damn google maps.

Tried to get out to Montauk yesterday. Got the directions from Google Maps, but didn't pay attention to what I was writing down. I was not supposed to get off at Stillwell Ave, just go in that direction and get off at 59th steet, to transfer to the E line. Typical me. Stillwell Ave is Coney Island. But I wanted to go to a beach, and Coney Island has a huge beach, so it was okay. It rained a little and there was a melancholic mist hanging over the place though. Felt pretty shitty. A shitty waste of a weekend. Got some semi-cool pictures though.
Today I didn't do much. The peak of the day was dropping by the studio to pick up my portfolio, hang out with Paul and Sebastian and see Jan Wilker beat Paul in foosball. Tomorrow I'm gonna go meet Tiny Inventions. More info about them will be the subject of tomorrow...

last day at the office of paul sahre.

Had a dream about dinosaurs. Took the train as always and recognised a fat woman with crocked eyes, the only person I've been able to recognise in the subway during my 4 week stay. Then went to the office for my last day of the internship. Kicked Sebastian's ass in foosball, then he kicked my ass. We photographed post-its for a New York Times piece about silent riots. Singing "We're not gonna take it" all day. Saw a really funny youtube clip. Then photographed a typewriter. Met a huge group of visiting Yale students who were awesome. Then went for 2 dollar pizza. Realised I had worked on about 10 projects in total during my internship. Then I showed my shitty portfolio. Felt like a Stingosaur about not spending more than a month at the office and other bad choices I've made. Then we all went to a Korean place for some Bibimbop and Kimshi. It was great. Korean stuff is just the best. Then we went to a cigar place around the corner. Went super macho, feeling very manly (even though I smoked a citrus girly cigar). Can you imagine - smoking a cigar and watching a basketball game on tv, in a place full of men. I was so not cool and I didn't even try to. I'm probably never gonna be cool. Saying goodbye sucks and probably makes me even more uncool, so I decided I would come by the studio next week to bug the guys and the new intern. I just hate leaving. Like, real freakin' hate it to death. I want to kill leaving.

whatsoever things are true.

Went to a student exhibition at Cooper Union tonight, called Whatsoever Things Are True. I was impressed. Thought student my age, at my level, only did one book, perhaps a cd cover, or an identity and some posters for their final major project - tops (at least that's the world I come from). But no. These Cooper kids are insane. Four students managed to fill an entire room full of clever, amazing pieces of art. Books, zines, t-shirts, posters, photographs, sketches, drawings, random charts of things. And all of it had been produced pretty much since September. It wasn't lame, lazy and meaningless graphic design bullshit, as you would have expected if you put ordinary design students in a room and forced them to create a large amount of awesomeness in a short time. A lot of the stuff that they showed had freakin' awesome content. I loved the book about angry notes that people leave behind to co-workers, flat-mates and general people doing generally pain-in-the-ass things. I also loved the chart showing the romantic relations of the O.C. And of course I loved the dinosaur influence, made by Rachel Matts, an ex intern of Paul's. It just made me beat myself up a bit more for not knowing about Cooper Union before I wasted 3 effing years in the a-hole of Britain. Getting accepted to Cooper is dificult however, since it's for free and all, it's like getting the Nobel Price for Graphic Design.

things are not what it seems.

