Observing

At night, the lights beckon and seduce. This is near Times Square, looking down Broadway at 50th Street. The building where the ball is dropped every year is somewhere to the left, and since we're looking southwards, the famous north-facing facade can't be seen. A few streets up, the billboards blaze outside the Broadway theatre houses. And even though the place has become plasticky out of touristification (I take the word of New Yorkers on this, since I have no idea what the original, gloomy, gritty Times Square was like - though the particular pattern of contrivance that panders to tourists is obvious even to the untrained eye), the flashing lights still seem to flash some morse-coded promise. Songs have been written about this visual siren song.

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After classes ended on Thursday (oh yes, it is true that most Columbia students have 4-day work weeks; I've even encountered people in the lifts who have insane 2-day weeks), went down with a group of friends to the MoMA again, this time to catch one of the many film screenings there. After all, for the price of a return trip on the subway, we could get a week's worth of cultural inculcation (among other things, the Columbia ID gets us free or highly discounted access to many of the city's major museums). We were trying our luck, and ended up watching Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It. It was a really fun movie, about a girl who's a polygamist, and how her multiple boyfriends/partners, who are caricatures in themselves of the range of black stereotypes, react to her so-called unfaithfulness. There's even a lesbian element, one that our protagonist (I use the term descriptively, rather than positively) repeatedly refuses.

The film's done in something of a documentary style, with characters reflecting on each other and confiding in the camera, while flashbacks (or, more accurately, stylised reenactments or dramatisations) intersperse these personal accounts. Technically, there are a range of interesting techniques and devices, such as the camera zooming in on a character's face, and then the screen blanking out as the character's name is flashed. There is a part of the film that is projected in colour, a dreamlike dance sequence that, contrasted with the rich monochrome shades of the rest of the film, burns with bright colours and beauty. And Lee uses slow motion to excruciatingly, lovingly extend and linger on the most physically intimate moments of the film, and while there is a lot of sex, there is surprisingly little vulgarity.

There were certainly a lot of cultural and thematic pointers in the film that I missed, but one idea that stood out for me was how it may be perfectly legitimate to enjoy the physical aspects of sex so much that this aspect is regarded as primary, rendering all other considerations, moral, emotional, social and otherwise, secondary to the ultimate objective. Especially, love is portrayed as at best secondary, and at least peripheral to the physical aspect. At most, love is a means to the ultimate end. Most of the time, love is something that is distinct from sex, is only tenuously connected to the physical act. The protagonist, I think, subscribes to this view, to the incomprehension, revulsion and even fascination of her partners.

Anyway, philosophising aside, it was great fun to go down to MoMA and to indulge in some cultural enrichment at the end of the week. This should occur more often, I think; we should make it a point to do something like this at least once a week. After all, with so many opportunities for us to take advantage of here, it behooves us to put in the effort to put them to god use, in order to justify our good fortune in ending up in this place.

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Anyway, speaking of good fortune, here are two more things to make yourheart flutter in incredulity:

Firstly, the Columbia Arts Initiative, an agency meant to source out good cultural deals for students, somehow managed to secure free tickets for the freshmen to watch the Broadway musical Wicked. That's certainly more than $50 per ticket, and each freshman only needs to pay the $5 booking fee, and we get two tickets apiece! And so, it seems, by next month, I will be able to fulfill one of my objectives of watching show on Broadway, with the really nice surprise that it will cost me next to nothing!

And secondly, there was an announcement on Friday that Barack Obama and John McCain will be coming to campus. At the same time. On September 11. Apparently, they will be giving speeches on the role of national service in America, the importance of citizens contributing to the national interest. They will not actually be talking to each other; they are giving separate speeches. But it will still be the first time they appear on the same stage (if I'm not mistaken). And what wouldn't one give for the chance to hear these two speak, live, in person, and at this crucial juncture, a juncture that feels historic even before it becomes history?

