day of the arts - travel log

The Times Square Book

2010-06-10T10:21:00.004-04:00

The Times Square that I got to know in April 2005 was quite a frenzy place. Five year later it still is but in a rather different way. What seemed impossible as late as in 2008 happened only a year later - the place calmed down, and the changes have continued. Maybe there will be a day when a vision I had in May 2005 about Times Square being the center and the venue of a twenty-four hour day of contemplation, art and celebration and the place itself will find a point of convergence.

I spent the past months writing the book that tells the story of the place, the vision and how to come to terms with an assignment that led to becoming a visionary artist and do some other things. It tells many little stories of some little, some big and some infinite affairs, and it has all my heart and art in it. We will see what happens to it. I'll keep you posted.

Walking on Broadway in April 2010

2010-06-10T10:12:00.003-04:00

It's been a year that Times Square has calmed down. So it's been about time to check if reality matches the images relayed. When the book I've been writing about it all seemed to draw to a preliminary end in spring I went back to New York. It's all true and it is different. Everything is changing fast, and this is by far not limited to Times Square, Broadway or Midtown. I could not see all the sites where the silence has been turned up (check sphongle's song of the same name), that would have been beyond my time available, but I went for a walk on Broadway between Columbus and Madison Square Park. It has become a place for walking, cycling and sitting. The preliminary character of the changes has been replaced by permanent introduction of bicycle lanes, street signs and light signals, curbs and flowerbeds, and a new parking lane that divides slow and fast modes of transportation. Many like it, put up their feet and pull their hats over their faces, while enjoying the sun, and some don't such as a limo driver who curses the changes and asks me to go to the countryside if I want quiet. The mood in Times Square is relaxed as you would expect in a real plaza, and sitting is free since using chairs and tables does not imply an obligation to consume any food item. The lawn chairs have disappeared some time last fall and sturdier metal furniture now takes their place. People do eat and drink, mostly what they have brought with them, because at lunchtime the offices empty out into the streets. The open spaces and the radical alleviation make me forget that New York City could ever be in a hurry.

Riding the Slow Wave

2010-06-10T09:51:00.003-04:00

The new Times Square design turned out to be just one of the many projects to slow down New York and make it a livable and environmentally friendly place. In April 2007 Mayor Bloomberg and Janette Sadik Khan, the then newly inaugurated transportation commissioner and a passionate cyclist took on the challenge of the transportation sector. All around the city there is change to observe: pedestrian space marked-out by bollards and potted plants, bus lanes on major traffic arteries, bike lanes, the outline of an all-mode street design policy after the ideas of Copenhagen, and a street-opening event called Summer Streets that already goes in its second year, copying a similar event in Bogota. But listen and see for yourself.

Janette Sadik Khan outlining the scheme on the Urban Age conference in Sao Paulo in December 2008.

Summer Streets 2009, not in Times Square, but on a length of seven miles Park Avenue down to Brooklyn Bridge. For three consecutive Saturdays in August the road is closed for motorized traffic and becomes a place of strolling, cycling, dancing, sports and play.

And last but not least there are a few pics of Times Square and places around town in a video of the walk21 conference fall 2009 which was held in New York City. For more films and news about livable streets please visit http://www.streetfilms.org/

Times Square is now pretty carfree

2009-06-01T12:48:00.006-04:00

Signs, miracles and reality: As of May 24th, five blocks of Times Square now host lawn chairs and tricycles instead of traffic which is part of The New York City Department of Transportation's "Green Light for Midtown" scheme. I am looking forward to my next visit. Please find more about it (plus a number of beautiful images) on
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/26/the-crossroads-of-the-world-goes-car-free/

Zeitgeist in Times Square

2008-10-16T08:48:00.003-04:00

Watch Zeitgeist Addendum - released Oct 02 2008 - and slow down. Watch out for where and how the movie begins and ends.

(For the preceding film - Zeitgeist - The Movie, remastered edition, 2007 - plase visit http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com)

The Night Watch on Sunday, July 13 2008

2008-07-20T10:46:00.008-04:00

The night of the 13th July apparently was not under a benevolent star, in fact, there were no stars visible at all. However, a pale moon watched over the scene together with a whole legion of police. Contrary to the information I had saying that it would not be a problem to do a meditation, the island in front of the army registration office was fenced and guarded by young and eager police officers who did not want to say anything about the purpose of the fence. A service clerk then explained to me that later that night some trucks would be coming in, delivering stuff connected to a baseball game. He said he would lose his job if he let me in the area.

