nYc hitchabout | City of Continuous Interactive Creativity

It’s not just my current economic situation that propels me to hitch, when I wish to visit a place without being prohibited by my lack of disposable income. It’s the fact that I learn things through the people I get rides with, who more often than not, are people whom I wouldn’t otherwise come into contact with and learn about the area that in some cases, is their hood. I had a nice nYc hitchabout visit to a city which always promises and delivers lots of energy and movement. I happened upon several open air festivals and demonstrations that reveal the creativity and spirit of involvement that all of the different cultures of people congealing in one city demonstrate. Here’s the google link to the pictures I took in progression.

New York City flickr link to pics

For a 2.5 hour trip by car, I received three rides to arrive in NY, and three to return home. Each a fairly quick connection; after having used google maps and directions to map out my route. The first gift upon the last ride, was with a man from Guiana, who brought me that last stretch right into Queens, where he introduced me to some local flavor on that Friday evening. A local bar filled with music and laughter of people, mostly men, from Guiana, Trinidad and Jamaica. I’d always heard of the fact that the borough of Queens in Manhattan has the highest concentration of languages of any place in the world, due to the fact that there’s a dense convergence of people of different cultures from all over the world living there.

I discovered barriers set up in the East Village for a Dance Parade which would happen later that day, in which various different cultures participated.

Dance Parade nYc Village

This was passing from the West Village to the East Village by another event taking place, a Secret Walls Street Art competition at Cooper Sq. in Manhattan. The Secret Walls xnYc is part of the L.I.S.A. project | Little Italy Street Art

Secret Walls Graffiti L.I.S.A project

Carol Keiter the bloggers contribution to the Wall

Two Team Graffiti competition

Graffiti competition Secret Walls L.I.S.A. project Little Italy Street Art

It just so happened that next to the Graffiti competition and interactive for the public to contribute to, were a bunch of chairs set up for people to take their ride, also an interactive event.

NYC X Design chairs at Cooper Union Sq.

Interactive chairs NYC X Design

NYC X Design interactive chairs

The following day I happened upon an AIDS walkathon in Central Park, where I happened upon some live music there to perform for the event with drummers and dancers. Black & Gold Marching Elite band.

AIDS Walk Central Park NYC

Approaching AIDS Walk Central Park NYC

Black & Gold Marching Elite band

That was after my friends who I had gone to meet up with and visit in the first place informed me of how fantastic the current Chinese Textile and Design exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – “Through the Looking Glass” is. When they informed me that one can “Pay What You Can” to enter, I was sold on going there to investigate. The exhibit was indeed splendid with its visual, texture and sound multimedia; beautifully created by the curators in which they use frames of metal and glass to reflect even more dramatically the color and intricate designs of traditional Chinese Royal Robes through the centuries juxtaposed next to modern Western designers works of this last century. One of the friendly workers in the museum suggested that I check out the roof top, which I’m glad I did, after trekking to the other end of the museum to catch the elevator up. There were lots of tourists, in fact, I heard so much French from passersby as I walked the streets of Manhattan that I approached one family and asked them. I told them that I’m hearing sooooo much French among people in the streets, do you live here? what is going on? They mentioned smiling that they’re on vacation, as is and eighth of the population of France 🙂 I also got to practice my German, taking a photograph of a family group on the MET rooftop, who were surprised and pretty stoked when I spoke to them in colloquial German, explaining that I’d lived in Berlin. Encountering all of the different cultures of people from around the world is certainly what makes New York so dynamic and engaging.

Through the Looking Glass Chinese Textile and Design exhibit MET Metropolitan Museum of Art

Through the Looking Glass Chinese Textile and Design exhibit MET Metropolitan Museum of Art

After happening upon the demonstration after the Museum following discovering a mid-town street fair in the process of being set up, I made my way down to SoHo, to Canal street, where there was already a solid wall of cars on Sunday late afternoon inching their way towards the Holland Tunnel to exit the city going West. There, after seeing mostly New Jersey license plates, yet with my sign that said on one side Route # 78 and the other PA Pennsylvania, a car of a Mother and her two daughters were driving back from there to a town within 17 miles of where I’m presently residing in PA. The one daughter just celebrated her Associates degree of Art at the Pratt Institute of Art. Because of the recent commuter train wreck in Philadelphia, there were no trains, and the airlines’ gracious response was to jack up the fairs 200% or so.

It was a wonderful trip visiting my Native New Mexico family of friends, a Mother and her two daughters, Dana, Aria and Colette whom I know from Taos, New Mexico when I worked for Dana at ‘Caffe Tazza’. There meeting in NY is what brought me to visit the city in the first place, while the three converged there for the weekend.

Dana and her daughters Aria and Colette Manhattan

I was fortunate to join them and their friends for a meal at a Ukrainian and Polish restaurant Veselka in the East Village, after which we went to an Italian place for coffee and desert.

carol_aria_dana_colette_caroline_vera_nyc_2015_2

NPR Part 4 on Identity | Pico Iyer’s TED talk: “Where do you call home?”

Today I happened to turn on (NPR) National Public Radio, to hear Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episodes on Identity, of which I knew nothing about.

TED Technology Entertainment Design Ideas worth spreading

This one featuring Pico Iyer’s TED talk about his perspective of “where one calls home”. It certainly grabbed my attention, the topic alone, since I’ve lived in quite a number of different places, among different communities in several countries. This particular presentation by the writer Pico Iyer, regarding “what do you call home?” is quite intriguing because of the way in which he eloquently describes his intimate understanding of the situation of having no particular identification with any one place.

He realizes at one point after living in numerous countries and having had his parent’s home burn down, that “My home would have to be whatever I carry around inside me.”

He calls it a terrific liberation in fact, since he speaks of how his grandparents grew up in a community, in which their whole sense of home, community and enmity, was assigned to them at birth. They didn’t have much chance of stepping outside of this.

Pico Iyer’s TEDTalk on Identity

Nowadays, some of use can choose our home, create our sense of community and fashion our sense of self, by stepping beyond the black and white divisions of our grandparent’s age.

The number of people living in countries other than their own, is currently 220 million.

It is one thing to have ‘moved around a lot, and quite another, when one is fleeing their country – which is happening at alarming rates these days, with political refugees seeking asylum from the violence in their homelands. Yet, listening to Pico’s smiling voice articulate examples of people who are by birth, of two different ethnic backgrounds; living in a third country that is neither of their parent’s homeland, ads an additional subtle twist.

Perhaps this talk will be soothing to anyone who hears it, to reassure us all that home is what one carries within ourselves.

Iyer’s final statement: “Home is not where I sleep, but where I stand“.