I woke up with pancakes for breakfast. Then took the green line downtown, which goes above ground until it reaches Manhattan. I took some pictures of my hood The Bronx, yo yo! Got off the train at a random place, where I saw a smaller version of Statue of Liberty. Turned out to be the Yankee Stadium. Saw some baseball players and walked around the area. Met a lady named Anna, who was Puerto Rican and very catholic. But she was very nice and normal and a super-good antidote to my fear for hispanics. If you strip away that she was catholic and this and that, she could have been anything, Chineese, Swedish, African, whatever. And that is true with a lot of people here. Prejudement is something I battle with everyday, and am mostly proven wrong. The people with dirty cloths might be millionairs, the black young guy might listen to country music, and far from all hispanics are conmen. That's why I love to speak with people here, because they are always much nicer than what I expect when I start talking to them. It's my favourite thing about New York.
I also like Central Park a lot, so I went there again, to take hundreds of photos. Went to Strawberry Feilds, listened to a band play Beatles songs, and was once again let down by how small everything is in reality compared to what you think it is, just because it's famous. The John Lennon "Imagine" mosaic was not big at all. But the place had a good atmosphere and all kinds of people showed their respect to their hero by leaving flowers and posing with signs saying "salut, brother".
I was very tired today. Have been walking and walking and walking, staying up late, and working 24/7 for quite some time now, but I wanted to go to the UN building, so I took a lazy train down there. It was full of crap of course, nothing special at all. You can see the reflection in the picture. The famous statue of the tied gun was outside, and I almost laughed when I saw it. Damn, I thought the thing was going to be huge, but it was not bigger than 1 meter. So lame!
After that I just wanted to go home, home, home to the house. Stood waiting for the V train for about 15 minutes. The street performer at that platform, an American Idol-wannabe who sounded like a 12 year old Michael Jackson, saw that I was waiting for a long time and called out in the microphone that "V trains don't run on weekends". Embarrassing. That was my day. Now I'm gonna sleep. Good night!

bob, carl, ralph & jody.

Today has been one of those crazy weird days, like you just don't know what will happen. I woke up quite late and the house was empty. I went out and it looked warm and sunny, but it was actually quite cold. I took the train with Bob Dylan down to 59th street and started walking towards uptown in Central Park, listening to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in particular. The jogging people in the park seemed to move in pace with this song, and in harmony with everything Dylan. Perhaps it takes an experiences overseas to appreciate this man. He grows on me. He's perfect with the New York backdrop. After walking by a lake and a tower, I felt hungry, and had a free Granola bar from two guys in cowboy hats. Shortly after that I was offered an escort around the park, from a slurred helmet guy, who warned me about evil squirrels. "Sometimes they bite, sometimes they don't. You never know, so you should stay away from them and be careful. It's dangerous here". I decided I probably could handle squirrels on my own.
As I continued my walk through the park, I met a black man named Carl who didn't like Obama. Said he preferred Bush. Carl liked to sing but didn't have any favourite song. About two minutes later I sat down next to a man reading important papers on a bench. Turned out he was Ralph Charell, author of "How I turn ordinary complaints into thousands of dollars", among other books (he's in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the man who complaints the most in the world). He started off by saying he was pretty much the inventor of rollerblades and was now re-inventing the wheel. He also said he had an IQ of 140. Talking with Ralph must have been the most random conversation I've ever had. We talked for about an hour about everything between WW2 heroes, actor-friends getting their heads chopped off by a helicopter, Doris Days (who sang "Que Sera, Sera") to how to be banned from match.com for life and how to be a pain-in-the-ass intern. He gave me some awesome advice for my book, sort of like a really great, unexpected, bonus tutorial. Kind of perfect. Kind of what I needed. Kind of wow. Way cool.
As I made my way back home, my amazement for this city didn't seem to stop. Going down the subway I saw a woman, dressed like Minnie Mouse, without wearing the head, emptying a garbage-bin. Minnie Mouse is hispanish. That was an unexpected chock, a little freaky I must say. That sight might give me nightmares.
Then I had a craving for sugar and decided to buy a Snickers bar. The woman in the news stand was really sweet. Her name was Jody and she had a very non-big city charisma, kind of like a sweet little flower in a junkyard. When I asked if I could take her picture she looked around as if I had asked somebody else. But since there was nobody else there, it must have been her. So she said yes, adding quickly that she was from India.

everything needs a skeleton.

