After our Mojo Yogurt date last night, the GF and I watched NY Export: Opus Jazz.
Let me tell you, this film is visually stunning and emotionally evocative. For a film with nearly zero dialogue, it communicates wonderfully and uses the city as setting without making it a cliche character.  I particularly loved the scene that was filmed at the great new High Line Park (former elevated rail allowed to fallow until it turned into a park naturally)
I agree with the introduction, while they are dancing Jazz, the film is hardly about jazz and almost all about the way life is lived and loved.
The story telling is fantastic and the cinematography looked better than Fern Gully 3D.
New York is one of probably only 2 or 3 cities I’d ever leave Phoenix for. Every second I’ve spent in NYC has been a discovery, including many personal discoveries. From the bare brick fascades to the places where millions of people before you have been (I saw the freaking pew where George Washington went to pray immediately after being sworn in, for God sakes), my trips have made it pretty clear that the worst thing we lack in Phoenix is our collective history. Maybe that’s why I love living downtown. All the old houses, all the re-purposed buildings that still keep the neighborhoods vibrant. Coffee at the Gold Spot, cocktails at Hanny’s. Walking down my block and it’s clear that this road was meant for the old colonial-style houses that used to make Portland Park a place to be. I despise urban sprawl’s effect to push us farther from each other and people who buy into the concept of wanting to live their entire lives in suburbs. If that’s what you really want, move to a small town.
I live in the city because I want to LIVE the city, not just sleep, eat and work here.
Posted: December 29th, 2009 | Author:Ryan | Filed under:Uncategorized | Tags:alicia keys, Mos Def, nyc, video | Comments Off on No Lie, this is one of my favorite videos of all time.
Maybe because I’ve been a Mos Def fan since 98, and probably also because I have trouble thinking of many Alicia Keys songs I don’t like. But primarily, the message of the song is awesome. To think that you’re living in the big city, going about your daily business and you probably pass by dozens if not hundreds of people, and you only really know a few of them, if any. And you may never know that there was that one shy person who could have totally been the right match.
