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Thursday 7 April 2016

West to Easter: Wester

Manhattan
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
You are what you eat? It all becomes the same building blocks. You are who you meet. In my head, like everyone else's, it's nice to simplify and abstract. I think my friends are but various manifestations of me. There is a side that is tired, hedonistic and would rather retire on an olive farm than deal with the complexities of the city and the masquerade of people. And so there's Conor Jones. Call me naive, but despite not having the deepest or most complex of conversations with Conor, I believe it equally essential to have had that stay with him in New York.

In a gist, lots and lots and lots of Marijuana. Cartoons and beers for sides and video games for desserts. The value was never in pursuit of these 'pleasures' (because I will openly admit I probably don't enjoy them as much as Conor and his brothers do), it was... the view. It is the same with any 'getaway trip'. It gives you a chance to step away from routine and your life, step out of your character even, go backstage or go outside and hear and smell the city, especially, when you do it alone. My days were not spontaneous but still largely unplanned; each day I decided what I'd do and see or which road I'd walk down in the moment, just me and my camera and my new lens. I learnt about Conor and caught a glimpse of his family life, which was so meaningful to me. I wandered around Chinatown NYC, a marvelous place that in it's quaint ways and shamelessly American AND Chinese aspects represented what I love about the US. I stumbled upon the Museum of Chinese in America, enlightening me to a previous era of racism not unlike today's bigoted attitude towards Muslims; things have changed but the similarities can be disheartening.

I had so much time with my camera and my music and guess, myself - I relished every moment of it while I could. It is not true that you have to go to some 'exotic', far-away place. Introspection can happen right here in the big city, where the crowds engulf the individual, and you see yourself clearer for it. I'm so thankful for Conor hosting me, the hospitality of his mother, the drunken chat about photography with his father, the paid-for intelligent conversation with his grandparents and the... relaxed... evening with his brothers. This is what money and liberty buy you.

But I do not say that Conor is simple-minded. I have always sought to understand people like him; the inner-machinations of his mind (are an enigma); that was a spongebob quote, and that was the kind of humor I connected with him on for the entirety of my time. My friends in Singapore, my art friends are like him, or he is like them. And I know for a fact that under the facade of eccentricity is brilliance and melancholy. Cheers to the wonderful imagination and childish complexity.

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Wester is a reference to Upper West Side; Upper + West = Wester(?)

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This series of posts are starting to remind me of the Five People You Meet in Heaven.

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