Nocturne...
Life in New York City is another world unto it's own. This giant metropolis is a unique entity, separate from the rest of the galaxy. Nowhere else on earth is life as it is here... not in the suburbs, rural areas, or even smaller cities and towns. Where else can you walk by throngs of people in one day, who you will never see again in your life? Where else can you live in a building for years and not even know or see your neighbors ? It is often said that one can feel like an isolated hermit in the midst of hundreds, standing alone on the streets of this town. New York City is where this all happens and it either takes you in and embraces you with a little place of your own, or it chews you up and spits you out. Everyday in the city is like a Hollywood film set with a cast of thousands and each individual can play several roles in the film of our lives. Even after they are long dead and gone, their ghosts and spirits can haunt us forever.
"Character Actors"...
They play the supporting, often non-supporting and sometimes unwanted roles in our lives.
"Acting Out", they best portray every possible type of film noir character ever played on the big silver screen...
Hard-boiled anti-heroes and femme fatales, innocent villains and guilty victims, kindred spirits and evil spirits, secret lovers and indiscreet cheaters, con-artists and free lance artists, bar-flies and butterflies, addicts and junkies, back-patters and backstabbers and a thousand other different kinds of "entrepreneurs" as well as various other types of flotsam and jetsam that wash up daily on the shores, piers and in the sewers of this great island. Even sadder, they can often portray the abandoned, misplaced, lost and forlorn souls of the sidewalks, gutters and alleys. They are the victims and the outcasts that we shun. They are the used and the forgotten that we deny. Some magic, some tragic but they can always be seen "acting out" on the asphalt and cement stages of this monstrous city. Their Spirits and Ghosts linger on in the city in the shadows and the echoes and in our nightmares and dreams.
Then there are those that are still here on this earth but are really not among the living. They wander aimlessly from shadow to shadow in a black and white film of no today, no tomorrow, just forever in yesterday and the nostomanic past that they remain in.
It is only now several years later after not living in the city anymore, that I see all of these characters in my memories again. I see all of the actors that played a role in the "movie" of my anonymous life in New York again in my flashbacks and dreams. It only takes a memento, a song or a vision to bring them back.
Perhaps the one unifying theme to all of these sad, beautiful and often outrageous tales, would be the ultimate unanswered disappearances of each "actor" never to be seen or heard from again, amidst conflicting rumours and outlandish tales.
These are the true stories of those character actors, acting out ...
All Stories, Photographs and Illustrations by Fritz Von Ludwigslust.
Copyright © 2014 by Fritz Von Ludwigslust All Rights Reserved
Great concept. I really love these otherwise untold tales of the city. Wonderful writing.
ReplyDeleteThe photo above is stunning, absolutely haunting. I just finished reading your whole ghost blog, and I love it. So atmospheric, like your picture above. Original way of writing. Youve captured the very essence of the manhattan that I lived in during the early 1980's. I'd love to see this as a published novel.
ReplyDeleteIt seems your whole life is a story of inspiration. You don't really realize it, but it is.
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