I have left my hometown of Dallas and my home for the past few months (and my spiritual home, if we're getting cosmical about it) of London to spend my summer in New York City. I have been in NYC for one week now and I am loving everything about my experience here. I've been to this city countless times before, but only for a few weeks here or there every year. It was always enough to see the performances and exhibitions and events that I wanted to see, but never enough time to get lost in the mad, frenetic pace of this city. Though, has anyone ever felt like they have had enough time to explore New York?
As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Bluebeard, "I went to New York City to be born again." I suppose you could say that I came here for the same reasons as Vonnegut's narrator.  I wanted to strike another match and go start anew (to quote/rip-off the words of Bob Dylan). There is something about this city that revitalizes you and allows you to be whoever you want. I want a bit of that magic for myself. So much inspiration and innovation has come from this place that I can't even been to describe fully. All I can offer are a few images that come to my mind when I think about my new (though temporary) home in this great city.Shahir Zag is one of my favorites for his text-based art that offers both wonderfully humorous musings and mind-blowingly insightful statements about lifeAlfred Eisenstaedt's "V-J Day in Times Square" is one of the most iconic photographs ever takenAndy and Edie in front of the Empire State Building -- the influence that Warhol and his associates had on the city, from the posh socialities of the Upper East Side to the derelicts of downtown, is still so obvious hereBreakfast at Tiffany's is so quintessentially NYC and so quintessentially me-being-obsessed-with-Audrey-Hepburn, so it's quite perfectWhat would a list about New York City be without a little Woody Allen? Here's one of my all-time favorite film shots, from ManhattanBarefoot in the Park stars Jane Fonda and Robert Redford as a young married couple living in Greenwich Village, and it's one of the most darling films about this grand cityMarilyn and then-husband Arthur Miller are photographed by Sam Shaw in front of the Queensboro Bridge in 1957I still contemplate buying an old firehouse and setting up shop like the Ghostbusters - there's a market for that in Manhattan, I thinkA scene in the park from Hair - so far I haven't found my flower people, but then again I haven't really explored Union Square too much yet eitherI've totally experienced this Home Alone-style realization that I'm hereIn Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman's character teaches his son to ride a bike in Central Park. I can't ride a bicycle, so this may very well happen for me (fingers crossed)The Eyes of Laura Mars is one of my favorites - I have a love for all things Faye DunawayMarilyn Monroe overlooking the city while studying under the tutelage of Lee Strasberg in 1955A great shot of the apartments in Rear Window - very New York, but also Hitchcockian so therefore more murder-y than I expect to experience hereJack and Shirley in The Apartment - again, theirs is a story much more depressing than what I expect to find hereThe subway grate from The Seven Year Itch - kind of says it allI frequently turn to Jodie Foster's Iris in Taxi Driver for style inspiration, but little else - I will be working an internship, not the cornerI haven't gotten into any gang fight / dance battles, à la West Side Story, yet here. I'm not sure if this is a very good thing or a bit disappointing