the realization that i was finally in new york did not hit me until about two hours after arriving there. the very short stroll through jfk airport from the terminal to baggage claim felt too comfortable in its similarity to just about any other airport (how many hudson news stores are there?). i left the airport via a filled shuttle of multilingual personae, making of the journey a heteroglossic (to employ a bit of bakhtin jargon referencing the availability of a multitude of voices in a novel) experience.
but the literary form of my journey quickly turned cinematic when crossing the east river into manhattan. closing in on iconic new york (visually identified by landmarks such as the empire state building) easily filled me with the excitement of finally entering new york. but this hyperreal journey was certainly more into a film than new york itself; as the cityscape increasingly loomed overhead, i thought to myself, ‘this is what movies are made of!’