When I think about it, I realise that everything in my life is depending on structure, some sort of skeleton. In the morning I'd do portraits of strangers in secret, and I'd start off by doing the rough anatomic lines of the person's body-shape and posture, with a graphite pen, before I add the permanent lines. That's one structure. The other is knowing how to do my work. I need to know how to research, then brainstorm, then be able to tell another person about my ideas, then do them quickly. And by doing, I need a whole other set of structures. I need to know how programs work, I need to know about typography and how things sit well together. Even though the life of a creative person is influenced by loving what you do and have fun and all that, I would be pretty lost if I didn't have some sort of spine at least. I hate when people say that graphic design is their passion. For me it's like having a needy boyfriend. You love him extremely much only sometimes, but a lot of the time he's just asking for things from you and don't give much back. I'm not saying that graphic design should be fossil boring, only that it can be what holds together things in your life. I don't always love it, but it is my skeleton.

observing, listening, doing, learning, no sleep.

Time certainly flies here in New York. But at the same time it feels like I've been living here forever. It's a strange world that fits somehow. I catch myself by trying to absorb as much as my eyes, ears and brain can handle, without actually feeling it. It's like I don't have time to. I write, photograph, draw, record all the freakin' time. It's a little bit like living in a constant creative bubble. I wish I could be more human and a little less robotic. It's just that I worry about a million things. Will I gather enough things for my final major project? Will I do a good job at the office? When I get the chance to actually talk to people, is the only time when I can really relax and stop worrying.
Meeting people here is at first a little bit like a competition. The one who says "nice to meet you" or "how are you" or "have a good day" wins. I'm always confused about the "how are you" part. Being Swedish, I've been brought up to answer such a question. Because to me it is a question. And I will probably be honest and say that I have a fucking back-pain and probably stayed up a little too late last night. I know you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to say "good thanks, how about you" even though you feel like shit. But I don't care, I'm Swedish and act in the polite manner that I've been brought up with. Talking to people is probably the best thing about being here.
This is corny, but New York is not only the bricks and concrete and tourist attractions, it's the people who live here. Each morning, when I'm on the subway train, I wonder what would happen if the train suddenly stopped, got lost in the middle of nowhere, got stuck underground. Would people start to get to know each other? Are there potential best friends riding the same train as me right now? Or will we start eating each other when the food runs out?
I never thought about things like these in Carlisle. Being in Carlisle for 2,5 years is like being braindead. The air and the water sort of soaks your skin and hair with undefined messiness. The sounds from the city are constantly on your nerves just by being there. And the guilt for not doing your school work is the peak of all horrible emotions, that when baked together you have an aweful cake of "I hate myself for letting me be here". I didn't quite understand how stupid that city made me feel until I came to New York. Here I can't switch my brain off.
I'm probably naive and young and full of "I'm gonna save the world"-crap, but I've been an adventurer for quite some time now, and I must say that I've never been so productive as I am now. Being naive or not, New York is like a free night at a 5 star hotel for a hobo, like speed to a sloth, like extra lifeboats on Titanic. It's a huge freakin' bonus every day to actually learn something. To wake up and look for a pen and piece of paper, just to write down some ideas. Even such a thing to want to wake up, that is huge. I wish I could press a record button in my head that could catch my thoughts on tape, edit everything I see into a collage of inspiration, that I could watch when I get back to England. I'm trying my hardest to be close to that, but part of me just wants to have a life, experience this city and love everything about it. Maybe I should put that into my calendar; love New York City today.

weird weird weird.

I took this picture across the street from the studio one morning. I think it's hilarious. I've never seen this kind of candy. The fish is not freakin' Swedish, dammit! That's weird.
Also, I think it's hilarious that "Important Artifacts and Personal Property" by Leanne Shapton is going to be made into film, starring Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. Paul, if you're reading this, I'll tell you again that you should put it on your website. For those of you who have no idea of what I'm talking about, go to this page. The fictitious man in the book is played by Paul in the photos in the book. Now, the novel has been bought by Paramount Pictures to be made into a movie, and Paul's character is going to be played by Brad Pitt. In other words; Paul will be played by Brad Pitt. That was the laugh of the day. When will Angelina Jolie play me in "Att Lida eller Elida", I wonder?
Other weird stuff that happened in New York was St Patrick's Day yersterday. I saw a bunch of Scottish-looking men, playing pipes, who probably thought they were Irish somehow, and wore very green cloths. There was some kind of parade somewhere near Central Park, but I missed it. Down at 14th street, you could only see the green, drunk students.