Well, I apologize to all of you who came that night and could not find me. I sat down on the north side of 44^th street in the middle of the lanes of Broadway and 7^th Avenue, leaning against the concrete wall of the banana flowerbed, and did what I had come to do, I watched:

At 10.00 pm the crowd is as dense as on a Saturday afternoon. The island really seems to be the only space where you could even think of putting your feet on the ground. The smell is the first thing that finds its way into my awareness: burning, sweet and sticky pancakes. It stays with me all night. Right next to me an ice cream vehicle and some Russians trying to climbing up the lantern post right in front of me compete for my attention. Then the Russians melt back into the crowd. People, people and people. Every now and then somebody or something sticks out. Groups. Cameras. Shots. The yellow cabs swarm by like yellow fish, I remember my friend Mary saying. The moon has disappeared behind the ex-New York Times tower and the screens take over the night sky. People sit down next to me, rest, talk, discuss, scream, fight, laugh, take more shots, get up and leave - perpetual waves.

At around 11.00 pm a first decrease in numbers becomes noticeable, plus more areas of the pavement and the litter that it is covered with become visible to the eye.

A couple sits down to my left. He walks away for a minute to get food, and she asks me if I have been a writer for a long time. They come to Times Square every time they visit New York, she says. They love watching people. She just watched the police chasing away some street mongers and urging people to move on because they were slowing down the crowd. She laughs because isn’t Times Square all about standing still, watching, taking pictures and slowing down the crowd? She points out all the little details that I usually hardly notice: some interesting red pants, a beautiful face, a special kind of camera, some visitor looking Japanese, and so on. Another thing she remarks upon is that every time she comes here there are more screens. You wouldn’t expect it because all available space seems already covered, but this is as it is. I remember the newspaper article a friend of mine sent me recently about plans to mount an even larger screen, in fact The Largest Screen to the façade of the very building we are just looking at.

I close my eyes and try to find the inner silence. The world does not turn black, though; the screens just continue flashing their messages through the curtain of my eyelids into my awareness, which somehow feels like stroboscopic lightning. This is something you only notice at night and with closed eyes, when the contrast between their brightness and the darkness of the night sky is the strongest. After a while I become very quiet and feel the nausea of my very first meeting with this place coming back. The flashes on the other side of my eyelids, ringing rickshaw bells, and honking trucks and cabs mingle with the images emerging in my inner space.

Somebody touches my knee and I am back. A friend of mine has found me despite the complications. He sits down next to me. A little later he tells me he usually experiences two occasions of nightly rush hours. Between 10:00 and 11:00 pm the theaters are out and at 4:00 am the bars close which makes for some movement in Times Square.

Then he helps me chalk-drawing the Times Square Mystery X-man on the pavement. It’s fun, however it apparently causes the police to turn their attention to what we are doing. Smiling and satisfied by my explanation and reassurance about the limited lifespan of the chalk drawing they leave us alone for the time being.

I spend the final hour of the night watch alone. Times Square has become nearly deserted by now. The session comes to a sudden and early closure when another police man approaches and quite obviously annoyed by my presence and the drawing on the pavement asks me to leave within two minutes. Otherwise he would have me follow him to the department. Suddenly I see my meditation put in the vicinity of criminal activity and my short-living chalk drawing called graffiti. Well, everything seems a matter of how you look at it. I picture myself chalking on some Berlin pavement which wouldn’t anyone cause to even shot a glance. But this is not Berlin the police officer points out. Imagine everybody would do it, he says. I do and I think to myself it would certainly slow down the crowd, and possibly not really for the worse.

I leave the now completely empty Times Square a quarter of an hour prior to the intended end of the session.

However, I take the stroboscopic lightning flashes with me into my dreams and beyond, and they stay with me in a not too remote corner of my consciousness right through the entire next day. The slight nausea ceases sometime during the night, though. I wonder what might be the effects of their perpetual impact.

The Times Square night watch certainly has been an experience of its own kind.

April in New York - Epilogue

2008-04-18T10:30:00.004-04:00

Doing no-thing in Central Park: On Tuesday, April 15, I was asked to do nothing one more time. I fell asleep in Central Park, leaning between the boulders which were warm and cozy with sunlight. I was going to write but could not resist the mellow spring atmosphere. Those minutes when you wake up, not sleeping not yet awake, are a space with open gates. You are aware of what comes through but the censor does not operate yet. An inspiration fell through: night watch. The next thing to do is a night watch. In July. On fully awakening, my first thought was, oh no, not this; the second, why not, it's a summer night. The third one was a yes.

