Upper West Side Story: A Year in New York- High in the Wintery Park by therealpaul

story · @therealpaul · Dec 26 '16 (edited)

$10.71

Upper West Side Story: A Year in New York- High in the Wintery Park

<html>
<p>The trees in Central Park had lost their leaves to the winter and they now allowed a panoramic view of the buildings surrounding the park, adding some perspective to where I really was, and what this vast machine might really be. &nbsp;<br>
My mental map of NYC was composed of impressions and memory-- it contained few details like street names or avenues-- it was instead a view from above at the squirming mass of city in real-time, a living island laced with streets like a grid of flowing veins, suggesting life, or hydraulics, at work. My working map of the city showed a living biological entity instead of just a machine, a hybrid device with mysterious functions, purpose and intent.</p>
<p>&nbsp;Four months of living in the city, and now viewing it from high in the wintery park-- it was an easy flight to imagine; to look down upon the city, having no idea what it was, or what it was intended to do. A visitor from another world might come to some curious conclusions in flying over NYC to see the writhing glow of it all.&nbsp;</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/photo%203_1.jpg" width="784" height="1024"/></p>
<p><em>'Sunday in Gotham' 2005 watercolor</em></p>
<p><br></p>
<h2><br>
The City at a Glance&nbsp;</h2>
<p><br>
If New York City could be viewed in fast-forward from above and then guessed at-- it might appear like some sort of a bizarre farm, tasked with fueling and feeding hundreds of city sanitation trucks. The human farmer's job, apparently, would be to create piles of used furniture, office supplies, trash and garbage, heaping this feed onto the sidewalks and spilling it from the doorways within the endless maze of walls.</p>
<p>&nbsp;In the neighborhoods it pours from the fronts of the brownstones, a stream of colorful produce which then feeds an incessant army of city sanitation crews, who squeal and hiss their brakes up and down the streets, somehow stuffing it all into their fleets of insatiable trucks as the day rolls on.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;<br>
Viewed from above, and zooming out some more, we can see an impossible perpetual motion machine at work. As the city churns below, feeding itself with pure intent, there seems to be no way that it can sustain itself. A great power source must exist for it to move so diligently into another day. &nbsp;<br>
Yet another day rolls in, and the city rolls with it.<br>
A day breaks with the same certainty in the city as it does anywhere in the turning world, as the island leans into the East. The Earth rolls forward, and <em>NYC</em> presses into it with wisdom, character and enthusiasm.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Daily Bananas</h2>
<p>Before dawn, the city morning's smell of diesel is replaced with a hint of coffee, and then the news stands open, doors roll up and the bananas are set out. The daily bananas.<br>
A closer street-side look reveals produce stands on every block, with bananas and all of the favorite fruits. But the bananas are everywhere-- even magazine stands have bananas for sale, and within a single busy block, on a single day, perhaps hundreds of bananas are sold individually. &nbsp;<br>
Looking again from high above, and seeing the endless blocks of streets and avenues, the required daily banana supply begins to reach nearly incomprehensible numbers. These bananas, growing on trees thousands of miles away, are shipped into the city every day by the tons. Somebody is going to have to pay for that, today. The suspense builds.&nbsp;</p>
<p><br>
<strong>The suspense comes from the very air-- a surrounding electricity charged with anticipation, always there, even on the quiet Upper West Side of the city. &nbsp;<br>
</strong><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/photo%204_1.jpg" width="853" height="1024"/></p>
<p><em>'Fifth Avenue Shade' 2005 watercolor/pencils on canvas panel</em>&nbsp;</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Instinctively, I knew to dance with that current instead of trying to resist, as I could see that the city was doing an impossible feat; it was perpetually creating a vibrant product which filled the senses; <em>life,</em> and seven million people had agreed to plunge forward another day into the perpetual dizzying spin of it. With the flow, the air's energy was exchanged for a few dollars here, a few more there. And another day rolls in. &nbsp;</p>
<h1>Human Factor&nbsp;</h1>
<p>&nbsp;<br>
Once while walking by the Museum of Natural History, I was approached by a guy who helped me see the finer details of this massive cyborg called New York City. We were passing on the wide sidewalk and he stopped. <em>"Pardon me sir… I'm collecting for the </em><em><strong>United Negro Pizza Fund</strong></em><em>…"</em><br>
He got two bucks from me for that one. He was putting some effort into his panhandling, which translated into something of value to me-- we both had a laugh, and he presumably got lunch for his contribution.</p>
<p>&nbsp;<br>
If his two dollars really went to the purchase of a slice of pizza, then the pizza shop would order more flour and sauces, filling shakers with oregano and garlic powder, and all of the things that would be needed to create more pizza the next day, while the delivery trucks would remain employed another day, and the vast machine of the city would be powered by these minute exchanges happening constantly throughout the day-- tiny pistons of action, all working in a synchronistic ballet, like minuscule bits of light frantically forming a huge billowing galaxy. &nbsp;<br>
