NEW YORK - Time Lapse - Tilt Shift - Scales by Fernando Livschitz from Black Sheep Films on Vimeo.
Silence and stillness don’t actually live on the island of Manhattan. There are flashes though, before sunrise, when they are sensed in the city like the quiescence that precedes a quake. In those cool moments, towers made of Portland, fly ash, slag and aggregate groan and weep in the dark spaces above the carbon arc and incandescent illumination of the streets. The pavement labyrinth, scared by decades of Checker Cab and Crown Victoria abuse, has time to heal and sometimes in those early hours, you might even catch yourself dreaming.
In the tick of a clock the stillness of the dawn is shaken by tin horns and steel cattle as they herd through the tunnels. The Midtown, Battery, Holland and Lincoln belch rubber and chrome, and foul the air of daybreak. The city’s veins course, and crisscross with Pullman cars packed like trains bound for Birkenau. The blood pressure of the borough rises in sync with the sun’s ascent in the eastern sky. Hundred year old bridges sag under the weight of Detroit and Tokyo wheels and the dreams begin to dissolve with the dawn mist.
Subway steps erupt with molten commuters that bubble up and out across the city. The irresistible flow washes over the cars and buses locked in their cross-town crawl. Soft associations form and disband at every intersection then resume their persistent crush. A symphony of whistles, horns and profanity rattles the air and reverberates off the walls of canyons. The din grows, and the motion accelerates until they overwhelm the asphalt maze and I know that I am home and the dreams are but a memory.
SMG
Posts
9 comments:
The concept of concrete having "a moment to heal" is for some reason attractive to me. I am also enamored of "tin horns of steel cattle." NYC traffic in my memory is populated by seventeen foot carbureted Detroit iron with damaged, flapping body parts. Yellow cabs painted with a brush, chrome and all.
Wonderful description of a Manhattan morning. This city is a writers dream -you do an excellent job portraiting it...bkm
Now that I've had the briefest exposure to the city, i'm starting to glimpse an inderstanding. I want to go back and reread everything I've read of you, also. Thanks for this timely (to me) posting of this excellent (to me - and I bet, to many) work. Oh, I also want to go back to the city. Now.
nice...i like the blood pressure of the burrough rising with the ascent of the sun...the tin cattle (cars) def give a sense of hte traffic, but play off the movement in and out of the city...nice creative capture of the morning in the city....
nice..i love the mood in this...the watching her wake... def. has its own magic...the The city’s veins course, and crisscross with Pullman cars packed like trains bound for Birkenau....made me swallow a bit - ha - strong image - i've been on the metro in paris during rush hour - goodness - you can hardly breathe...
Your skill with sensory detail creates a strong sense of place and atmosphere. Excellent descriptive writing.
Your city poems are among my favorite; this is another. The sounds of the great waking up city and the feeling at the end that you are part of the noise it makes is in its own way a kind of zen meditation. Liked much!
In the tick of a clock the stillness of the dawn is shaken by tin horns and steel cattle as they herd through the tunnels.
Really nice - I almost had a flash back of the olden days, when their truly were horses, wagons, and such. A nice pace, slowly stretches and then everything starts chiming in and it is NY as we know it today! :)
What a beautiful picture you paint, Steven. I think you must be home, eden
Post a Comment