Belleville

La Cagnotte

L’Antenne

Paris Nordest

Paris, rue d’Aubervilliers

Downtown skyline

The day before I leave New York, the first day of spring. People take over the streets and the bridges.

Airports for Music

After yesterday’s sparkling promise of spring, my departure day is grey and very silent. Taking the A train to the Far Rockaways, you completely avoid the city and don’t see more than a few dozens of people on your way. I can’t stop wondering: what are these people doing here in this morning, resisting Manhattan’s gravity? JFK’s Terminal 7 is empty, only a few other passengers are waiting for the Washington shuttle. As if the city’s whole population stayed in bed today. I grab a bagel (!) at the restaurant section and sit down to eat. The cream cheese is in a separated package: it’s for me to prepare my food.
It’s high time to pull out the laptop from the bag and go on writing the applications I started early in the morning: deadline in a few days. I play the track I usually listen while writing: Brian Eno’s ‘Music for Airports’. It strikes me to realize that this is the first time ever I listen to this piece in an airport. But this is not the airport that this music is meant to fill. The otherwise dematerializing effect of the slow piano play doesn’t keep the same power in this run-down, badly lit waiting room of Terminal 7.
From my hidden seat between the long rows of benches, I can hardly see the sky: it changes its color into white so it’s no longer possible to distinguish between the service buildings and the clouds.