All of a sudden, the city ain’t mine. But I doubt it ever was. New York has forever been equal parts lonely and beautiful to me. You can be lonesome in a crowd or feel like family with millions. Sunset stripes over the trash heap. The runner’s high inhaled at the wasteland near the reservoir stench fills your heart with hope.
I wrestle with the feeling that the illusions I once held, about love and life, were just wayward dreams. When I was in first grade, I went to see Do The Right Thing at the movie theater on Flatbush and 7th Avenue. It’s a Crunch Fitness now and before that it was Urban Outfitters. That was the first time I saw breasts, Rosie Perez’s. My mother covered my eyes at first, and then went back to watching the scene. But I stopped seeing Spike Lee movies in theaters over a decade ago when the trailer for Chi-Raq dropped. I realized he wasn’t a better writer than 35 years ago and it crushed me.
He hadn’t improved and I was old enough to hear rumors from young filmmakers that he was in his own way. Or stubborn about the passage of time…