There, in front of the museum, I could then see that the city's product wasn't used furniture or trash-- the city's real product was human creativity-- that palpable energy that was the electricity which the air was made of here-- this respiration was what fueled and powered the whole thing.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>The Big Fractal</h2>
<p><br>
New York City is an ornate fractal leaf of what the world looks like-- it <em>is</em> the world. People from everywhere make up it's population, and there is really no <em>New York accent. </em>There is certainly a Brooklyn accent and a Jersey accent, but in the city, the population is comprised of Earthlings from all over the globe. &nbsp;They live stacked atop one another, and voluntarily agree to have a civilization-- making it work day after day, and just like communications in the real world outside of the city, the beings sound like they are from everywhere: Cuba and Columbia, Russia and China, Vietnam and Texas, Africa, England, Puerto Rico, etc.</p>
<p>&nbsp;<br>
&nbsp;The world, on a little island, agreeing to depend on the outside world, with it's ships full of gasoline, bananas and oregano agreeing to paddle along at great expense to help sustain the machine as another day rolls in.</p>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
The street-level voluntary society has it's common dialogue, but the ubiquitous sanitation trucks hiss their brakes loudly in concert, and the daily exchanges between panhandlers and pizza parlors is taxed heavily by the city. A supernatural symbiosis, each bit of maintenance in the city has to be sustained by the individual creative efforts and voluntary exchanges, and it is at least temporarily agreed that the island will have to spin forward another day for it all to work. And spin forward it does.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>A New York Minute</h2>
<p><br>
Once on Columbus Avenue, a passing woman stopped to talk to me on the sidewalk. She talked, and seemed to be chatting about some little something or another, while she had a long cigarette burning in one hand. I took the chance to light one of my own, and she stopped her monologue to ask me if I could spare a smoke.<br>
We both looked at the cigarette already burning in her hand, and she said bemusedly, <em>"oh…".&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>She had become so good at bumming cigarettes, that she was bumming them faster than she could puff them. The city pushed, and it's residents flowed, because it wasn't a monthly cycle, or a weekly schedule which dictated the behavior on the sidewalks, it was a minute-by minute existence. &nbsp;Even the next minutes into the future were a part of life in the city, with days being next in the field of ongoing awareness, while months were mostly just phantoms of ideas.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;<br>
<strong>The City is not the USA. It is a place like nowhere else in the world, and yet it is exactly like everywhere else- it is the condensed version of Earth, now. &nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>New York City allows the passing tourist a glimpse of what happens when people choose to live together all at once. There will be the inevitable crime and injustice, yet all around those crimes are always the rest of the noble people-- the individual beings who are able to sustain and enable the beauty of the city and the world. They prove by their numbers, and by rolling the City forward another day, that the world is more good than bad.&nbsp;</p>
<p>My imaginary map of the city helped me to eventually find my way out of the park, and while the winter trees had devoted their attention to their roots, the city churned on. In four months, the city had begun to reveal some secrets to me; The City was showing me what the world would do if left alone for a minute, or even a second. The human beings who inhabit and generate life into this rolling island are leaning expertly into the curve, balanced and dancing on the edge of the wave.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Human nature, like all of the Earth's nature, works well when left alone. As an example for all to see, New York City is the Earth's family portrait, a masterpiece of rhythm and surreal graphics, falling easily forward, tipping masterfully into the art of it all, rolling along with another day.<br>
-------------<br>
<em>Thanks for reading part 4, next is 'four seasons' in NYC, final part!</em><br>
<em>previously in this series was</em> <em>first </em><a href="https://steemit.com/story/@therealpaul/upper-west-side-story-page-from-a-year-in-new-york-city"><em>the journey forward,</em></a><em> then,</em></p>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/story/@therealpaul/upper-west-side-story-a-year-in-new-york-city-subway-day"><em>four days</em></a></p>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/story/@therealpaul/upper-west-side-story-a-year-in-new-york-city-a-moon-a-star-rent-and-recycling"><em>four weeks</em>&nbsp;</a></p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-20%20at%206.43.46%20PM.png" width="412" height="101"/></p>
<p><em>all artwork images above by me,&nbsp;</em></p>
<h2><em>@therealpaul</em></h2>
</html>

