Tuesday, July 29, 2014

And I'm getting older too

I've recently re-started drawing/sketching every day. It's been a long time since I've last done it consistently, so we'll see how long this lasts. It definitely feels good to be back at it, though. It's a good feeling to produce something every day, even if often it turns out to be crapthings. It feels good for the soul to churn something out each day regardless of whether or not you want to.

That sense of "I not only have self-discipline, but I can use it for constructive purposes" is a reassuring feeling to have when my career prospects feel otherwise dark. And, therefore, my capabilities as a visual artist... designer... thing appear to be in question. I mean, almost all the people around me are quick to offer words of encouragement and assurance that it's not all hopeless. But being unemployed and not able to land a job... Just eats away at your innards. It's an ugly process of self-doubt. In my head I can always debate if I'll ever be able to make something worth while, but if I can manage to draw each day I at least know I'm capable of making something, period.

Sketch010

That being said... My drive to find work is waning as a result of a) it slowly feels more and more futile, and b) settling into that low-pressure do-nothing go-nowhere schedule of unemployment. Again, forcing myself to sketch every day is slowly helping me to turn into a total slob. Just gotta keep plugging. Right now the big problem is that there just aren't many (if any) job postings. So now it becomes not a game of submitting applications, but of creating applications that will merit enough attention to create my own personal job opening. And then I need to be good enough to get said job.

So I've created a list of ~15 places in Calgary that I'd love to work at. Truth be told, there's a lot more awesome design work going on in this city than I expected. Nevertheless, now I need to concoct a way to get the attention of the uppity-ups at these respective studios. I've been putting off this task with impressive zeal. I don't know what I need to do. I'm scared to try and fail.

This is all compounded by the fact that I've resumed working half time at my old job. Within the first few days of starting, I'm finding myself idly wondering, "hm, it sure would be easy to just go back to full time. I could be making a full salary right now if I wanted to..." There are a few factors at play for why I shouldn't do that, least of which is that I'm a bit uncomfortable being there in the first place. Additionally, I'm a bit too comfortable being there. I can see it turn into a quicksand trap.

Nevertheless, I have to get some sort of income to pay the bills. I know I'm having a hard time being productive on my own, so I'd rather go in and work than spend more useless time bumming around on the internet. The idea was to go to the office and work from 9am-1pm on Mon-Fri. The problem is that I get home and I find myself thinking, "I just finished work for the day. I deserve a bit of a break." And before I know it, I've wasted an entire afternoon and evening. I hate myself. I pushed so hard in school, and now I'm just crashing in a blaze of anything-but-glory. Slowly collapsing like a flan in a cupboard, as my favourite comedian once said of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Something something Great Depression.
-Cril

I took my love and took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Fleetwood Mac - Landslide

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Chicken Mind Games

Sometimes you have a strange development in your life, and you find yourself tripping over a thought inside your brain. At first your reaction is close to "hey, that doesn't belong there", as if it accidentally fell off of one of the shelves in your subconsciousness. And then you bend down to look it right in the eyes, and realize that you don't quite know where it came from in the first place.

I don't feel like dealing in specifics here. Suffice it to say, I'm having these thoughts/notions pop-up (with alarming persistence) that I know don't quite belong to my rational mind. I find myself thinking these thoughts and being bothered by something they'd have me do. I'll agonize over them until, wait a second, there's no logic happening here. I thought I was done with this, I had settled it in my mind and weighed it down with reason so that it couldn't rise to the surface again. And yet here it is. What the hell?


So I find myself wanting something, even though I consciously haven't made the connection. Instead it's slowly popping up, always out of the corner of my eye, so that I never quite see it coming. It's approaching from the gut/emotional side of things, you see. It's an instinctual thought. My rational side had sorted things out, but apparently that's not good enough. NoooOooOooooOOOoo.

In a nutshell, my instincts are bothering me to do something my rationals aren't on side with. It's as if I'm playing chicken with my own head. My instincts are barreling down on me, and damn it, I have every reason not to budge from my trajectory.

But herein lies the issue. How do you play a game of chicken without using your instincts? Mine seem to be the opposing object careening toward me. Logic says that whatever my instincts tell me to do can't be trusted. Logic says a lot of things, though.