These chances are being given to us even without us putting in any additional effort to get them. I mean, where else in the world will opportunities like these be given away for free? We live, here, on the cusp of a wealth of incredible opportunities. The atmosphere is charged with chances. It keeps you on your toes, because you don't know what to expect at every moment, and yet you know you can expect something that will be worthwhile.

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And this place's beauty still carries me away. Yesterday morning, went on a school run with G. It was a 5-kilometre route that took us out of our small campus and through nearby Riverside Park, winding our way along the Hudson shore. We had an NYPD escort across busy road junctions, and there were hundreds of people running at the same time, but all this could not override the joy of jogging in the crisp morning air, the sight of the mist lingering across the river, and the New Jersey skyline, barges and a bridge slipping in and out of sight among the foliage. The sheer pleasantness of the scenery is reason enough, I feel, to run that route again.

And today, went out on my first solo trip into the city. Carried my work with me and made my way down to Union Square, at 14th Street and Broadway. What I found at the other end of the subway ride was a farmer's market set up along the outside of the park, and a green space filled with benches and picnic tables, statues and fountains, set among tall and stately townhouses. Walking among the stalls selling everything from fresh vegetables to cheese and poultry, enjoying the sights and sounds of spontaneous commerce, it felt like such a pity to have to begin my work. And yet, when I had my paper and laptop out, it felt like such a privilege to be able to work in such a pleasant environment. It makes a difference that you can look up when you're bored or tired, and just watch the people going by, with their secret intentions and destinations, or just scare off the gathering pigeons, and feel the breeze as dozens of wings beat the air at once.

And in my solitary moments, I feel as if I can properly listen to this place, and comprehend what it is saying. This city sings as well: from the sharp and echoing sounds on the subway, to the sedate clicking over of the traffic lights that change in succession, one street after another on a wave that runs the length of Manhattan, to the buskers and artists that surprise you on street corners and in tunnels, to the occasional blaring of sirens that accompany the rush of flashing lights among the maze of Manhattan streets. And when I'm alone, I feel like I can pay full attention to this spontaneous, unselfconscious symphony. I can interpret it, I can read it, and I can act on it. When I'm alone, I feel more in sync with the city as a whole, more a part of its fabric.

If only you could hear what this city sounds like...

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And outside, now, a noisy game of ultimate frisbee is in progress, echoing all across the quad. At first, I have to admit (and rather regretfully, at that), I had assumed that there was alcohol involved - an assumption based wholly on prejudice and ignorance. But it seems like they're really just intoxicated with the night, with the notion of the first weekend after the holidays.

I guess I really should be putting more effort into getting involved in these kinds of activities. After all, isn't this meant to be part of the college experience, or at least part of the ideal that everyone comes to college carrying in one's imagination? But it is rather tiring, I find, to keep putting in this effort. It is particularly hard to talk to people who are culturally American. I lack the social awareness, the cultural markers to carry out a proper conversation. I find that I am prematurely distracted by cultural differences, and thus am unable to concentrate on what they're saying. And at the same time, I don't know enough about ambient culture (like TV, politics, sports, even the weather) to make small talk, meaning that conversations tend to peter out rather quickly. This is a problem, I guess, that will dissipate with time. But in the meantime, people are making friends in this crucial period of transition. This is something, I think, that I cannot simply wait for; I cannot wait for it to simply take care of itself.

But at the same time, I remain essentially a conversation-ender, if you will. I tend to be an observer; I watch, I see, I hear, I listen, I feel. And then sometimes I write, and even more rarely, I draw. Talking does not come into it as something central or fundamental. Or, if it does, it comes in as a means to communicate the meanings that I find in the observations. At this point, though, it doesn't seem like the communication of this type of meaning is of central interest to anyone. And, having nothing to say, I simply don't say anything.

At the end of the day, I certainly want to make new friends here, if only for the self-interested motivation that I will need the support of a vibrant social network in the months to come. But at this point in time, I want to see more, and to know more. This objective, unfortunately, is not something that is widely shared, I think. People come here to look for different things, and it turns out that I am looking for something that is quite different from what most people are looking for.

The question, then, is whether I should just get with the programme, and look for what they are looking for as well.