WAIT what? 3 hour videos of walking around in New York City?

Oh wow. I just discovered that there's a whole genre of videos, *beloved* videos mind you, featuring somebody just tooling around New York City on foot wearing I guess a go-pro and filming the endeavor. These are like two hours or four hours long. Viewers are putting in some serious time here. I'm equal parts perplexed and also proud, so let's start at the top. 

Here's an example of one of these videos:

It looks peaceful, I'll grant you. Which is a weird thing to say about midtown NYC. The whole "eyeballs only seeing directly ahead in a little box on your computer" trims down, wildly, on the actual 360 degree possible chaos-coming-from-any-direction of this place. You might be wondering what 360 degree chaos I'm talking about if you're not from around these parts. Here's two examples:

1: Yesterday I was walking down the street and, without warning, a small splash of water dropped directly onto my eyeball. It was a direct hit. I may or may not be currently suffering from some new and virulent air conditioner waterborne plague.

The point: idk, for safety's sake, do something weird with mirrors so you can see out of the top of your head.

2: Tom and I were running late to catch the 4 train out of Union Square so we were hotfooting it down the sidewalk. Three tourists, mom dad and an adult kid, are walking, as tourists always and very annoyingly do, three across. Thus blocking the entire sidewalk and going at tourist pace, ie incredibly slowly. 

Tom is bigger and louder so the mom jumps to the side and stops short. Right into my path. Literally she does this two inches in front of me. Luckily you should see my reflexes. I'm like a lizard. I hop over to the curb muttering kind of loud under my breath. So not really under my breath. 

The point: Let's see. From my perspective, it's a normal Saturday. From this tourist's perspective, she almost got mowed over from behind by a cursing middle aged speedwalker. In a cute outfit, just for the record.

So I say all this to say, eyes that only look forward are gonna get shanked before long from above or  behind or even more likely from the side when some idiot comes flying out of a building on a rolling office chair or something you'd think shouldn't happen in real life. 

But I guess if you want a peaceful city moment from afar, only seeing straight ahead and from a remove is maybe a good way to acclimate.

On the other hand!

Everybody wants to come to New York City so they can have that "OMG can you believe it" New York City moment when something happens they can talk about for a decade. And sure, I'm confident this city will deliver on that dream. I mean, you don't have to go far. Just spend a couple hours in Times Square and inevitably you'll see two guys in Minnie Mouse costumes beating the crap out of each other in some kind of turf war. "There's only room for one Minnie Mouse on this side of 42nd" kind of shit. 

The other week I was walking back from Brooklyn and took some photos to document my travels to an outer borrough. If I'd known the market for video I woulda filmed the whole damn trek. 

the ride out to brooklyn.

exiting the train with a whole lot of runners
 headed to the Brooklyn Half

coming back on foot, walking up
to the brooklyn bridge on the walking path.

the iconic part of the brooklyn bridge.
It was early and not yet packed with toursits.

Welcome to Manhattan bitches!

For the record, my walk happened probably two hours before that Mexican sailing ship rammed into the Brooklyn Bridge. So these photos are luckily not nearly as iconic as they could have been.