Either one side will win and the other loses (keeping in mind that both sides are part of me), or they'll crash together in a magnificent display of cacophonic mayhem. Regardless, it's looking like something is going to end up in a mess.
-Cril

Space boy, you're sleepy now
Your silhouette is so stationary
You're released but your custody calls
And I wanna be free

Don't you wanna be free?
Do you like girls or boys?
It's confusing these days
But moon dust will cover you
Cover you

This chaos is killing me

David Bowie - Hallo Spaceboy

Monday, July 21, 2014

Jealous Monk

I'm having a hard time convincing myself that returning to Calgary was the right decision. I mean, yeah, practically anything will be a step down from New York depending on how you look at it. But I thought Calgary was the right place to be, with some friends and family in the place where I put on a lot of maturity. Seemed like it was more home to me than in BC where I grew up. Felt like the natural thing to do. Like I mentioned in the last post, pulling into the city made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

I'm trying to stay positive. Things kinda suck right now, but I'm trying to believe that I made the right choice to come back. It's hard to maintain that view, though, when two of my closer-ist friends from ACAD keep telling me how much the city sucks and how they wish they were elsewhere. A classmate from ACAD and SVA thought I was crazy for wanting to return (for the record, he ended up landing an awesome job in NY). When I dropped in at my old workplace last week just to see people (and maybe check out the possibility of part time work), even my boss asked me why I bothered to come back to the city. Seems like I don't have many people on my side in the matter.


The other night I went to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law. He asked if I was set on finding design work or if I was looking for whatever I could get. After telling him I was aiming for the former, he remarked how maybe it'd just be best to go with whatever work I can find and not be too set on design. As someone who just spent the last five years going to school for design, that was a bit of a kick to the gut. Mind you, the guy hasn't really done any significant schooling and doesn't tend to stick to any one job for too long. I appreciate his input, but in this case I think we're coming at things from fairly different angles. Still, it was a brutal thing to hear. Essentially, "don't bother with your passion and selected profession. Your training isn't that important. Just go with whatever."

It doesn't help, either, that being unemployed slowly saps your soul away. Drop by drop, until you're staring at an empty cup. It's absolutely brutal. It's hard to foster hope and entertain the notion of success. You start wondering what's wrong with you. Why everyone else has gotten work except you. What are you doing wrong. Are you that bad. It certainly makes it difficult to write an honest cover letter; how can I tell an employer that I'm exactly the person their company needs, when I struggle to find any reason that I'm worth hiring. I know I'm not that terrible, but being rejected so thoroughly while seeing your classmates succeed really eats away at you. I know I'm not thinking straight. I guess I do believe some of that doubt, though, if my brother-in-law's comments stuck out to me so much. He must've struck a nerve.

Lately I've been starting a lot of sentences with "When I get a job..." I'll get a car, learn to cook, eat out, get a mandolin (and lessons), chip in with a friend for a cheap car challenge league, get a new computer, etc, etc. I'm close. So close. And yet I feel so far. I've been saying those things for so long, that it almost feels like they're supposed to stay hypothetical goals. Absurd, I know.

Those same two close friends/classmates from ACAD are in pretty similar boats to me right now. Graduated, lonely, unemployed, having a hard time finding work. I swear, this would be the perfect situation for us to band together and start our own kickass studio. Problem is... Clients. Or the lack thereof, rather. Maybe someday. It's an amusing notion, though.

In the mean time, as that classmate that scored a job in New York said, I just gotta "keep those knuckles up."
-Cril

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
About the time the door knob broke
When you asked me how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

Friday, July 18, 2014

Wedding, Road Tripping, Deadly Falling

It's been an interesting set of weeks.

Due to some last minute shenanigans which I still haven't quite wrapped my mind around, my brother got married at the beginning of July. I was informed about the event about 6 days prior, when it was being planned. I was asked to take photos and play the uke for the bride walking down the isle, which I was happy to do. Then two days later (T minus 4 to Wed), I was informed by my brother that I was the best man. Cool! I was pretty proud to be asked. That meant I had to do a speech. Having to give it didn't bother me too much, but writing something I hadn't done before on such short notice was kinda hairy. Did I mention that on T minus 1 to Wed I was leaving the country with everything I owned and flying to the opposite coast? Yeah. It made for a very interesting week.

