One random apartment in the big city; the story of my life on st marks place

            My final project is about the most pertinent place in my existence at this moment in time- my apartment. It’s the place I seek refuge, the place I rest my weary head at night, the place I loathe and love, the place I call home. To portray a “sense of place” about my apartment my friend and I decided to create a movie, capturing the essence and feel of my apartment on one rainy day in the middle of April.

            The movie starts off with random shots of grime, trash and unwashed dishes, all of which have become a staple in my apartments existence. For me these shots capture the reality of life in a tenement apartment in the east village where three young and senseless college students make there home. My friend Jay and I decided to do these shots because they exemplify much of the strange and sometimes pointless things that the books in our class seem to focus on. In “City of Glass” Paul Auster goes on random tangents about red notebooks and other seemingly unnecessary things that he decides to make relevant in his novel. In “Gone To New York” Ian Frazier essays discuss how the shape of Brooklyn looks like a stain, and why its important to take plastic bags out of trees, the type of stuff you see everyday but which your mind consciously chooses to ignore in the clutter of mass stimulation. Even in “The Colossus of New York” Colson Whitehead discusses the annoyance of his alarm clock, the sweaty nasty people in the port authority, and the culture of subway platforms. These bizarre situations and eclectic recollection of events are exemplified in the movie but they represent the intriguing calamities I deal with in day-to-day life.

            In four minutes and twenty seconds to the dot this movie tries to give the truest sense of place of 122 Saint Marks Place Apartment # 6. In my apartment the insanity and intensity of the street are not left on the street where they belong. Maybe its because I live on the first floor and people have a lot of energy left to let loose, maybe it’s the infamous deck in which mischief and madness take place routinely, or maybe its just that this city drives everyone nuts and no one really knows how to take it all in. A place is made a place by the things, people and actions that take place in that place and all of these aspects of my apartment come to life in the movie. Much of the direction was focused on the previous three books we have read this semester but seen through the lens of my distraught mind.

            Many shots in the movie take place in a blurred state of motion. For me this spaced out lost feel resembles how I feel when I walk through the streets of this city, and this city specifically. I’m a lost body of matter and thoughts floating from moment to moment in a spooky set of coincidences called life. The sense of my life is this video. It says what I can’t reveal in words---and oh yeah its set to “Cosmic Charlie” an epic tune by the Grateful Dead. Its lyrics speak for themselves….and maybe even a little bit for what I feel at this moment, in this place.