Last week I started production on a documentary piece that I’m hoping will somehow capture the relationship that restaurant workers have with Fifth Avenue, in particular their feelings on the bike lane that stretches from Flatbush to 23rd Street. There’s a strange sort of unspoken competitiveness among NYC bikers that seems to span the range of bicyclist demos. I’ve gotten dropped by dudes who are probably coming off a 10-hour restaurant shift and repping mart bikes with shitty, fat mountain bike tires, who cast a pitying glance over their shoulder as they burn me. It probably sounds silly to someone who doesn’t ride, but that sort of competitiveness is simply driven by pride. There exists something in this world that makes a rider want to prove to a complete stranger that he can dial it up and navigate the dangers of the NYC public street better than said stranger.
The thing that interests me the most about the topic of this piece is the public policy discussion regarding bicycling infrastructure. The most obvious rationale for the absence of restaurant workers from this dialogue is that bike infrastructure advocacy is the sort of “activism” that is normally entirely relegated to the bourgeois class, and for good reason. When you are struggling to stay in your apartment and feed your family, taking time out of your day to lobby public officials for the construction of a bike lane is a luxury that seems laughable. But I really want to try to figure out the relationship that restaurant workers have with their bicycles, with the public street, with pedestrians, with car drivers and with other bicyclists. I equate my bicycle with mobility, freedom and joy. How do they perceive theirs?
In attempting to produce the piece, I’ve felt especially self-conscious about my inability to speak Spanish, and am concerned about fostering an appropriate dynamic with any potential subjects. The seeds of gentrification have already been planted in Sunset Park, and I’m worried about coming across as paternalistic or condescending. Actually, just finding any subjects willing to speak with me has already proved pretty difficult. The language barrier is certainly a problem, but I have a feeling that a lot of restaurant workers in the area might be undocumented, and reasonably wouldn’t feel comfortable answering a lot of questions about their jobs on tape.
In trying to figure out the form of my piece, I was strongly influenced by a piece of audio work done by one of my UnionDocs mentors, Kara Oehler. Her sound portrait was a documentation of the experience of migrants who risked their lives and imprisonment to cross the border from Mexico to the U.S., tied together I was also greatly influenced by an amazing piece done by filmmakers Kevin T. Allen and Jen Heuson, in which they documented the stories of members of an undocumented farm workers collective in Florida. In cribbing their approach, I hope to do most of the interviews on audio, and then pair the narrative that emerges with footage from 5th Avenue shot over the course of a day and night. I’ve only made a few forays to Sunset Park to do some lighting tests and audio gathering, but have already been seduced by the charms of the neighborhood. The storefronts decorated with extravagant quinceanera dresses, the street food vendors, the 24 hour bakeries-cum-diners, the produce stand at 50th Avenue that’s open 24 hours, the Bronco Tacos truck. Sunset Park today is emblematic of the sort of immigrant enclave that makes New York a beautiful place to live. I love it.
You see things on a bicycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through the car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.
I would like to cordially invite you to a screening of some work I’ve completed as a member of the inaugural UnionDocs Collaborative Project. Along with Robbie Wilkins, I created a piece on the nature of Online Persona. It will be screened as part of the Collaborative’s larger work, Inductive Thread.
WHEN: Feb. 20, 2010 @ 8 p.m.
WHERE: The Museum of Modern Art, Theater 1, 11 W 53rd Street, New York, NY (The entrance to the film theater is separate from the entrance to the museum)
TICKETS: $10, available at the MoMA box office, but not online as far as I can tell.
Yesterday we got the chance to rehearse the piece at MoMA. I blatantly stole Robbie’s excellent and always cleverly edited “My Week” video series idea to create this short documentation of my day:
7:15 Omg we’re going over a big bridge! That has to mean we’re crossing the Delaware. Philly! YAY! Wow, from up here it looks like even Philadelphia could not remain immune to the development of completely out-of-place glass luxury towers. Ok, gonna sign off, I gotta get my bag and pack up. Peace.
