Culture Shock and Happy Returns

These are the only pictures I took during several days in New York City, just minutes after I got off a Chinatown bus.

I was hoping to multimedia document some of the casino credit meltdown, but the inspiration never came. Public manifestations were not glaringly obvious. On the day after television talking heads did their usual spread of panic, a woman sitting next to me on the subway, skipped the article about the Dow's biggest ever point fall, preferring to pore over details of Britney Spears' latest boyfriend.

Off to Ivory Coast and the dangerous surf of Assinie and turf in Abidjan to recharge my solar batteries, "on dit quoi" abilities and barricade/wave maneuvers. Hope I don't drown in a sorrow of return, because I am very curious of what happens next. I felt the energy in Harlem.