I recently watched a documentary called the "The Cruise" (1998) that follows Tim "Speed" Levitch, a wondering poet and guide on a New York City tour bus, have a love affair with his city. There were many things that struck me about this film: his nasally voice, his incredible capacity for speaking as if every moment were an impromptu poetry reading, his devotion to his job. But I was most impressed with how enraptured he was by his city. And I'm not talking the usual passion for the people of Manhattan or his neighborhood dive bar, I’m talking obsessive lusting over the structures that make up his home.
The architecture speaks to him. The Brooklyn Bridge understands him. It is his supreme fetish and he doesn’t ignore the sexual implications: "If architecture is the history of all phallic emotion,” he says on a tour, “the empire state building is utter catharsis." Later, he leans back, staring at the building in front of him, and moans in a publicly inappropriate state of ecstasy. He follows the circles branded in the side of another landmark with his fingers in a way that is usually reserved for a lover. I gotta admit, I was into it.
Levitch has, knowingly or not, laid out a sort of eccentric manifesto for all metrophiles (sans, the creepy street moaning, of course).
Consider us inspired.