7:13 The driver just honked the horn at something, but I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. They guy behind me just said that we almost hit a car. Drama! I’m ready to get off now, we’re already 13 minutes late. I have no idea where in New Jersey we are though.
7:05 Ah, feeling refreshed. They seem to have somehow managed to turn the AC up during my little doze. I can kind of see my breath, and my nips are erect and starting to chafe. We’re just pulling out of our first stop, Cherry Hill Mall. They’re literally dropping people off at the side of the road. I’m starting to think that Bolt is nothing more than Chinatown with Internet access, electricity and yelp cred. Ok, that adds up to kind of a big difference.
6:32 Okay time for a nappy nap.
6:24 Evidentlymy web host went down for a little while, so I kept getting messages related to the management of my blog that I didn’t understand at all. They’ve got the AC cranking, and I’ve taken to using the heat generated by my macbook to keep my core warm.
6:04 The wheels are really rolling now, and we’ve made it into the more bucolic region of the pike. I’m getting tired though, so might have to take a nap. I need to gather strength for the open bar awaiting me in Philly.
5:55 We’re passing that crazy industrial park on the turnpike that reminds me of the Death Star run from Star Wars. Just like Beggar’s Canyon. I wonder what it is they do in all of these insane looking places. Maybe it’s where they produce the hair product that fuels the self-esteem of a million Jersey Guidos.
5:51 Man, we are going sloooooow. I think we just passed exit 13. About an hour in and a long way to go.
5:26 Daylight! We made it out of the tunnel. I just realized that, taken in their aggregate, liveblogging updates are no different than Twitter, which I enjoy mocking. The epiphany has left me in a personal quandry about my current actions, which, I promise you, are a joke. If these posts suddenly end, it’s probably because I got bored. I have no idea why anyone would read this. Except maybe my mom. Hi mom!
5:19 Just got off the phone with Sheba, who i called just to give a general update to. I wanted to tell her to track my progress on the Bolt Bus live blog, but I was too embarrassed to speak those words out loud. We’re in the Holland Tunnel now, yeah! It should be easy sailing on the NJ Turnpike (stinky!) from here on out.
5:05 The bus driver turns the bus off. I’m not sure what this augurs, maybe that she’s given up all hope of escaping from Manhattan since we’re ass-deep in a quagmire of rush hour traffic.
5:04 Some guy wearing a long sleeve shirt tucked into black jean shorts just barreled up the aisle to converse with the driver. On the way back he asks me if my outlet works. I tell him no and he looks confused, probably because my macbook’s power cord is plugged in. He runs into my arm on the way back to his seat. Back to the chemical toilet district, douche
4:59 We’re loaded up and on our way! I got an aisle seat and no neighbor, hooray! The electricity outlet doesn’t work though. I’ve got a pretty good seat though, only a couple of rows back from the front to facilitate a fast exit.
A couple of months ago, my boy HOV asked me to do some beta testing on a game he was helping design for Tiltfactor/Values at Play called LAYOFF, which was intended to examine the effects of a failing economy on the working classes, maybe? I’m not sure when they released it to the public (I am sure that whatever advice I gave Jay was totally useless), but I recently discovered that it had been Boing Boing’d last week. A Google news search also led me to believe that the story had been picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education, a hard copy of which I have not seen since my days as an intern at ASEE Prism Magazine, circa ’98. Here’s a vid about another project led by Mary Flanagan, the head of Tiltfactor, that I thought was cool.
I really enjoyed my vacation without big problem !!
There is very beautiful sea in Montegobay.
That view really moved me !
But… Kingston was so dangerous. Jamaican gang shoot-out with police.
I could’nt enjoy without your help.
Thank you so much !!!!!
When I arrived in NYC, I have been trying to contact you.
But I forgot your cell number in Japan…
I wanted to meet you.
When I update some pictures to internet, I will inform to you.