As I took a detour from the office on my way home, I accidentally walked to the Flat Iron building. I was standing there, looking up at it, drawing visual parallells, but didn't quite get the wow-factor and therefor felt a little puzzled. But when I asked, it turned out I was right. The Flat Iron building was the first skyscraper in New York, and at the time also the highest building in the world. And I just walked right past it. That's weird.

miss you.

Mickis and Rush-Brush, I miss you!

how i got here.

This video is a little overdue, but I had some technical problems while converting it. Vimeo fucked it up a little, so the timing is not 100% the way I wanted it, but hopefully you'll like it anyway. It's a little story of how my road from Carlisle to New York looked like. The song is sung by Anna Ternheim, an amazing version, I must say.

talking to strangers.

It's the number 1 rule that parents teach their kids, but I find it very rewarding to talk to strangers. There's a new girl, Eva from Spain, in my old room. And after talking talking talking, I decided to tag along to the Saint Nicholas' church in Harlem with her cousins, to hear the gospel choir. It was not allowed to take pictures, but I recorded a lot of it. There was a lot of "praise the lord, amen", but not as Jesus Camp crazy as I had hoped. It was just a bit church-boring. The choir was quite amazing though. Afterwards, Eva and I went to Fika on 58th Street. I spoke Swedish with the espresso guy, who became so nervous that he forgot about our Överkalix sandwiches. The coffee was great by the way. Löfberg's Lila. After that we split and I went downtown to the Staten Island ferry. I saw the tiny Statue of Liberty on the way over. She looked very grey on a day in March. On the way back I spoke with a woman named Patricia who had lived in New York for 56 years. She loved parks and had just visited a new park on Staten Island. She had married a soldier, travelled all over the country, worked as a nurse in a Japanese hospital on Hawaii and was overall happy about her life. She said she wouldn't want to live anywhere else than in New York.
When I got off the ferry I saw this guy:

I asked if I could take his picture, and he laughed "am I THAT hansome?" He said he was from Milan and asked if I had a boyfriend. I told him a lie.
As I walked to the west and into Battery Park, I saw this guy:

He wanted to do my portrait, but I said no and asked if I could take his picture instead. He smiled in a flattered way. I asked for his name, but he answered "Chinese, notö speakö Ingölish". A few yards later this guy stopped me:

His name was Chris and I baught a bag of M&M's for 5 dollars to support his basketball team for kids. Having my mouth full of chocolate, I strolled alongside the Battery Park harbour, taking pictures of Miss Liberty in a distance, thinking this place have gone smaller since I last sat foot here. It was so sunny and warm back then, and Lee took snapshots of me jumping up and down in NYC-exhitement. I was wearing my I heart NY t-shirt, which I now use as pyjamas. I still love New York though. Very much so. Today I was wearing a coat. There were no leafs on the trees and I photographed a bad mimer. I didn't give him any spare change. As I walked a few hundred meters further, I was asked to photograph these guys:

One of them was Mario from Boston, and the other was a stripper from Mexico. Apparently, stripping is an artform and Boston is da shit - the place to be.
After Battery Park and Wall Steet, I walked all the way across Brooklyn Bridge as it got darker. It was pretty nice, but not as cool as I had imagined. Brooklyn seemed different though. Like a completely different city. As I tried to find my way to the F train, I ran into the same smoking guy with a dog twice, who showed me the way to the station twice. I said "thanks, man" twice. Down the train I saw a little street dance performance by a bunch of kids. They were quite crazy, litterally running on the doors of the train and throwing eachother. Opposite me there was a family with two young daughters who had both got their portraits made. They were so proud, bragging about who got the prettiest cloths or bag illustrated onto the bodies of their cartoonish faces, not looking one bit like the actual girls. The parents were carrying huge bags from Toys'r'us and they looked very tired. And so am I, after a day with true New Yorkers and fun tourists. Good night, everyone.

dino day.