Things actually went rather well. The flight(s) went okay and I landed with all my belongings, and spend the rest of the afternoon helping set up for the wedding. I managed to memorize all the chords for the song I played, and although it wasn't overly fancy, I didn't stumble. I didn't get as many good shots in as I wanted, but I was still able to give my borther (and new sister-in-law) a decent set of wedding photos. The bride ended up using one of the pics as her Facebook profile pic, so I think they were pretty happy with them. The speech... Was alright. The skeleton of it was a bit wobbly in places and I didn't have enough time to rehearse, so I burned through it kinda fast and mixed up the order of some of my points. But I got a couple laughs, and one big solid "awwwww" from the audience, so I think it was a success. From a sheer presentation point of view, it was pretty weak. I know I could've done a lot better, but apparently it went well enough.

So to recap: things went well, but not quite as awesome as I would've liked. But given the circumstances (less than a week of warning + making an international move), it went better than I had expected.

Then I spent the rest of the week at my sister and brother-in-law's house, with their daughter/my niece. We hung out a bit, I slowly plugged away on my portfolio, even applied to 4-5 places in the Vancouver area. I spent lots of time with my niece, who's woefully adorable (loves books, talks up a storm, and likes Raffi). I also went kayaking a few times with my Dad, where we chatted while cruising the shores a silent lake, surrounded by clear water, sunshine, and wilderness. A pretty dramatic contrast to life in New York, I think.

Eventually my mother had a long overdue knee surgery, which went pretty well. Because my dad couldn't leave her on her own for a few days, I ended up staying in the area for another week before we could drive out to Calgary. More portfolio stuff, adorable niece, kayaking, procrastinating, staring in general awe at the scenery. We even went for some treats at my favourite bakery after a delightfully quiet kayak at Silver Lake. And eventually we hit the road for Alberta.

On the first day of the trip we did a straight shot to visit my Grandmother, who was a bit out of the way (but still in the general direction) of the final destination. That day of travel was pretty unremarkable, save for getting stuck behind and accident for an hour. Nevertheless, we made it to see my grandmother. There's something unsettling about the frailty of your elders. On the surface, yeah, it's about facing mortality or whatever. But there's something strange about seeing a person surrounded by photographs on the wall of their very full life. Here's someone that's seen a lot and done even more. And yet it's somehow life's cruel joke that after seeing and doing so much that a person slowly becomes less and less capable. It's sad. Here's someone that has raised a family, has great grandchildren, and relearned to live on her own after losing her husband. She shouldn't need someone else to remove bottles of 7UP from the plastic rings of a six-pack, damnit. That's just not fair.

But there were still some gems. As we sat in her tiny condo that evening after a modest meal of potatoes, broccoli, and microwave roast beef, she told me about my father's glory days. How he grew pot, and tricked his mother into growing pot, and got into trouble with the RCMP (or along with the RCMP, I should say. Apparently they got a bit rowdy late one night in a pub). It was funny listening to her tell those stories while my dad squirmed in his seat a bit.

On the way out of town the following morning, we went to a lake where my father once vacationed at as a kid. Apparently he once was out on a rowboat on that lake when a hefty wind blew in, and he was unable to row back to the family cabin. Eventually a cousin had to come and rescue him. My dad had told me this story, and had brought along the two kayaks for the trip so that we could explore the vacation spot from his childhood and "conquer" the lake. We did just that. When we were first putting the boats in, my dad went in first and informed me that the water was warm. I translated that to "the water is slightly less cold than you'd expect". Upon dipping my toes in, though, I realized that it was actually, surprisingly warm. It was a pleasant introduction to the lake. We spent an hour or so of the early in the morning always paddling around just one more corner. The lake was completely silent, save for the loons occasionally calling to each other. It was a beautiful sound. It was a very tranquil way to start a morning.

We then hit the highway, listening to a mix of Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap (an awesome radio show for music lovers) and various podcasts while snacking on bagged popcorn, carrots, and dried fruit. Instead of taking the more direct route, we went the longer way so that we could see Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This is a UN-recognized site where Natives would chase a herd of buffalo off a sudden cliff edge to kill them. Both of us heard of it but never been to it. That morning's early kayak probably gave us the adventurous mindset we needed to go off the beaten path to see something new. And we did. It was quiet and peaceful and somehow profound. The site had a beautiful and intimate museum. Outside there was a path that lead us to the cliff edge that was attracted hunters for thousands of years before it started attracting tourists. There was a wild deer up on the ridge, which was grazing and watching us. It seemed oddly appropriate. Looking out over the cliff edge, though, was a huge panorama of Alberta's grasslands. If it wasn't the for subtle bumps and curves in the plains, I could've sworn I could see the Earth's curvature. It was quite awe-inspiring. A few weeks prior I had stood at the top of the Empire State Building. A very different experience, to be sure. I think I liked this one a little bit better.

