Everyday life of an ordinary oblivious American

I spent the entire afternoon wandering midtown Manhattan with my client's digital camera taking short videos of "everyday life for an ordinary American consumer" -- people getting in cabs, getting on buses, buying lunch, queuing up at Starbucks, buying unreasonably priced seperates at Banana Republic. It was a bit annoying but I found out something rather surprising about my fellow New Yorkers. You know how people are supposedly paranoid about terrorist plots? Not so -- I filmed office buildings, public transportation, the freaking giant and highly bombable 42nd Street Library -- you know, the one with the big lions. No one even blinked - not even when I was filming them. And I did film lots of people -- I followed people down the street to Pret A Manger. I filmed some guy sitting on the library steps reading a newspaper. I was right next to this other guy leaning against the plate glass window of Starbucks and I filmed him for like 15 seconds.

If someone started filming me I might shove their camera up their nose. But that's just me. I get annoyed when I see newscasters reporting "man on the street" segments -- they're always in the way while I'm trying to get to work.

Maybe these people didn't notice I was filming them? Maybe they are the most oblivious people on the face of the planet? Maybe they are so wrapped up in their little worlds that they don't care why some strange girl might be filming them? It just scares me that these are the same people who are expected to alert the authorities if they see a suspicious package left on the subway -- 'cuz they might not notice it to report it.

Says the girl who just last week walked into a closed subway door because she didn't look up from her book in time to notice that, although the train had stopped, the doors hadn't opened yet. Yeah, that was me.