Meanwhile I am back in Berlin. On my arrival I found a message in my e-mailbox. Tim Tompkins informs me that Mike Stengel, Chairman of the Times Square Alliance Board, says, the alliance was “not able to pursue your interesting idea for an event at this time.” However, some of my ideas might be encapsulated into future events and programs... We would stay in touch.

Visionary Friends

2008-04-18T08:15:00.004-04:00

On Sunday, April 13, quite a few people in Europe, America and Australia were out there in their own spots of noise and quietude, and with us in Times Square. One of them, my friend Ulrike from Switzerland wrote the following: I was with you in Times Square and I saw little pink clouds emerging from you and wholly cover you. And it was as if Times Square would burst into laughter when it saw you like that. But then there came a huge thick and strong violet fog up from the depth Below, very powerful, and it filled Times Square completely. It felt like the place would remember what it used to be like, and it became quiet. A breathless, frightened kind of quiet. The fog dissolved and there emerged a white and yellow light from you which seemed to push the high-rises apart and make space, make the square wider and open it up, free it and let it breathe for the first time in a long time. In the beginning it was still coughing, as if there were blocks and dust to get rid of, and this was funny.

Earlier this year, two other friends, one in the western part of Germany, one from the New York area, wrote me about their visions. On January 03, the American friend “got wind of the warm glow in New York recently...in my mind's eye. Glowing white, and as if rising.” On February 05, my friend Ludger in Gemany watched a report of Times Square Day of the Arts in the News on his internal dream screen: a report on a very calm Times Square populated by people in pairs and small groups. He saw it as in many single shots, in cut out images. He could not figure when it happened or would happen but, it sure was going to happen.

Doing Nothing in Times Square - Artists' Times Square Reverence, April 13, 6:00 - 10:00 am

2008-04-18T07:39:00.008-04:00

Sunday April 13: The alarm goes off at four and slowly as always I get up and ready. At 6.00 am I enter a Times Square that reminds of scenery for a vampire movie: the wind carries yesterday’s newspapers and empty bags across the blank tarmac in the twilight. The fast changing images on the giant sized screens have something soulless, zombie like to them. The fact that they run without tone strikes me as odd only now as the square is as close to silence as it can get under normal circumstances. In any other moment of the day there is prevalent noise, endless motion of people, the pulse of cars flooding the avenues from North to South, and their snake like wriggling through the streets. I tell the officer who sits in his car next to the army registration office what I am about to do. He seems a little uneasy but relaxes when I tell him that his colleagues in 35th Street know about it.

The hardest part for me has always been to actually sit down on the concrete, to turn from an invisible pedestrian into somebody Other, because nobody ever sits in Times Square (but soon they will, in Duffy Square). The inner turbulences cease the moment I sit, on a cushion in the center of the island. I am right and this is the place where I need to be right now. I am wearing several layers of coat and jackets; it is cold. For the first hour and a half I am alone, relatively speaking. There is still a little nervousness in me, I cannot entirely relax. The officer wants to move his car, right across the spot where I am sitting. There is huge space all around us and I wonder. Nevertheless I move out of his way and back afterwards. Two young men walk by and, apparently worried about my rights, ask me, if the officer is bothering me. The officer continues moving his car around but leaves me alone and never talks to me a second time. A little later there is a time period when on both avenues surrounding my island a number of police cars appear and stay. I don’t know if this has anything to do with me but they vanish when I take the sketchbook from my bag and begin drawing.

I look at all the surfaces. I look at the lifeless flashing images. Suddenly I think, why don’t we just switch them off? What is the problem? What bad things should happen? We make it very complicated: usually I am ready to believe that it takes permissions, money, power, talks, convincing people, getting past other people’s opinions, and I believe in many more complications. It could be easy. Just switch them off for a day. Nobody is going to die.

I become quiet, so quiet that I almost dive down to Below. Outside, on the other side of my closed eyelids, the breaking waves of yellow cabs flood by; the noise of the subway wells up from the underground and makes the pavement slightly vibrate. There are footsteps next to me, and a constant background whisper, the city, is my companion on the way to the depth.