Then we hit the road again, and stopped in Claresholm for a late lunch. As we were cruising through town, we came across a truck selling BC fruit. I have a friend in Calgary who had been craving BC cherries, and all that day my father and I kept our eyes open for a fruit stand. Unfortunately because we hit the road so early in the day, the few we came across weren't quite open yet. And here in Claresholm, Alberta was a small truck selling the BC fruit that had eluded us all day. A serendipitous find if there ever was one.

After eating we completed our final stretch of driving. As we pulled into the city, I felt myself getting... Agitated. Anxious. Worried. I'm still not sure why. It could be one of several things... Feeling like a failure for not finding work in NY. Having to confront my relatives after informing them I didn't want to work at their business full time any more. The possibility of seeing someone I wanted to give space. The daunting sense that here, too, I won't be able to find work. Or who knows, maybe it's because I just miss the mountains of my home town.

That afternoon I presented my friend with our Alberta-bought BC cherries and promptly moved my belongings into her and her husband's guest room. I hope I'm not here long. Not because I don't like it here (that couldn't be further from the truth), but because I'm eager to find my own place and because I don't want to inconvenience my gracious friends. After dropping off my belongings, my father and I went to my sister's place to have dinner. My sister and her husband are currently borrowing me and my brother's N64, which we spent many afternoons of our youth delivering papers in order to pay for.

One of the few games they have is 1080 Snowboarding, which we fired up for a laugh. The thing is, though, that me, my brother, and our dad spent many hours playing together. Not multiplayer, mind you, but competing to get the best possible time for one particular track. One. Track. Deadly Falls, to be specific. We'd take turns in ruthless pursuit of find tenths of seconds to eliminate.

After trying out this particular level for old time's sake with my dad watching from the kitchen table for a time, he finally came and sat beside me on the couch so he could have a go. We swapped the controller back and forth 5-6 times, trying to see who could do the best. The game informed us that the best time ever on record was 1:08:41, and between us we could only get down to 1:16:xx. I have no idea where many years ago we managed to find eight seconds to shave off.

The thing is that after spending a full two days on the road with my dad, snacking, chatting, listening to music, kayaking, playing tourist, eating burgers... Those 15 minutes where we 'relived' our 1080 Snowboarding glory days put the biggest smile on my face. I remember one day when my brother and I came home from delivering papers to discover my dad in front of the TV, gloating about the hot new time he managed to set. He said that it couldn't be beaten. And if we could beat it, he'd buy us pizza (keep in mind that in addition to being teenage boys, my family was pretty broke. Pizza was a damn rare and alluring treat). I sat down and on our very first try, I slaughtered the ghost of my dad's record run. I slaughtered it until, that is, I got to the very final stretch and messed up on a small bump in the terrain. Me and my brother tried in vain for the next two hours to beat my dad's record. If it wasn't for the one hiccup on the last stretch of my first attempt, we would've had it no problem. But try as hard as we could, we never quite managed to get it just right. My dad bought us pizza anyway, and we kept playing through the evening, swapping the controller every few attempts. We continued playing 1080 Snowboarding for a few months after that, and I seem to recall we continued to beat and make new records.

When we booted it up the other day, the cartridge still has all the saved game info from all those years ago. All the maps and characters and boards are still unlocked, and all the maps have high scores. Including, of course, Deadly Falls. 1:08:41. The thing is, the game didn't have a feature to include a name or initials along with a high score. We have no idea who set that 1:08:41 all those years ago. My competitive side wishes there was a way to find out and see if it was me. But I think I like it better not being able to know. It just means that that score belongs to the three of us, equally. It doesn't matter who happened to be holding the controller at the time, just that we set that score together. And damn, we had fun doing it.
-Cril

Well we're gonna rock to the rhythm and the blues tonight
Rock, 'cause everything's gonna be alright
'Cause tonight we gonna rock to the rhythm and the blues
Yeah!

