In those irregular opening-ups of space and sky in midtown winter’s pall is heavy on the building tops and piling thick and brown and ominous on the horizon of 5th ave looking north and glowing like a theater set gorgeous with the low sun looking south all of it revealing not aggrandizing but outlining true the immensity of this city the girdles of glass and steel wrapping the spindles of iron and stone saw-toothing the horizon above the avenues and streets stretched into the haze of an old Dutch master and below even the ground belches and shakes and spews its own breaths of chthonic redolence and amongst this most noticeable of all are the small silhouettes of coats and hats moving without waver or end or start for that matter lighting cigarettes turning abrupt to and fro zig and zag talking loud and quiet hello goodbye shifting and rattling and pounding and grabbing and hunching lots of hunching the afraid and the more afraid the greed the hate the hope all in a dance that is based equally on reason as on unreasonableness but for all the affronting of this place this place where love is rare bears neither question nor answer neither opposition nor allegiance in itself but simply is and simply functions so floating in and out of it and realizing it as spectacle or machine or necessity doesn’t matter at all but what does count is the lone and the summation of individuals struggles and remnants that remain in the guts heart minds of people at any given instant amidst the confrontation of it all with this place I suppose.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.

photo: © Graeme Mitchell 2007.