NYC Intro
Words: Nemo Librizzi
I used to glimpse other cities in movies and lust after them as some do porn. By hook or by crook (I must admit, it was mostly by crook), I traveled the world. I have visited places that captivated me for some weeks or months - Marrakech, Bologna, Pointe-a-Pitre, Cascais, Nara; Paris even had me entranced for two whole years, but before too long I always yearned for home.
It didn’t help that wherever I traveled the locals were fascinated by the idea of New York, and urged me to speak of my homeland. Once I walked through a Cinecitta movie set of downtown New York while in Rome, and I swear I could have cried - here were those things I had seen and yet overlooked all my life: the beat-up alleys, tags spray painted on brick walls, fire -escapes, street signs, even the steam curling out from a manhole…
I learned in time to see my home through a traveler’s eyes - or better yet I became a traveler in my own city. I got drunk on whiskey at a disco cabaret show in Morocco, got broke and ate spaghetti at a soup-kitchen in Italy, trained at a Zen Monastery in Japan, smoked weed at a Rasta commune in Guadeloupe and I had to ask myself why I’d never done any of these things before, although all the above were readily available in my hometown.
When FRANK asked me to Guest Curate an issue about New York I am proud to say I did not overlook the obvious, and went right to the people and places that help to make this city all the things it is praised as abroad - cultured, diverse, and tough.
- Nemo
Dedicated to Curtis Cuffie.
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