Buddy Holly - Rock Around With Ollie Vee


Saturday, July 05, 2014

I see a city and I hear a million voices

I had a friend that spent an entire month travelling around India. It must've been an incredible experience. Once she got back, she remarked to me about how no one really seemed that interested in hearing her to talk about the trip. Just like the stereotypical family vacation slide shows, those most invested in these stories are the tellers. Most people will be perfectly content to just get the gist of it. They don't care about the tiny details or poignant moments or introspective ramblings.

And now I've finally come to understand just how my friend felt after returning. Returning home somehow tipped me over the boiling point with this experience, and it feels like it'll all spill out over the edge of my head. And I feel like the only way I can save myself is to tell people about it, but no one wants to hear about it.

Let me clarify; there are plenty of people that ask me how it went, and I'm sure every single one of them would indulge me if I wanted to ramble on and on about even the most minute of details. But they're more interested in their job, their family, the movie they saw the other night. I can't even blame them. I just feel like I'm stumbling around, holding a huge glowing orb in a bear hug. My reaction is, "HEY GUYS! ISN'T THIS COOL?!" Everyone who sees me will give me about 4-5 minutes to talk about the orb before they move on with their lives. It's very strange.

Anyways. It's been a violent and odd transition back to, uh... 'real life'? I don't know what to call it. I'm back in the farming valley where I grew up. The silence is beautifully strange and almost shockingly relentless. I love it. But it somehow seems... Silly. Same with the empty roads and looming mountains and infrequent corner stores. I can somehow sense just the tip of what makes New Yorkers feel so passionate about their city. It's so intense in every regard that anything less just seems foolish.

So I'm a bit conflicted. On one hand, I feel at home. I love the silence and the lazy rain. The birds in the morning. The wide roads with curbed curbs with enough room for cars to park. The other day I sat on my sister and brother-in-law's back porch and watched a pair of humming birds dance around, making long climbs up followed by sharp dives. The neighborhood is so quiet that you could hear their wings buzzing on their descent. Earlier that afternoon, we sat on the grass in the front yard after running errands. Grass without fences or hours of accessibility.

But I still find myself wondering, "where is everyone?" How come everything feels so new? Why are the buildings so short and spread out? How come people only seem to speak one language? Who would anyone want to live like this?

I do. But let me tell you, living in The Big City is one hell of a drug. And while I can feel it in my bones that I'm in the right place, the place I belong, NY withdrawal is one hell of a thing. I was there just long enough to get a taste of it... I can't imagine what it'd be like for people that have lived their most their lives.

A friend said to me the other day, "Don't ever forget you did this. Don't gotta brag about it or nothing, but not a lot of people do what you did." Pretty profound words, and I certainly don't disagree. But knowing my memory, I want to capture as much of this giant glowing orb as I can before it fades away. And now here I am, sitting in front of my computer trying to translate it into words... But it's too big. Where do I start? Where do I even end? It's like the whole ordeal is just too big to be captured and put on a shelf for me to come back to later to look at.


So what do I write about? The small family of accordion buskers working their way through a subway car? The huge range of people I'd see every day? The richness of the architecture, the cobblestone roads, the smell of Little Italy at lunch? How the sound of the above-ground subway seemed so intolerable, but I eventually got used to it. The fact that there are five-times the amount of people that ride the MTA than there are total people in Calgary. The tiny little niche restaraunts, like that macaroni and cheese shop. Those huge bagels. Tiny fruit carts. Food vans. Food everywhere, none of it the same. Halal. Oh man, halal.

$2.50 for a tiny cupcake the size of a loonie, and $1 for a giant slice of cheese pizza. How simply declaring the words "two slice" at the counter would get you two of those pieces of cheese pizza. There's always a Chinese restaraunt within a couple blocks, and they're almost impossible to tell apart. Logging into a service like Seamless and being able to order in Chinese, Indian, Columbian, Mexican, Italian when you're in even the worst neighbourhood. The delivery guy would ride an electric scooter bike up the sidewalk and stop at the door.

People arguing (and sometimes fighting) in the streets. The way that people of a certain race/ethnicity would get on and off the train at certain stops. Getting yelled at for being a white guy walking past the projects. Watching a man answering his phone by stating "who dat is." No question mark or inflection. The playful exclamation of "you're a Canadian?!" Meeting people who worked on TV shows you've heard of, broadway shows you haven't, tech companies you love, and brands you can't escape.

