NYC present and past

PRESENT

I like the interactive nature of this advert. It is rather engaging and interesting to watch the interaction with adoring crowds. What I really want to see is how it interacts with uncouth and irreverent persons. What is the algorithm for distinguishing possible paying customer from from distrusted, disenfranchised members of the society?

Times Square Billboard by Space150 from Cliff Kuang on Vimeo.

Towards the end I heard some sounds that reminded me instantly of TAXI, the NYC show that I never really watched, but that I love the theme for.


PAST

Growing up I watched a lot of television (among other things). But I never watched so much TV that I actually watched more than a handful of episodes of TAXI. I would be tripping through channels and stumble on it, watch it for a bit and then realize that there was really nothing on that I wanted to watch. In this way it became a signal for me to turn off the TV, most often, late at night. I think this also says something about me being part of the "I'm bored generation" but that is another story.

Even though I did not watch it much, there is a certain stillness and clarity of mind that it's theme music elicits for me. In fact, I rather like the theme so much that it is part of my mental architecture of the ethos of NYC. WHile people are transfixed by an interactive anorexic, I prefer the dirty, rough about the edges geography of a New York long since dead. After all, that is the city I was transfixed with from a very early age, thinking that Sesame street was a part of it, as well as Welcome back Kotter. I was not able to get there until I was much older, so I voyeuristically watched from across the plains in a little glowing black and white light cube.