Time. Travel.

Knicks in five

Knicks in five, it’s like a secret password being spread across the streets of New York.  What it refers to is the winners of a basketball league. Winners of a playoff series that has gripped a certain segment of US society.

It’s 7am in the UK. Sunday morning. It’s already been light for a couple of hours here as we approach giddily towards the summer solstice. But in New York it’s 2am. Night time. The street’s spilling over with celebrating home fans.

Knicks in five

There’s lights and noise. Modified chaos. Somewhere a bus is set on fire. Police and first responders arrive shortly afterwards. A blur of sirens. Streets are blocked off. Crowd control. People peer through the window of an all night pizza parlour. But there’s no longer access to the entrance.

Scenes like these, a barely narrated rolling news, used to be the province of disasters. Terrorist attacks or fatal storms. Channels like CNN broadcasting 24/7. Filling up hour after hour with background footage. But in the modern age, with platforms like Twitch, these things are common place. IRL streamers (in real life) endlessly documenting every day events.

It’s comforting to watch from a distance. To time travel back to 2am on the other side of the planet. All the noise and colour, the vibrancy – like an enhanced form of ASMR. Letting it float through the flat where I’m here, living in a different world.

June. Summer in England is tennis and cricket, sedate sports, all grass and hushed voices. America has the NBA and the world cup. It’s chalk and cheese.

When it’s time to depart outside I can just close the lid on my laptop and New York disappears as though someone has simply reached out and switched it off. 

 


 

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