Yellow taxis taking them everwhere. Blue Citibikes, too. Rolls of Royce and many a Bentley in the streets. A few Tesla Model Ss. Discovering a Ferrari dealership around the corner. A McDonald's, Starbucks and Bank of America every five feet, and a corner store on every... corner. Walking by that place where they filmed the part of that one movie. Taking a detour because they're currently filming a part for a new movie. Stars in the streets. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tracy Morgan, and Guy Garvey.

The incredible street art, and little stickers on lamp posts. Giant murals. Public sculptures, and delicate train station mosaics. Delicate, spontaneous illustrations that make me feel inadequate. Landmarks and history. The vast interior of Grand Central. The chaotic, insect hive of Times Square. The strange, sacred respect for Central Park. How there's always so much litter, and no one recycles. How people will talk and joke so loud, as if no one else was around. Being able to spot tourists by how they board a train (hint: not waiting for people to get off).

The brands. Oh man, the brands. How massive a presence Nike is. Huge animated billboards. Ads in the bottom of airport security bins. Big unveiling and events. The huge advertising campaigns. Casually walking past a Google building. The pilot services/programs that start in New York before spidering out to the rest of the country. The strange duality of strangers; how they'll keep it short and to-the-point, but will open up and ramble on forever if you get them going. Crazies in the streets, talking regardless. Lots of medium to small-sized dogs. Rats, pigeons, squirrels. Relentless and assertive pan handlers.

Streets and avenues, each with ascending numbers. Parks with fenced-off grass. No where to sit, nowhere to pee. Subway elevators smelling like urine. Homeless people selling old magazines. News stands selling new ones, and an endless supply of tabloids. A magazine called "Black Entrepreneur". Being the only white guy on a (pretty corwded) train platform. The unbearable heat of an underground station. Warm, muggy days that drench you in sweat. That first cool, life-saving wave of air-conditioning as you board a train.

Fashion. Fashion everywhere. People dressed so strangely, that it must be fashion. Cheap hats, scarves, and ties sold on the sidewalk. Chinatown, where they sell the exact same thing. An infinite cycle of shops; one  that sells handbags and perfume, one that sells hats, scarves, and lame NY apparel, one that sells cheap electronic crap and toys. They're willing to haggle if you know how to work it. I got two of those cheap hats for $15, instead of $23. Seeing at least three other people in a day that are wearing the same cheap hat as you. Being asked to take someone's picture. Being asked to have your picture taken by someone with an old-school film camera to be put up on his site. Never seeing your photo make it up on his site.

Walls of trash bags out on the sidewalks. Garbage collection late at night. Everything still happening late at night, just slightly less of it. Always cars and people passing by. Jaywalking. Jaywalking as if it's the most natural thing in the world to do. Not looking at the crosswalk sign, instead watching for coming/going traffic before stepping out into the street. Cars pausing two feet away from you while they wait for you to cross the road (legally). Honking. Swearing. Sirens. So many sirens and lights that the space between your shoulders and neck has turned to steel; rubbernecking is simply no longer a thing. Silently grinning as the rich douchebag in the Lexus yells while he's being written a parking ticket. Grinning at the Honda Civic CVCC in the streets.

Realizing just how many of the songs in your collection mention or about New York. Also realizing that, right now, you're a part of what those songs are about.

-Cril

The first to put a simple truth in words
Binds the world in a feeling all familiar
Cause everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

Antenna up and out into New York
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
And oh my giddy aunt New York can talk
It's the modern Rome and folk are nice to Yoko

Every bone of rivet steel, each corner stone and angle
Jenga jut and rusted water, tower, pillar, post and sign
Every painted line and battered, laddered building in this town
Sings a life of proud endeavour and the best that man can be

Me, I see a city and I hear a million voices
Planning, drilling, welding, carrying their fingers to the nub
Reaching down into the ground, stretching up into the sky
Why? Because they can, they did and do so you and I could live together

Oh my God New York can talk
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
Everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

Oh my God New York can talk
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
Everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

Oh my God New York can talk
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
Everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

The desire in patchwork symphony
The desire like a distant storm
For love, did it come for me?
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

The desire in patchwork symphony
Oh my God New York can talk
The desire like a distant storm
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
For love, did it come for me?
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

The way the day begins
Decides the shade of everything
But the way it ends depends on if you're home
For every soul a pillow at a window please
In the modern Rome where folk are nice to Yoko

Elbow - New York Morning