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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching ...
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the place where all roads begin


We never go to Red Square. It is an expat cultural parallel to being a real New Yorker. You never actually go to the Statue of Liberty if you are a local. We had planned to exit the metro and detour the crowds and tourists but somehow we got turned around. Instead we weave through the throngs of wandering souls, and end up exactly where we did not want to go. Surrendering to the moment, we squint into the bright afternoon and take everything in. The great open space is crammed with white tents. No musicians are playing. It is all talk, all men seated with microphones perched in their hands as voices blare from speakers. Handfuls of people are sitting in random seats, in rapt attention. I cannot imagine a worse way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

There is no shortage of these talks, these loudspeakers. You will find them in shopping centers too. Anyplace that could be calm and serene is a blank canvas, where typically men's voices speak fast and loud, cramming words into sentences, as the subwoofers throb and all you want to do is escape their epic monologue. Maybe they are selling cameras, or luggage. Maybe they are talking about policy, and morality. It all becomes one thing, one blurt of noise and breath.

We make our way out, passing the zero kilometer mark on the ground, the place where all roads begin.
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