nuzzaci - an online journal

For Christmas and New Year, Willow and I are on the other side of the globe visiting Willow’s parents in Invercargill, Southland, New Zealand (as well as exploring the fjordlands and meeting up with my globetrotting parents). Back again Monday 12th of January 2009.

When i was younger i had a belief that in one of my previous lives i was a successful business women in New York. I thought once i go to New York i will feel familiar with the city, it’s people and it’s roads. I believed New York and I had some previous life history together; almost family blood band. Once i go there i wouldn’t want to come back to wherever i came from. As i have grown older this belief has faded, but going there for the first time brought the memories of the belief back. It turned out NY and I didn’t have that much in common. Maybe my belief was wrong — there is no pre-life, maybe NY has changed since i lived there as a business women. Most probably, i just had a romantic view of the Big Apple.

With great beard comes great responsibility

Last year i saved a beard for christmas (photo), and this year i’m doing the same. As a joke people said that i wouldn’t get past the US custom with my beard. Sadly, it seems like the perceived ideas that a man with a beard has something to hide (or is a terrorist) is true. Quite a racist belief if you ask me. Whenever they had a random security check; they checked me. I got asked question while standing in queues. They went through my hand luggage. Metal detector beeped even if i had nothing on me, which resulted in a head too toe frisk. The US custom guy, when talking to Willow, referred to me as “so, who’s the felon standing next to you?”. So all bearded people, remember: with great beard comes great responsibility.

New York. New York is OK

It is probably a combination of my high expectations and the fact that we only were present between Friday evening to Monday morning, but after round one New York hadn’t knocked me of my feet. The cultural step from London to New York is tiny. The biggest cultural hurdle is probably understanding how to tip — when and how much. You get a bigger cultural different if you go 2 hours on the train outside London.

A few thing i found positive are the availability of goods (gadgets, clothes), good food and groceries (and all that in combination with the week dollar). It’s almost a bit like we here in Europe still can’t escape the after math of the second world war. Or, we simply aren’t as creed and feel we need to overindulge us in an literally a sea of options and endless possibilities. Or, what do i know, maybe our foreign trade laws are different. Maybe our economy is set up differently. I don’t know.

I’m sure if you live in New York for a while (or elsewhere in the United States i guess), you start taking all this overindulgent for granted and see it almost as a basic need and civil right. “What was the life before we all had mobile phones?” or “How would i survive without my pastrami sandwich!” kind of question.

Since we were aware of the fact that the dollar is weak, we had agreed that we would focus a bit more on shopping than we normally do when we are abroad. But neither Willow or i really got in the mood. I’m not really the kind of person who can just switch a switch and be in über shopping mode. I did manage to stumble over a few things. The only one worth mentioning is the enormous (47-54mm from 9 to 6 o’clock position) but yet so gorgeous 51-30 PU from Nixon (photo below).

I don’t think i will return to New York in a hurry, or phrased another way; don’t think i will invest any of the coming years holidays on New York. I’m quite sure though that our paths will cross sooner than later anyway.

Having said all that; before i moved to London 4 and a half year ago — i hated this city, and my encounter with it had been very limited. So, basically, my opinions and thought on New York are currently worth as much as a piece of toilet paper — after it’s been wiped and flushed away.

Not long ago Willow and I had serious thoughts of moving to New York.
So never say never.

A new way to document a holiday

I don’t like the common concept of a digital camera — snap snap snap snap snap snap snap it’s all free so let’s snap snap snap snap — almost like a chorus of a 120bpm radio hit song (rubbish). I don’t own a camera, i once did but i gave it away, and i can’t really see myself buying one soon. At the moment Willow fills all my digital photography needs with her camera.

Before we left for New York, Willow brought some film for her Polaroid camera and a Moleskine City Notebook for New York. I didn’t think much about it, but as we left our brilliant accommodation on Avenue C, Bed and Coffee, on Saturday morning it just felt so natural to start taking snapshots with the Polaroid and file them in the Molskine notebook. On the back of that, i also saved a few receipts a long the way and slowly i started collection business cards from stores and other small things that crossed my path. Very natural. Not force feeding the idea or the concept.

The line between the concept described in the above paragraph and digital photos is very thin. Maybe most of you can’t even see what i’m getting at. But for me it’s a big difference. It’s a but like advertising vs spam or singing vs talking. Small different but still not the same. And i rather look back on a holiday through a mixture of collected items wrapped in a book filled with small notes than only composed digital photography.

Have uploaded a few things to my flickr account. You can find it on http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuzzaci/tags/newyorknovember2007/. Most of the stuff is accommodated with a description.