Somebody touches my shoulder. It is Mary and Tom, friends, artists from Detroit. On their trip home they have stopped in New York and now they are here. Mary and I get out paint and brushes, Tom pen and notepad. We start looking, we share our impressions. I learn a little about New York’s function as a trade center. Today, the things you can touch do not travel here from Europe but from Asia to the East coast. Whatever commodities are being traded in New York are of more virtual nature. You just have to look at the advertisements and you can see that, Mary points out. Tom takes photographs. Mary does a color sketch, the colors of Times Square. The colors, she says, is the first thing that captures her attention, so many and so bright.

Meanwhile it is daylight. From 8:00 am onwards the first visitors slowly trickle in. The guys from the Army Office come over and have a look at what we are doing. Staff from the Times Square Alliance stops by for a chat. One of them tells us his daughter was an artist and she might like to know what we do here. He gives me her email address. He says that right where we are between the lantern posts in front of the Army office, the most amazing things tend to happen, and there even was a book about it.
Every now and then somebody stops moving, we exchange a few words, I give them a leaflet or not. A break in the hurry.

Arabella and Ken have arrived. Coaches and healers. Arabella lives three hours north, Ken represents New York in our circle – he has lived here for a couple of years. I am caught in a sudden surge of thinking I would now need to do something, had to tell everybody what to do, be there for them, give instructions on how to do nothing and so on. The feeling grows when Mary and Tome take off – they have a long ride ahead of them. Arabella and Ken save me. They just radiate the calm, and I take it in, speak out the worries and let them go, a grey ragged veil of thoughts. We spend the last hour in silence and contemplation, a very short hour, as it turns out.

Later, sitting in a cafè, Arabella tells me she had seen the beast. The serpent has something of an old woman to it, was sleeping and actually did not want to be disturbed. It has great power but no aggressiveness.
Ken says he looked at what is there with his wide open eyes, something he usually does not do. He felt the images drawing him in, consuming him; he saw things he doesn’t usually consciously see.

This is a powerful place, there is no doubt in any of us. There are energies, and there are blocks, weird things and good things. Something has changed today - for this place and for us. And all we had to do was Nothing, and paying full attention. I find this not as easy sometimes, because I am so used to doing, but it gets easier the more often I just AM.

Sometime during our session there is a moment when we all sit together and I put out the question that had come up for me earlier in the morning: what would it be like if we switched off the billboards, the images, the advertisements? Can you imagine? What would it be like? Mary says, to her it feels like it needs mending, as if something was broken. Ken says, without the images Times Square is just an ordinary town square, nothing special. As I imagine the billboards switched off I get an immediate feeling that this does not work on its own. Something else has to change as well to make it right for me, and I take out motorized traffic, put a pavement onto the avenues; I put in benches, flowerbeds, a fountain, street theatre, pigeons and people. Three people, three images. Ken says, what if many more people did this and came up with their imagination.

So why don’t we switch off the billboards and see what wants to emerge?

These apparently so vivid images are but endless chatter. To me they symbolize the endless chatter of thoughts that is going on in my mind about the things and all the stuff that I tend to believe are so important but often turn out to be without substance. The images also serve as my villain: there is somebody out there who shoots these images at me. It’s their fault. But it is me who looks at them and is afraid to look past and beyond and see what is there.( And if they are not there I can still my produce my own movie and project it on everything out there.)

What happens if I switch off the chatter?

Later in the day I hear Ann Lamott saying, do one thing less every day. Take one thing off your list of things you believe you have to get done. I think what a good thing to get started with switching off your internal advertisement screen. To get started into Being.

Thursday, April 10 - Meeting Tim Tompkins

2008-04-18T07:21:00.004-04:00

The phone rings at 10:15 am and Tim Tompkins is on the line. He says I should come down within the next hour, after that he was tied up for the rest of the time. It felt a little like in a movie, when I finished drying my hair, throwing things into my bag and leaving house within minutes. The subway can take a while, and I decided to get a cab. I told the driver that I was in a little bit of a hurry. He gave his best and amplified my movie feeling with his adventurous turns and changing lanes, and he took me to 49th Street in twenty minutes. In the end Mr. Tompkins and I had thirty minutes for a conversation.

Mr. Tompkins does not look like somebody very important. He wears ordinary jeans and jacket and looks into the world with wide open eyes. The office reminds me of offices in administration in Berlin and probably all over the world, there are no polished marble and no blinding halogen spots. Tim Tompkins is president of the Times Square Alliance and, as it turns out, he also is a yoga teacher. He tells me about the Mind Over Madness Yoga event that has been held in Times Square around summer solstice with increasing numbers of participants (http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/events_solstice.html). Starting with a small group of people a couple of years ago, last year it was attended by around 600. The island in front of the Army Registration Office - apparently the preferred spot for any kind of events – is then packed with mats and people; buses drive past, tourists take photographs.

