I crave that alone time..
4.
Truman Capote. I seem to have this notion I should try to read as many of his novels/novellas in the shortest time I can. Eat it all up. I cannot get enough his objective writing of people. He has such a sensitivity to defining a person by their actions and reactions. I just finished Breakfast at Tiffany's last week and it was delicious. I don't mean that in a gawdy sense but it was truly a treat. I'm currently reading now In Cold Blood , which is arguably his most famous work and I am starting to see why. I highly recommend his work..
5.
Audrey Hepburn. I can now see why everyone is so taken with her. She has this divine energy about her that is so contagious. Not only is she a stunning beauty with this overwhelming sense of genuiness, she really lights up the screen when she is in film. One of my biggest guilty pleasures (as cliche as it may sound) is settling down on a Sunday morning and watching an Audrey Hepburn movie with my mother with hot tea. It's a timeless pleasure and it is spent so well.
6.
Alfred Stieglitz. I just recently purchased his book of New York photographs and they're gorgeous. They are subdivided into two categories, one being new New York and the other being the beginning of the old New York. They're shot in black and white (of course) and while colour photography was not up to date at that point, I couldn't imagine the shots being immersed into colour. The black and the white are so fundamental to portraying the heaviness to the slightest sway in these photographs. This book really helped me sort through my thoughts on when colour/black and white photography is most appropriate. I highly recommend to anyone..
7.
Museum of Modern Art. I don't think there's too much I have to explain here. But being able to immerse myself with the heroes from my Survey of Art History books would just be beautiful and could not come any sooner. If I could have it my way, I would pick up a daily shift at the museum as an archive filer by day and by night run home to pull out all my paints and make work until classes started the next day. :)
8.
Grand Central Station. I just love this combination. Griffin Dunne, whom is the lead from Martin Scorsese's film After Hours, which is also a delightful New York-inspired film (that I highly recommend) and one of the most romantic spots in the city. Maybe that is an overstatement, but I have heard stories about the archway he describes, and to me, it feels like one of those really subtle, really personal and intimate connections that two people share privately while being in one of the busiest spots in the city, sharing it with the other eight and a half million people who use it for travel. I guess I'm romanticizing the idea of using the corners of a room, which is already symbolically a quiet space as a way of communication and while being twenty/thirty feet apart still only hearing your partners voice over everybody else's in the station.
9.
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. Maybe it is that inner pseudo-intellectual-wannabe in me but this is all I want to do on the weekends. I'll probably end up paying half their monthly rent, but that'll be alright. We talked about cognitive development in my psychology class and apparently I am in my peak of cognitive development since I am in my early twenties, so I think that will give me more reason spoil myself with some more Kierkegaard and Kafka.
10.
