- activism
- anarchy
- apocalypse
- Athens
- bicycles
- birds
- books
- Buenos Aires
- clubs
- coffee
- couple's dancing
- Dante's Inferno
- demons
- drunks
- Dyckman
- economy
- film
- fire hydrants
- graffiti
- Greek diners
- gross factor
- Havana
- idling
- immigration
- Inwood
- Ioannina
- it's a man's world
- Miami
- New York City
- Nova Speaks
- Ode to...
- odyssey essentials
- olympians
- on the subway
- Outer Space
- paradise
- police
- press
- prostitution
- public space
- restaurants
- Rio
- salsa
- school
- Sicily
- sidewalks
- Sinvergüenza
- star trek
- star wars
- stores
- street cookie
- taxis
- trees
- twilight zone
- urban confessions
- Washington Heights
- zipcar
Stolen Images
Apologies if this was already covered by Seinfeld on Nueva-Centric living. Among the abundant subway characters that pack into our steel cars twenty-four hours a day lurks a silent being that can be viewed in two different ways, depending on your mood: When you’re not in an exactly “collective love New York state of mind”, these people are like little stalking Gollums slithering through the tunnels on a mission to possess something. It aint a ring. In better moods, they serve as a flattering mirror; you might immediately fix your hair when you lock eyes with them, smile, or even give a bashful blink. I’m not talking about Shutterbugs, the people who steal an image of you with a camera’s lens, then scuttle away like a Peeping Tom. Hard to justify that type of image mugging. I’m talking about the person in the seat diagonally across from you with penetrating eyes that switch every five seconds or so from a soul-gripping lock on your face and the small pad and pencil cuddled atop their knapsack. When a sketch artist, art student, artist–whatever it is you want to call these subway characters–chooses you out of the rest of the sardine gang commuting alongside you, it’s sort of flattering. Unless of course they chose you because you just look so darn strange, but hey you’ll never know the truth. But the act also evokes a level of intimacy that was never asked for and requires nothing from you except submission. Suddenly you’re aware that someone is taking in all the fine details of your face, a beauty mark on your cheek, they way a strand of hair curls along your neck. You begin to feel their pencil tracing the contour of your nose, outlining the shape of your lips. What probably makes the experience a little confusing (do I sit still, do I smile, do I wickedly roll my tongue across my upper lip?) is that you were never introduced, never did you give permission to sit for a portrait that can stay locked in a drawing pad, be part of a stalker series, be displayed in a classroom or serve as some inspiration for something that hangs in a museum (did I mention how flattering it can be?) It is both a wicked and innocent act. Should they catch you in a not-so-loving mood, then your solace is remembering this: Some things aren’t owned- people’s impressions of you are not yours, though you may exert influence. They are something people take with them, sometimes in number two pencil on the pages of a sketch book.
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