New York is very open to the arts, and the Alliance, especially Tim Tompkins are about to initiate public art in city squares which has not existed in the city. Public art is still considered as something that you can do in parks, not in the street. However this is what he wants, and my vision seems to fit in. It might be possible to bring something on its way, together, step by step, he says. There is always the issue of getting permissions, the variety of which is unimaginable. 24 hours serenity and arts were great, and a Times Square that is more quiet in the long run sounds like something desirable. However one needs to be realistic, one should not spoil everything by asking too much at a time, people need to get used to things, one needs to be strategic. A Day of the Arts, under this name or another, could happen maybe next year of the year after, maybe certain features of it could be included in what is already in place. In the meantime: slow steps.

Tim Tompkins also speaks a sentence which very much resonates with my own thoughts: it is easy to find your inner silence sitting alone on the top of the mountain; the challenge is to do the same in the middle of the turmoil, in the center of this place, Times Square.

Wednesday, April 09, New York - Meeting Reverend Kelly

2008-04-18T07:00:00.003-04:00

I‘ve been in NY for a couple of days now, and I have been arriving slowly. It has been a while since last year July. Everything that I did in the meantime I did from far away. It is a different matter to be in direct contact with the subject of the attention. During my previous visits my focus seemed to be primarily on the outer appearances of buildings, streets and things in general and what kind of responses they triggered in my inner reality. This time, I feel magically drawn into the eyes of New York. I look at people whenever I am somewhere outside, in the streets, parks, stores, on the subway. It is easy to smile and say hello in New York; chats, conversations, and laughter almost naturally emerge in many encounters. Stories are told and stories unfold.

Yesterday I walked from East 93rd Street across Central Park to a church in West 71st Street. It’s a good place for quiet contemplation, I have been there before. I sat there for an hour and then knew what I had to do next. Near Times Square, in 49th Street, there is a church as well: St. Malachy’s. Reverend Kelly is a member of the Times Square Alliance, so he is one of the sixty people to whom I recently had sent a letter about the idea of a 24-hour unplugged Times Square. I got up at once and walked down Broadway to see the reverend. A cleaning lady just worked in the church and showed me to the reverend’s office. He was in, he had a little bit of time and we had a nice chat in the kitchen. The reverend is an extraordinary man, and I liked him at once. He held my letter in his hands and told me with a very friendly smile on his face that he thought I was nuts and this idea the craziest thing and impossible to realize. He also said the man who I should get in touch with was Tim Tompkins, the head of the Times Square Alliance. He telephoned for his number and also told me a little bit about how the Alliance works and what other people are involved.

This morning I rang up Mr. Tompkins, and he was in and had my letter on his desk. He said, this idea of mine struck him as interesting. It would actually parallel some of his ideas and some other things that have been going on in Times Square for a while. He was going to set up a commission responsible for arts in Times Square, and one of their subjects would be to look into how it could be done. He would like to meet and try to find a time which was not easy. I was to call him back tomorrow at 10:30. Waiting can be challenging, however, I found myself rather excited about this kind of resonance, and saying wow to nobody in particular several times.

What else: the other day I walked into the police station in 35th Street; Times Square is part of their precinct. I told them what I was planning to do Sunday morning: the arts and meditation session in front of the army registration office. They basically laughed and told me not to walk onto the avenues, and else: no it would not be a problem, and I would not need permission. The woman at the counter had an idea about how to do a Day of the Arts in Times Square in 24 video sessions. That way it would not have to be unplugged. It was hilarious.

After that I had fully arrived here. And I was glad I had come. The reverend had also said it was not enough to speak to the Mayor and to politicians. The people would have to want it and I had to speak to them. Of course he is right.

The noisy corners in our lives

2008-03-31T04:16:00.001-04:00

When the Day of the Arts site went online and I sent out the first messages to tell my friends and everybody I know about it, my friend Galeo replied that he was going to find his noisy corners and be quiet. I just loved this at once. In many ways it is what the Day of the Arts in our exciting, irritating, noisy squares is about. Wherever we are, we can dive beyond the surface and discover silence and depth and what it is all about. So I take the freedom and put this very sentence into my invitation to the Quiet Squares Reverence on April 13th. Thank you, Galeo!