I said I was gonna go to Museum of Natural History last week, but I really went today. And it was awesome! I must have seen it from a movie or something, because it felt very familiar as I walked around the huge, huge building. They had some really amazing animals there, who were preserved to look very alive in their natural habitat. It was impossible not to take pictures. I thought I was gonna spend perhaps an hour or two there, but the place was so huge I had to stay three hours, if it wasn't even more than that... Took some awesome pictures of dinosaur-skeletons as well. Everyone who was there kept talking about dinosaurs. I heard the word "dinosaur" every other second. Maybe because they also showed a 40 min film at the IMAX theatre. I went to see it, along with an audience full of curious 5-year olds, interupting all the time with clever imputs such as "but the name Oviraptor DOES mean egg-theif!" or "did all dinosaurs develop into birds?" Anyway, the time past real fast, and by the time I got out I knew that the house family had probably already left for Hancook, so I hung around in the city. As I waitied for the train on 81st Street I stood listening to a musician playing blues for money. At that time my batery in my recorder had run out, to my great sorrow, because he sounded absolutely amazing. Everyone at the platform seemed to dig along to his music. Some street performers mostly just makes aweful noices and beg for money. But this guy was just cool. From now on I'll be ready with my recorder as soon I head down the subway.

watchmen.

Went to see Watchmen yesterday with Mark and his buddies. It was freakin' long, almost 3 hours, contained some very graphic killing scenes, and felt like it never wanted to end just to not disappoint the fans of the graphic novel, which it's based on. Overall I liked it. Just like in 300, done by the same director, it was shot in a very special kind of way, very true to the style in the graphic novels. And I liked the way that it was almost a parody of itself, holding on to the post-modern slogan of "it's all a joke". The sexiness and the macho manners was doing sort of the same thing, which could have been laughable, but was still quite cliché and boring. When will superheroes ever stop talking in deep mysterious voices for instance? And when will the superhero woman stop being a Xena, warprincess character and sleep with all the guys in the superhero squad?
I loved the 80's retro feeling in the movie by the way, and espcially the scene where one of the characters look through some secret disquettes with classified information. Disquettes, for christ's sake! That, on its own, made the film worth watching. But the story also left me very confused, and there were just too much stuff that I didn't quite understand. Quite deep and heavy shit. Probably not what most people would expect from a superhero movie, I guess. People expect good looking men, dressed up in tights, flying by an oversized American flag, with a screaming crowd watching him defeat the super-villain. I think that the superhero movie-trend is taking a new turn, they are turning over the the bad side. The villains are now the cool guys, and the superheroes are the nerds and geeks who doesn't get laid. No wonder people loved the Joker in Batman. Anyway, Graham probably knows this stuff better than I do, so I should just stop analysing right now.
I just have to mention that my little fascination for the, now very fashionable, triangle shape in all sorts of graphics played a part in this movie. I'm beginning to wonder if that is somehow linked to post-modernity and an Egyptian empire conspiracy. The more I think of it, the more it fascinates me, because every fucking design student at the moment seem to use this shape as a prominent element in their work. Very strange. Very interesting. If I ever write another dissertation, you know what it will be about.

good morning.

This is me waisting time before I head downtown. Just to give you a quick look of what my room looks like. Somebody turned up the heat enormously yesterday, by the way. Our homestay mum had to litteraly wipe water from the walls. The little adventure of living in a sauna costed around 100 dollars of oil, so now they have turned the heat off completely for three days. Let's hope there won't be another snowstorm. Now I'll better get ready. Have a nice day you all! A big hug from me!

the major of coney island and ray johnson.

