In Brooklyn, there is a large support system for independent film. Marco Ursino started the Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF) 16 years ago, and has owned and operated indieScreen in Williamsburg with his wife, Susan Mackell, since 2009. He remembers the first BFF’s slogan: ‘An Invitation to Cross the Bridge.’ “Now it’s the most normal thing,” he said. “Williamsburg has been the flag of progress. All that is alternative comes from here.”

Considering Gotham’s controversial history, no wonder the citizens possess a distinctive edge. The vibrant culture of the city induces feedback from every visitor -- even if the opinions are based on half-baked stereotypes. But having a New York story is what every visitor seeks; because in New York, like nowhere else, the exposure is the attraction. The soul of the city is felt on the sidewalks and subways, on the front stoop and back alleys. You just can’t paint it on the walls. 

Once a month, on Sunday at 11:30 a.m., art enthusiasts meet at Dixon Place on the Lower East Side in New York for an event called “Secret City.” Led by Chris Wells, the participants enjoy each other’s company, look for support, and worship art. The Secret City is very popular among its followers and has been growing ever since its establishment in 2007. The event takes place in a theater and lasts an hour and a half. Under Wells’ direction, it features a band, singers, a mingling exercise, storytelling, and a discussion about the work of a monthly-changing artist who has been invited to speak. The audience can talk directly with the artist and hear more about his or her creative process. 

The storm hurled wind and rain on the city’s residents, causing flooding in low-lying areas. The rising waters flooded the subway system and crept into homeowners’ basements, where it disrupted the power supply. It also brought out of the shadows the predicament of so-called “basement people” – renters (some undocumented)  living in illegal dwellings, who are especially vulnerable in times of disaster.

Welcome to Jackson Heights. Population: more than180,000 and counting. Sitting in the northern part of Queens, this mini-city claims a total of over 60 percent foreign-born residents [U.S. Census Bureau 2010] that nourish its economy; it is a cluster of Asian- and Latino-owned restaurants, bakeries, specialty shops and beauty salons. Now despite sharing congressional jurisdiction with contiguous neighborhoods, Jackson Heights maintains a distinct identity with clear boundaries. 

To travel, to really lose oneself in a new setting, is, after all, to subvert. In that C-130 full of refugees, I was moving not only across the ocean but also from one set of psyche to another. Yesterday my inheritance was simple -- the sacred rice fields and rivers, what once owned me, defining who I was. Today, Paris and Hanoi and New York are no longer fantasies but a matter of scheduling. My imagination, once bound by a singular sense of geography, expanded its reference points across the border toward a cosmopolitan possibility.

James Cohan Gallery in New York City is currently presenting “Jesper Just: This Nameless Spectacle,” which opened on September 6th and is running through October 27th. The exhibition will be the New York-based Danish artist’s first at James Cohan Gallery and the first solo exhibition in New York since his survey show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2008. Well known for employing high production value cinematography to create film works that subvert the usual stereotypes that have come to be associated with Hollywood’s mainstream film industry, Just has been selected to represent Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 2013. 

Arditi wants to infuse the future of visual art with the power of its primitive past. “I want to be as close as possible to what art started as, but with a modern twist,” he said when I visited his studio this month. He pulls pigments from natural sources like flowers, rocks, dirt, soil, clay, crystals — anything earth-produced that has a distinct color. He dyes a thick lacquer with the pigment, and then uses the solution to paint. “I want my art to be simple and accessible. I want art for the masses because that’s where art began. It has since turned into pretense and facade. The earth was the original canvas.”

Lorin Stein, the current editor of the Paris Review, has been described by literary agent Ira Silverberg in a New York Times profile piece as “the best thing to happen to The Paris Review since George Plimpton.” That rather bold statement is not the least undeserved. The magazine has undergone some highly lauded renovations since Stein assumed the helm, among which are the redesign of the magazine itself and, more notably, the overhaul of the Review website, which now includes free online access to the celebrated Paris Review interview archives. 

Eugene Durante is a contributing writer at Highbrow Magazine. He is a Police Officer and former Welfare Fraud Investigator. Born in Brooklyn, Durante is a fourth-generation resident of Coney Island. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice. He is an avid poker player and frequently writes about topics related to New York.