By now it shouldn’t be such a surprise. You walk into a place like Savannah’s new darling hotel, the Thompson, with your phone deeply ensconced in a pocket or a purse and the next day ads for it start showing up in some social media page.
Coincidence? Nah. Think cyberspace connectivity. It’s creepy; it’s real.
But when you’re in a cab, as I was recently in New York City, and a blurb pops up on one of those mini-screens in the back seat about Oscar Micheaux, a pioneering black filmmaker I had never heard of until an hour earlier when I had watched a clip of his work at the Museum of Modern Art; well, that’s not a coincidence. That’s what happens when you venture out, when you get out of your own world for a few days.
Not that it’s easy. New York is noisy. Construction crews are out day and night. You can try to close the window in your hotel but the jack hammers bleed through, the beep-beep-beep sounds of trucks backing up penetrate the glass, the garage service never stops.
Credit: Carmela Aliffi
Credit: Carmela Aliffi
Still, there’s order. In three days, walking past hundreds of people (and just as many dogs, strollers, baby buggies, delivery people, nannies, old women, old men) and dozens of food trucks selling specialties from Jamaica, India, Guatemala or Mexico, I never saw one traffic accident, one altercation, one fight.
How can so many people pass one another, many looking down at their phones, and not bump into anyone?
Surprises abound. But you have to be on your feet. “Let’s go to the Ukrainian art museum,” I said when we headed in from LaGuardia, except the first one I googled was in Geneva.
Oops.
And that corner in East Harlem, where I went to visit a cousin and her newborn in a neighborhood that at first glance looked a little bit sketchy to me. It’s not Parkside or Wilmington Island but, I learn from my cousin, the boys hanging out on the corner gave her a baby present, she said, “and I didn’t even know their names.”
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
New York is a hustle, always reinventing itself, just like us. This time, instead of taking a subway or a cab to the Village during rush hour, we tried the ferry up the East River. The Soundview costs $2.75 one way. No traffic. A view of Manhattan, including the UN building. No crowds. No steps. I wish it had gone on longer.
I felt the same way when I saw David Byrne's “American Utopia.” Sure, I had watched the Spike Lee version on HBO. I knew some of his music. But to see it live at the St. James Theater on Broadway? I think I had forgotten the surround of sound during a live show, the grandeur of the building, the feeling of doing something with other people. It doesn’t take long before you realize you’re not in front of your TV screen anymore.
We were masked, we were checked for COVID-19 vaccinations and I had goosebumps.
Credit: Carmela Aliffi
Credit: Carmela Aliffi
Byrne's gratitude toward the audience seemed real. His energy was real. And then to stand at the stage door after the show – not necessarily to get an autograph but just to see how normal and conventional the extraordinary members of the cast look in their street clothes, hoisting instruments on their backs, hugging friends, but also maybe to catch a glimpse of Byrne, this 69-year-old – no spring chicken – who is doing six shows a week.
“David’s not going to be signing autographs,” the burly but friendly security guy announces just before the door opens. Unlike other stars, Byrne isn’t headed for a waiting black Town Car. He rides a bike. We see the front wheel first. Then there’s Byrne, also carrying a backpack, navigating his red Specialized through the crowd, assisted by a few more security guys until he reaches the corner of West 44th and Eighth Avenue, where he presumably pedals home somewhere in Manhattan.
Credit: Courtesy of Matthew Murphy © 2019
Credit: Courtesy of Matthew Murphy © 2019
The show is a tonic, a testament to community, to joy, to hopefulness. But no more, no less than his online news magazine. Minus choreography and music, the site is about people solving problems in very innovative ways all over the world. It’s an antidote to negative news.
Byrne says he started collecting news articles that made him feel a little more hopeful. It's called reasonstobecheerful.world. His most recent article chronicled a program in the Netherlands that directs people with dementia to work on farms where they tend chickens, harvest vegetables, pick weeds. They focus on what they can do, not what they can't do. There are over 1,350 "care farms" in this itty-bitty country.
Connections, coincidence or not: they’re out there. You just have to find them.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Finding the good and bad of connectivity in New York City with the help of David Byrne
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