Yesterday was all about Coney Island. A once very popular summer attraction, but now abandoned and utterly dodgy. It reminded me a lot about the amusement park in Pinnochio, where children turn into dunkies. It had that nightmare feel to it. As Mark and I strolled along the pier, we met the major of Coney Island. Or at least that's what he said he was, and he looked very happy about it. Then we had an ice cream cone and saw some winter-swimmers rush into the water. During our visit we saw some really cool, grungy stuff. Like a red teddybear sitting on a chair in the middle of an empty field, a trashed shead full of crap, where we found a Foucault book and a sanitary napkin taped to a table. Next to that there was a junkyard full of old school buses, and along the same street was the tivoli area, which was garded by two angry dogs. Then we became hungry and went into a store to ask for directions to a specific pizza restaurant. Outside, on the parking lot, there were a bunch of needles laying around. Probably belonging to the old and very pink hippie man, rocking back and forth as he stared into the unfocused distance. I would not go to Coney Island alone.
Today started quite bad. Had a bad breakfast, felt a bit pissed off, and on top of that it was raining. But as I stepped into the office I forgot about it. Today Peter let me see a documentary called "How to draw a bunny", which is about an artist named Ray Johnson. He was a dadaist and collage artist, who came from the same time period as Warhol and those other cool, pop-artist guys. Johnson, however, avoided that attension as much as he could. He didn't want to become a celebrity and didn't hide behind weird hair or mustaches (Dali) to disguise himself from the fame. He simply didn't let anyone know him completely and was entirely soaked up in his art. A very weird guy indeed, but also very funny and interesting. I realised that so much design work that is out there today steals stuff from his work. Perhaps not intensionally, but there are definately paralells. What this guy was doing 40 years ago, everyone seems to be doing now. Including myself. It was a rather thrilling sensation to realise where my work has its roots and got me thinking about why I do it. I think someday, at some point of my life, I'm gonna go hide from design and images and media for some time. And when I get out from there, just try to start fresh. I don't know a better way to try creating something somewhat original. It's quite impossible with all the design fluff that we're exposed to everyday. Anyway, I'm just saying that I'm starting to catch up on the incredible world of design, and it's not one minute too early.

my cold days are over.

I tell you, the weather here is crazy. Today the sun decided to come out and it must have been around 15 degrees or so. One week ago it was a snowstorm, now it's all of a sudden spring. Yey, that's something else than grey all-weathers-fits-all in England. So I took the train down to Time Square, took some pictures, recorded some people and walked around pretty much all day. The place seemed strange and new to me, smaller than I remembered, perhaps a little more tired and less glittery. I passed by some strangers who spoke Swedish. I just catched a sentence, but it made my heart go boom. That's really silly. Felt like I wanted to run up to them just to say hi, like I did to that older couple I met last time I was here, who were going to see Mama Mia. They probably thought I was nuts, so I walked on this time. It's strange how I take for granted that Swedish people are the rarest kinds of people in the world, as if we are so few and never go outside the borders of Europe.
When I got back around 5.30 the Germans went home to Germany. Also, a secret, hidden girl from Japan had also left, from the secret, hidden room at the far end of 1st floor. Her room is a big room with a big bed, two big windows, a desk and a heater. The Korean girl encouraged me to ask for it, so I did. And it was all cool, so after dinner she helped me to move my stuff into this new room. It's a real sweet room actually. I like it a lot.
And so tomorrow I'll meet up with Mark. We're gonna head down to Coney Island, and he has brought my coat - yey! So now nothing can keep me cold; no lack of warm clothing, stormy weather or frozen room.

chillin'.

Yep. This is me after a week's work, chillin' with some Korean candy from Chinatown. Sweet! Tomorrow I'll probably be hanging out with the Germans in Central Park or go to some museums. I'm very interested in the Museum of Natural History in particular. I hope they have dinosaurs.

snapshots, dunkin and mr maher.