Day of the Arts in Carfree Times

2008-02-28T09:42:00.001-05:00

There are many ways to recreating space for soul, spirit and tranquility in public places. One can be organizing life and urban planning differently, for instance, without individual cars. Carfree Times is the online magazine of carfree.com, a site that goes with the books by Joel Crawford. For the Day of the Arts article visit http://www.carfree.com/cft/i049.html#artsday, for the full issue look at http://www.carfree.com/cft/

Parallel Dreams? Frozen Grand Central

2008-02-13T17:09:00.001-05:00

My friend Rich sent me this: five quiet minutes in Grand Central Station, NYC, January 31, 2008, by Improv Everywhere.

The bird takes off

2008-01-28T05:14:00.001-05:00

In the last few days, our baby bird has grown its feathers diligently. Yesterday, the carrier pigeon in the form of two letters and several hundred email was sent off into the world. The ceremony was held by a small group of fairies, of well meaning guests, ghosts and spirits. Our good wishes travel with it, and we hope the messenger will spread its wings and become a halcyon bird, a harbinger of calm and peaceful times on its journey.

The egg has hatched - Day of the Arts now online

2008-01-24T05:04:00.001-05:00

The cards had already foretold it in the early morning. In the exciting final hours yesterday night we watched the fine hairline cracks of the rainbow colored egg shell, which had build up during the afternoon, getting wider and wider. Then our lasts doubts dissipated and gave room to certainty: the chick would make the breakthrough tonight. At 9:35 pm local time (GMT -1,00) the moment had come. The shell broke, fell off and aside and the eyes of the baby bird looked around curiously. It yawned, stretched its toes, adjusted its wet and ragged wings, and made sure everything in the Universe was in its right place. Then it began immediately and firmly demanding food. The father left the scene and withdrew into his chambers - he had given everything on the final yards - and the mother took to the phone at once to proclaim the message. Both are well.
The newborn baby is an Aquarius, ascendant Virgo, which probably means only the best. If you would like to look into the chart, the birth place is Berlin-Goettingen-New York.

What happened before - Unpredictability

2008-01-21T15:58:00.001-05:00

Jan 06, 2008 - A friend of mine said a project that unfolds as planned would be the first one in art history. This one is not the one. The Universe has had its own view and gives proof of its unpredictability. Daniel caught a virus, fought it for some time and then surrendered. To meet the demands of the pendulum, Daniel posts Times Square Day of the Arts as a telegram and then falls back into his pillows. He will fill in the gaps between the lines as soon as he is back from the Underworld and finds his brain.

What happened before - Crossroads of the Worlds

2008-01-21T15:34:00.002-05:00

Dec 21, 2007, 06:18 pm (GMT +1.00) In about 12 hours and a bit there is going to be winter solstice. For a moment of no duration the Sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator and then continues His journey back to the Northern hemisphere. I love December and lighting my place with candles, but in the last few days I worked on the Crossroads Vision under a full spectrum spotlight, because daylight was rarely available. It is been finished this minute, and I switch off the spot and light a candle. Looking at the materialized vision of July 17 2007 I recall the days of my first encounter on April 06 2005 and my feelings of shock and awe. Times Square and I have walked a distance together. Now, Christmas is coming, three days of celebrating the birth of Christ, love and joy. And after that there will be the Twelf nights between Dec 25 and Jan 05, the time for the moon calendar to catch up with the sun calendar, and a time said to be of strange nature and thin borders between worlds. Epiphany seems a good day to get started and the visions online, says my pendulum on the question for the best day to launch the website.

Fast Backward

2008-01-17T04:54:00.001-05:00

Nov.: Daniel and I are going to make a website

Sep. : the idea of an initial event emerges. Inviting friends and visionary artists

July 17, 07;11 to 08:11: meditating in Times Square – more vision, more inspiration, the decision: There has never been a better time than now.

July: back in NYC, visiting ‘old’ and making new friends – places and squares

May 2005 to July 2007: hibernation of an idea

May 14: a close encounter with Times Square – vision, inspiration, idea

April 18: leaving New York City and taking Times Square with me

April 05: first ‘visual’ of and first contact with Times Square, after which we keep in touch

April 04: arrival in NYC

Feb. 2005: booking a ticket to and accommodation in New York City

Dec. 2004: I want to study places in cities