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@gardenlady · Dec 26 '16

Beautiful watercolors!

👍 therealpaul

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@therealpaul · Dec 26 '16

Thank you @gardenlady, those were some that I managed to paint while I was there

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@dreemit · Dec 26 '16

It is extremely difficult to capture the essence of the city, particularly the broad stroke of it, and yet you managed to both in words *and* in art. This installment in particular was brilliantly captured. Somewhere in the near-ish future I will be doing a step-by-step blog on publishing through a site called blurb. I think the steemit community can benefit greatly from what I'm learning about it; this series your doing can be taken and put into a hardcover complete with pictures providing another outlet for your work. And your work should have as many outlets as possible :)

👍 therealpaul

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@therealpaul · Dec 26 '16

It IS difficult-- I had to zoom in, back out a few times- then squint hard. I think the bananas are often overlooked in descriptions of the city ;)
That sounds interesting, the project that you mention, and the 'blurb' I'd like to hear more about
Thanks for your encouraging words, as always, inspiring me to press on

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@dreemit · Dec 27 '16

I'm glad I inspire that, I would be quite devastated if you didn't continue.  There are many people feeling discouraged here of late, I have to admit today was a bit discouraging for me as well. It's the first time in awhile that one of my playgrounds didn't make anything. I don't care about the fluff I put up, but that one stings a little.  Blurb is a self-publishing site and I actually have a few completed novels that really need to be published. They are nothing like the playground series, I went through a purely entertaining fiction with a bit of erotica period, haha. Lots of fun, not particularly thought provoking. The one that I'll be going through on blurb first started out as an exercise-I was going to submit to Harlequin LOL. I changed my mind mostly because their requirements made for a shitty finished product. My books are not compatible with steemit because the chapters are too long...with the exception of one that is about halfway finished and while not the playground it definitely has more of that flavor. That one I will start posting here, I figure why not. When I'm done putting it up I can take that to blurb too.

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10 replies

@dreemit · Dec 27 '16

I don't know...if you click on it, it takes you to his page which appears to be him. Haha, I would take a screenshot too!

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@therealpaul · Dec 27 '16

It takes a little pressure off when I presume he's on 'auto-vote' like part of a curation guild, but I'm scared to think about it much!

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@dreemit · Dec 29 '16

I am putting this comment in the wrong place, which will be explained at the end.
I could have sworn it was much less than nine hours ago that I checked in on your page, what a strange and ironic day to have issues with time, considering the premise of the book I introduced. I actually intended to come and chat at you on your last (this) post had you not put up a new one. And so concludes paul's time in NYC. Bragging about it ever since made me snicker, I have the same urge sometimes for having spent a portion of my life on Long Island with frequent trips back as well as into the city, though I have never lived closer than an hour from it. It's completely silly considering these i-magi-nations, these arbitrary lines on a map that represent borders to fictions, yet the urge remains, the compulsion to proudly say I am a native New Yorker, haha. It was a great tale, I'm glad you shared it.
Now what I was coming to your page to tell you was that I was nearly offered to have my series and my upcoming book turned into an audio book by a certain fellow I've come to know. It's the nearly part that brought me here, nearly because once he learned there would be some language in the upcoming book it was no longer feasible, and once he reads a few of the playgrounds...well, have a look at my milestone post and the longer back and forth between myself and someone. It would be borderline rude of me to be talking about this but I have no concern he will ever come to this page, particularly with this one being three days old.But it involves something we've discussed once before. I've read his last response over three times trying to decide whether I should remark on it or not. He is mostly unaware of my background, it might make more sense if he was aware. But it's truly a bit frightening that I once thought those things myself. Well...not entirely, not even as an indoctrinated child was I ever able to quite commit to a portion of those claims, the portion that excludes a staggering amount of people from entering an afterlife that is not horrific, eternally.

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@therealpaul · Dec 30 '16

Ok I saw it: there's even a mention of the 3 days of rising son, or sun. We know that the major religions are based on astro theology, where Judaism has sabbath on Saturday, and their focus is on planets (Saturn, etc) then the sun worshippers, the Christians, have sabbath on Sunday, and go on and on about the 'Son', while the Muslim or Islamic branches have moons in their symbols, and sabbath is on Monday. Then, all of the parables in the New Testament were likely written by Francis Bacon, and then it gets into secret societies and more confusion. With all of that, people still want to adhere to the old time church mind-control devices like the one that appeared on your milestone, and there is no way to communicate further, as you know. The superstition brings comfort, but I've also read that the name 'Jesus Christ', when spoken aloud, is some powerful stuff in paranormal settings, so the belief in the church's devices is reinforced perhaps. I tend to be a sort of closet Jesus freak myself, but I read the parables as metaphysical standards, ways to master holistic thought, so I accept JC as my teacher, or magi, or shaman, but does that mean I accept Francis Bacon as such? I admit it's confusing, so we have to be gentle.

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@dreemit · Dec 30 '16

Teacher certainly, brother even. It just boggles the mind a bit that they can so nonchalantly tell you that their club will be heading off to paradise no matter what their behavior even, while billions including whom their talking to are headed to an eternal burning pyre of agony. Too bad so sad, ha! Sheesh. It's funny, and synchronous once again, that I've written my next playground before this conversation and it deals with Swearing no oaths and what that actually means, and fuck is not a part of it ;) At this point I think I see Christ as being a man who could 'see' at a time when that would be nearly impossible which would obviously make him extraordinary. A lot like if you were to be sent back to those times with your evolution of thought. And really the entire Bible is a book of law, there are practical applications if you define it correctly. Hell is in Black's law, I think we might have talked about this before, that it is defined as a debtor's prison under the court of exchequer. The debtor's prison being here not in afterlife. And there is no mention of hell whatsoever in the old testament, practicing Jews don't believe in hell for that reason, yet Christ came to save us from this place that Christians mistakenly think people were being sent to without recourse before he came. It is confusing, but it also just seems so foolish. My daughter was reading over my shoulder when he replied, unbeknownst to me until she scoffed loudly in my ear. "How could people actually believe that an omnipotent Creator would be so petty and cruel? It's ridiculous. I wouldn't be so petty and cruel and I'm hoping that the embodiment of unconditional love is at least a bit better than me." Haha.

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1 reply