My adventures in the big apple continues, and I keep waking up every morning with the feeling of being extremely lucky. It's true what my dad commented in the previous entry, that I shouldn't feel bad about the students' ass-kicking a couple of nights ago. I know I can be just as good, or better than them. I just happened to attend a very crappy university in the shithole of northen England, that made me lose all kind of motivation and ambition. Now, however, it's back alright. Every morning on the subway I have to find something to do. Something to read, something to write or draw for the sake of my creativity. I'm not one of those persons who spend my two communiting hours per day, by sleeping it away. I have to do something. So lately I've started taking secret snapshots of people sitting opposite me, with my plastic Diana camera. Sometimes I'm afraid someone will stand up and say "hey, are you takin' my picture, bitch!" and then put a gun to my face, but so far nobody has seemed to notice. I just act cute and pretend I have a new toy in my lap, looking at all the settings and then - "oops! Did I click off a picture?" After all, who would want to put a gun to someone who looks like a 16-year old. That's what my homestay "mum" guessed last night. For Christ's sake - I know! I think I will start to lie about my age from now on, because nobody believe me anyway.
Whatever, the days at Paul's studio are great. I learn so much. And with the number of projects we have now, I can't afford to be lazy. I don't think I've been this motivated in years. I really enjoy being here in New York, even though it's cold. The routine of stopping by Dunkin Donuts before work, coming into the studio with a take-away coffee (the coffee from the homestay is really more like hot, brown milk than anything else) makes me feel I'm a tiny bit cool after all.
A lot of people might say it's a bit corny and morally wrong, but I love USA. Not because I think it's perfect and ideal in any way. But perhaps because I know it's not. It's politically messed up and Jesus-camp-insane, people-kill-eachother-everyday - dangerous and all. But I happen to like inperfect things. I think it was the "Design Dialogues" book, where someone said that every generation has to find something to fight against. Perfect societies are therefore quite boring, in my opinion. No wonder I don't live in Sweden anymore. Bill Maher is a comedian who is heavily into dissing Republicans and religious freaks over here. I first saw him in his movie Religilous, which I think everyone should see. It's hilarious. But apparently he has his own tv-show as well, and it's quite the thing here. He makes fun of conservatives and religion in a very intelligent way. I totally dig him.

"let's talk in 20 years then".

Today was yet another cold day. It has reached the point to where I have a constant shiver and stingy feeling of icy blood through my veins, which makes me freeze even when I shouldn't. I had completely forgot about these kinds of agonies. Last time I had them must have been in high school, when I bought sneakers for the winter and refused to admit it was a bad decision, because they looked cool. But instead I had to wear 5 layers of socks inside them. Today I wore 5 layers of shirts underneath my light jacket. But enough about the nagging...
The internship is going well. Paul gave me another assignment for a book cover today. This one is a bit more psycological and has not been released before, as appose to Who Would Have Thought It? which was first released in the late 1800's. This one is called A Good Talk and investigates the science and social joy of conversations. Having read a few chapters, I'd say it's pretty interesting and funny. There are certainly depths in both projects that I'm doing now, which I'm really happy about. I wouldn't like doing something that doesn't have intelligent content.
On my lunch break I ran into (or, actually, more or less stopped by) a guy who wanted to sit down and have a talk with me about how fucked up this country is. When I was obviously busy, he turned and said "Ok, let's talk in 20 years then, if I'm still around and alive". I wonder if the fucked-up-ness referred to the Republican Party, gang violence or some sort of conspiracy theory.
And today I got lost in the subway for the first time. Spent about 2 hours trying to get home, going to Queens, waiting for eternities in Harlem and then stepping out at a different exit, which made it harder for me to locate the way to the house. When I got back, my host family watched tv and the dad, David told me about when he was an extra in some movie with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. The weird thing about this home, or no, not exactly weird, but unusual and unfamiliar, is that it works like a hostel where people come and go, but at the same time you are really part of the family. The host mum Elizabeth is always checking in on us when someone's in the kitchen, just to chat. It's very nice actually. I haven't felt lonely for one second.

the snowstorm and evening of awe.

This is where I'm staying!

As I got dressed this morning I pulled on some tights underneath my jeans, thinking it might become too hot and sweaty later on. But as soon as I stepped outside it seemed as though the cold attached itself to my legs, like sharks to a bleading animal. It stung like nothing I've felt in years. By living in England one is spared from these kinds of sufferings. The couple of hundred meters to the subway was horrible, and when I got off on 14th Street it got even worse. There was, as previously forcasted, one foot of snow. It was a fucking snow storm! And today I was an earlybird. Waking up an hour earlier than I thought, and arriving one hour earlier than Paul. So there I was, paralised and frozen, hiding at Dunkin Donuts nextdoor.
Coming into Paul's studio was all cool though. I thought I'd be nervous about it, but I honestly wasn't. Not one bit. He gave me a project right away; to redesign a book cover for a book called Who Would Have Thought It? which is a satire about hispanish heritage in the US. So fucking ironic...
In the afternoon Paul asked if I wanted to tag along to meet his students, and that sounded way cool of course. We went to his wife's design company's studio called Number Seventeen (they have done the title sequence for Dharma & Greg for instance). There were six students there, all showing their ongoing projects. Sort of like their final major projects I assume. And damn... I suddenly feel so full of shit, like I don't deserve to even be here. These guys were awesome! They had such amazing ideas, fun concepts, was so motivated and ambitious... man, that was both very inspirational and ass-kicking. I totally suck. One girl, for instance had started this website where you can send items you wish to get ridd of in your life. Something that reminds you about something painful in your past. She has actually started up this service where she goes and destroys your item, kill it, and then you reseave a certificate saying your item is dead. I totally dig her mothods of killing them. They ranged from drowning the item, to shoot it with a gun, to feed it to aligators. I sort of arranged with her to kill Chocolate for me. She suggested burning, because it would be the most painful. But I personally like the aligators, haha.

stina, the bad-packer.

I arrived at Newark international airport last night. The first impression was a little bit freaked out. Had to wait for an hour for my host family to come pick me up, and while I was waiting I was shocked by the fact that there were so many hespanish people around me. Locos, mamasitas, papasitos and white trash latinos speaking rapidly in the ugliest language ever invented. I have probably never felt so racist ever. Or maybe I had just not slept at all since Friday morning...
Anyway, eventually I was picked up and driven to the house. The hosts seemed very nice, very talkative and caring. The room is small and cold but quite nice, I don't think I will spend too much time there anyway, there's a nice kitchen and a nice tv-hang out room, where I think I'll spend more time. There are 6 more guests staying here. Three girls and one guy from Germany, one girl from Korea and one from France. Today I woke up at 8, local time, had American pancakes and coffee, which my host-dad had prepared. He also told me and the Germans about his time in Poerto Rico, where he tried to be a coffee farmer. He told us how the whole process of coffee making happens. Then I was, all of a sudden, part of the Germans' travelling plan around the city, so I tagged along.
It was snowing as we stepped outside. I thought about my warm winter jacket, my steady Nike shoes, my knitted scarf and thumb gloves, which all didn't make it past our front door at Belah Crescent. I am by far the worst packer in the world. Needless to say I frooze my butt off, and couldn't think of too much else.
The Germans and I went to Chinatown first, which is actually a whole town, not just a street. We went shopping around in cheap stores, looking at bullshit for some murderous freezing hours. Then we had an expensive vegetarian dinner. After that we made our way to Soho and 6th Avenue to take a stalker picture of Paul Sahres office. The best part of the day was when we went for coffee and an amazing brownie at the same street. Awesomeness in a nutshell.
After that we went to Rockerfeller Center and made an unecessary detour up the Top of the Rock to take some bad photos and freeze some more. I met a couple from York and discussed the 911 conspiracy theory for a while. They thought I was American. I've discovered that the American accent is very easy to immitate, perhaps the New York accent in particular. It's super easy to understand because they speak so goddamn clear. Some people speak so clear it makes them seem retarded. I hope I don't come across as retarded.
We came back to the house in Bronx around 9.30. By then it was snowing hard and so cold I just wanted to scream. Inside, there was dinner prepared for us and it tasted awesome. Now I'm gonna crawl under 4 layers of blankets and hopefully wake up to a warmer tomorrow.